After 13 years and a World Series championship, the St. Louis Cardinals and General Manager and Senior Vice President Walt Jocketty have parted ways. The team reached the World Series for the first time since 1982 under Jocketty’s direction.
The Cardinals’ team president Mark Lamping announced the decision on Wednesday. Lamping says Jocketty leaves the club with “mutual admiration and appreciation,” calling the former GM a “quality guy.” Lamping said that the departure was a mutual decision.
Fissures began to form in the relationship between Jocketty and the Cardinals administration after chief executive officer Bill DeWitt, Jr. hired Jeff Luhnow to oversee amateur scouting and player development in September of last season. Those fissures deepened after Jocketty publicly discussed his frustration with the decision. Jocketty had previous authority over those divisions of management.
“I think we had a little different philosophy and vision with respect to some baseball issues,” said DeWitt. “There was clear tension [that prevented] the team from achieving goals.”
It is unclear whether Jocketty resigned or was fired. His contract was set to expire in January of next year. DeWitt called the departure “cordial and respectful.”
Assistant General Manager John Mozeliak takes over as interim GM. DeWitt said the search for Jocketty’s replacement will begin “immediately.” Several candidates have already been discussed, but no definite decision has been made.
Jocketty’s departure follows a rocky year for the St. Louis Cardinals. The team went 78-84 after several key players sustained injuries, a problem that plagued manager Tony LaRussa all season. The reigning World Series champions failed to make the Major League Baseball playoffs this season.
It is unclear whether LaRussa will follow Jocketty’s exit. His decision on whether or not to stay in St. Louis should come in the “near future.”
Neither LaRussa nor Jocketty were available for comments on Wednesday. The Cardinals did not return calls from The University News by presstime.
The split did not surprise those most closely associated with the team.
Talk about tension between Jocketty and the team had been floating around the Cardinals’ front office since the beginning of the season. As recently as last week, DeWitt played down the talk of tension as “a natural occurrence within most baseball front offices.”
The parting between Jocketty and the Cardinals, however, came as a shock to the Cardinal Nation. For the last several years, the GM established a major presence among fans. Saint Louis University sophomore Patrick Shannon described the departure as “unbelievable.”
“Why would [the Cardinals] do that?” Shannon said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Sophomore Robert Moehle, co-host of KSLU’s Tuesday night sports talk show, echoed that setiment by calling the move “shocking.”
As GM, Jocketty achieved great things for the Cardinals ballclub. After coming to St. Louis from Colorado in 1994, he fired then-manager Joe Torre and hired LaRussa from Oakland. Over the next 13 years, he would bring Mark McGuire, Edgar Renteria, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen and Larry Walker to Busch Stadium as Cardinals.
He failed, however, to make any major additions to the Cardinals clubhouse during the last two seasons.
Under Jocketty’s direction, the Cardinals won seven division titles, two National League crowns and the 2006 World Series Championship.
The St. Louis Cardinals, once owned by Anheuser-Busch, have won 10 World Series titles (second only to the New York Yankees) and 17 pennants. More than three million fans attended Cardinals’ home games this season.
