Ray Mileur
January 28, 2004
Walt Jocketty - The Bottom Line
By Ray Mileur
Walt Jocketty was named the Cardinals' Vice President/General Manager on October 14, 1994. In November 2000 he was promoted to his current position of Senior Vice President, signing a four year contract extension that ended at the end of the 2004 season. Currently Walt is working without a contract and is free naturally to listen to and accept offers from other teams.
Jocketty is in his 30th season in professional baseball and is currently the second longest tenured National League general manager, but you wouldn't know it by the Cardinals recent contract offer that makes Walt one of the lowest paid GMs in baseball.
Jocketty for those who seem to have forgotten, mainly Bill Dewitt, Chairman of the Board & Mark Lamping, President of the St. Louis Cardinals, was instrumental in orchestrating deals that helped the Cardinals to three consecutive postseason appearances from 2000 to 2002 and in clinching the 2004 National League Championship and a return to the World Series for the first time since.
Walt has closed deals that include getting All Star third baseman Scott Rolen in 2002 and then signing him to an eight year contract, and just last spring he completed a seven year contract with Albert Pujols which will keep him in St. Louis for the foreseeable future and during perhaps his most productive years as a ballplayer.
Prior to last season Jocketty acquired several players to fill out the Cardinals 40 man roster, including outfielder Reggie Sanders and Jeff Suppan both moves that we had strongly promoted and supported. In addition he traded JD Drew to the Braves for Jason Marquis, Ray King and Adam Wainwright. Drew already has left Atlanta and signed with the Dodgers while the Cardinals still have all three of the players from the deal.
In spring training he added second baseman Tony Womack and in August much to my surprise he acquired via trade three time NL batting champion, seven time Gold Glove winner and five time All Star, Larry Walker from the Colorado Rockies. When I thought Jocketty was working a deal for right handed reliever Steve Reed, Jocketty makes a deal for Walker. That's typical Walt Jocketty, exceeding expectations.
In 2000, Jocketty was named Executive of the Year by Baseball America and the Sporting News after his key trades helped the Cardinals to their second National League Central Division Championship. In a busy off-season prior to the 2000 season, Jocketty became the first general manager ever in baseball history to trade for a 20 game winner and a 40 - homer man in the same off-season with deals for Darryl Kile and Jim Edmonds. He also bolstered the lineup by trading for Fernando Vina, a Rawlings Gold Glove winner in 2001 and 2002, and signing free agent catcher Mike Matheny, who went own to win Gold Gloves in 2000 and 2003. Jocketty's trading deadline deals for Will Clark, Mike Timlin and Jason Christiansen were keys to the team;s success down the stretch and into the 2000 post season. He also negotiated at the time long term deals for Edgar Renteria, Jim Edmonds and Fernando Vina to help insure the long-term success of the team.
To bolster the team in 2001, Jocketty traded for pitchers Dustin Hermanson and Steve Kline in December and added Woody Williams in August.
Jocketty was instrumental in bringing Manager Tony LaRussa to St. Louis as well as nearly a dozen new faces to the Cardinals' roster before the 1996 season. Those changes help the Cardinals return to the post season that year after an eight year drought from the post season. In July of 1997 he engineered a deal that brought slugger Mark McGwire to St. Louis and then made the deal that kept McGwire here until he retired.
Jocketty has helped build the Cardinals future through the June amateur draft, helping to land young stars like Albert Pujols, JD Drew (traded to bring in Jason Marquis, Ray King & Adam Wainwright), Matt Morris and Rick Ankiel. He continued to build the team's reserve of young talent by signing picks Dan Haren (traded to bring in Mark Mulder), Blake Hawksworth, Shawn Boyd, Chris Narveson, Nick Stocks and Daric Barton (traded to bring in Mark Mulder).
This winter Jocketty signed shortstop, David Eckstein, second baseman, Mark Grudzielanek - traded for staff Ace Mark Mulder. Got deals done to keep Matt Morris, Cal Eldred, Ray King and John Mabry in Cardinal uniforms for the 2005 season.
Also back for next season is the Cardinals 2004 staff ace Chris Carpenter, another Walt Jocketty success story.
It's been an amazing run of unparallel success by Walt Jocketty and the fact that the Cardinals contract offer of a three-year, $2.1 million extension — paying him $650,000, $700,000 and $750,000 — is well below market price considering Jocketty's tenure and his contributions to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Jocketty, 54, not only would remain one of the lowest-paid GMs in baseball, but he would be paid nearly one-third of what GMs John Hart of Texas and David Dombrowski of Detroit get. They earn $2 million a year, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today's Sport Weekly.
This is unacceptable and the Cardinals need to step up to the plate and take care of the best general manager in baseball and that's the bottom line. As one Cardinal insider said yesterday to me, "Losing Walt Jocketty would be the biggest public relations disaster in 70 years."
