Once upon a time, a headstrong Cardinal manager grew tired of one of his star players not toeing the company line, occasionally taking hitting advice from his father and generally not playing baseball in the time-honored style that the manager demanded. The relationship had been rocky since the beginning, but with the team struggling to maintain its competitiveness, a particular weakness in its pitching staff became a convenient pretext for the manager to finally ship his star far, far away, for pennies on the dollar. No, this isn’t the tragic tale of the recently departed Colby Rasmus but of Keith Hernandez.

On June 15, 1983, when Herzog banished Hernandez to New York, the Cardinals were in first place — as they were when they traded Rasmus — with a one-game lead over the Expos. It was a seemingly needless trade, but Herzog and the Cardinals thought they needed pitching, and so they sold low on their Gold-Glove captain, struggling with a batting average (the metric of choice in those unenlightened days and still today for many — to wit: see the number of commentators citing Rasmus’s) in the .270s, for a relief pitcher with potential to start and a near-rookie pitcher. Sound familiar?

Ever since taking the helm of the Cardinals, Herzog had tried to trade Hernandez, who was — despite being captain (or was it a reason for it?) — his own man. Like Rasmus (and, it should be said, many other ballplayers over the years), he took hitting advice from his father, who knew his swing — as well as his head — intimately. Hernandez did things his own way — not the old-school way that Herzog required — resting his mind by doing crossword puzzles in the dugout while others took fielding practice. That display of independence, like Rasmus’s, finally was his ticket out of town for a manager too stubborn to brook any dissenters from his manifesto. Unlike many deals of veteran stars, who are accorded the courtesy of a trade to a contending team (see Carlos Beltran), Herzog’s trade of Hernandez was to the opposite end of the spectrum: The Mets, the Siberia of baseball. Today’s Siberia would have to include Toronto, a favorite gulag for victims of La Russa’s despotism (see Scott Rolen). Hernandez, of course, would have the last laugh as he helped resurrect the Mets to a championship and two division titles.

To be sure, the situation with Hernandez wasn’t totally analogous to that with Rasmus. In Hernandez, the Cardinals had an established veteran — 1979 MVP and captain of their 1982 World Championship club –  whereas Rasmus has yet to cross the chasm of stardom. And with Hernandez, a primary motivator for the trade was payroll consideration, which, if anything, is the direct opposite in the case of the cost-controlled Rasmus. But in trading Hernandez, the team opened up a five-WAR hole in the middle of its lineup at a position that it struggled to consistently fill for several years afterward. The lure of young hopeful David Green simply didn’t pan out and the team had to pay through the nose anyway to acquire Jack Clark. Jon Jay figures to be the team’s everyday centerfielder, but are 616 plate appearances enough to warrant so much trust?

The Hernandez trade was understandably ill received by fans, so the Cardinals did their best to win the public relations battle, which mainly focused on vilifying Hernandez as a drug user (which excuse, as Hernandez himself noted was disingenuous given that other players, including ace pitcher Joaquin Andujar, also used). In Rasmus’s case, the team — read: La Russa — struck preemptively to win or at least divide public sentiment. As a result, the Cardinals may have the edge among fans at this point. But after the season is long gone — and remember, those 1983 Cardinals eventually sank to fourth place and a losing record — and Rasmus in Toronto outperforms Jon Jay, don’t be surprised if TLR and company (including fans and media?) continue to smear Rasmus. May Rasmus make like Hernandez and enjoy glorious years ahead — with whomever he thinks can help him hit. As for the Cardinals and La Russa, they’ll find out at the end of this season the price of managerial intransigence. For the 1983 team, it was a fourth-place finish.

This entry was posted by Pip on Thursday, July 28th, 2011 at 10:54 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.