The Cardinals Way (10 page)

“When we first did the retrospective study, I could see the improvement to realize with the proposed methodology and felt compelled to convince anyone I could that we needed to take advantage of this.” Mejdal recalled. “I remember we presented that to the owner, La Russa, and [then–pitching coach Dave] Duncan, and [team president] Billy DeWitt [III] was there, too. I remember the look on Billy's face very well. I didn't know if there would be skepticism or even a dismissal of the idea, but instead I saw a look of excitement. He and his father both appreciated that the inefficiency was there, and I remember feeling a great relief. It was just a question of how much of it could we grab and how long would the inefficiency remain.”

Also, how quickly the team could implement a system to capture that inefficiency without the support of some key stakeholders, such as the general manager. Jocketty, who'd led the Cardinals to significant success that continued as Jeff was brought in, had a hard time fathoming that he'd be more than an advisory hire.

“Initially, I was told, in fact by Jeff himself, that he was there to observe and [find] ways that we might do things better, and how we might make better decisions, however the process was,” Jocketty said. “And it was something that was more an informational piece as much as anything. But then, through the years, when he was brought in full-time, he got more involved with scouting, then player development, it became obvious that it was a change in direction, in philosophy, that they were eventually going to go to.”

Luhnow lacked the credentials that would have made him palatable to many in the organization already. Several people I talked to, including Jocketty, believed that Luhnow's receiving a senior title right away created additional friction as well, though Mejdal believes, with good reason, that Luhnow's ideas would not likely have been heard at all without that title and his direct line to DeWitt.

Every single person I interviewed told me that Luhnow's ideas would have been a huge problem regardless of who advocated for them. Luhnow worked hard to implement these ideas slowly enough to avoid more significant conflict, often to the frustration of his analytics team. But if he'd slowed them any further, he would have been operating at a suboptimal level for the man who hired him.

“I felt like the mandate from Bill was ‘Let's make sure that we put together a system to provide information to the decision makers, especially on the baseball side, so let's make sure that we're not flying blind when it comes to all of the GM stuff,' all of the sabermetrics, if you want to call it that,” Luhnow said. “Information that front offices are clearly starting to use to make better decisions. Let's make sure that we're up to speed. And Bill's instinct was that we we're not up to speed. And he was correct. And so there was not a lot of information that looked at—at performance in a different way than just looking at the scout sheets.”

While the organization was not monolithic in resenting Luhnow, it must have felt that way to him, particularly early on.

“I thought it was good that we were starting to take a more analytic view of the game,” longtime Cardinals front office executive John Vuch told me in a December 2014 e-mail. “But for a long time, I was the closest thing we had to an analytics department—at one point my title was something like Manager of Baseball Information. So I was all for us ramping up the statistical side of things, as I thought we underutilized the stats in our decision-making process.”

Luhnow concurs, crediting Vuch for doing what he could within the system. But Luhnow added, “There was nobody—it wasn't like I was encroaching on anybody's territory because there was nobody really to do any of these things.”

Yet, at least the implied threat was obvious to Jocketty, according to John Mozeliak, who was hired by Jocketty in 1995. Jocketty had succeeded in his role. But his method for doing so was not dramatically different from that of the Cardinals GMs who'd preceded him.

“My first thoughts were—one was, I was scared. Because I could tell Walt wasn't happy,” Mozeliak said in an October 2014 interview. “So I didn't know what all of this meant, or how this would affect us. But there was a part of me that also saw it as a wonderful opportunity. I was curious. I understood how the old model worked. I got it. I could do that. But I also saw that the world was changing.”

Or as Jocketty put it, “I think my feelings then and now are much different. I still have a lot of respect and admiration for that organization, for the people there, and the utmost respect for Bill DeWitt, and what he's done for that franchise through the years. But at the time, I didn't understand. Because I thought we had been very successful with what we had been doing. But Bill had the vision to see that things were changing rapidly.”

To a certain extent, I'm not going to call them all social outcasts, but they're not exactly people you'd find at a bar, you know, late at night.

—J
EFF
L
UHNOW

If the entrenched forces that made up much of the Cardinals front office rejected Luhnow himself, you can imagine the response to the advisory board Luhnow immediately put together to begin analysis of any inefficiencies in the team's operations.

“I read a lot,” Luhnow remembers of this time. “I researched a lot and I found people that resonated with me that I thought were smart and could help, and I started asking them for advice. If you were the baseball team, what capabilities would you want to build with? Things you'd focus on, et cetera, et cetera. Also really enjoyed reading because I was into fantasy, [innovative fantasy-baseball writer] Ron Shandler's stuff about how to predict the future from stuff from the past. And so I got Ron Shandler involved and I actually created this advisory board. When you're in the start-up world, you create an advisory board of people that are in your sector just to get credibility, and you use them for advice as well. You don't pay them anything. We had a great advisory board at Archetype of, like, [high profile businessman] Arthur Rock … so people with clout and knowledge.

“And so I figured, let me get in this little area of baseball information, advanced baseball information. Let me pull together a little group of experts and let them feel involved in what we're doing, but more importantly get access to their brains and figure out what we can do.”

Luhnow didn't start bringing this group to meetings or anything—as he put it, “Walt wouldn't have known Mitchel Lichtman from Tom Tango from Ron Shandler from any of these guys.… So it didn't matter who I presented. It was going to be weird and different and odd no matter what. Now, these are some odd characters. You know, none of them played. The analytical crew is a unique breed of people.… To a certain extent, I'm not going to call them all social outcasts but they're not exactly people you'd find at a bar, you know, late at night.”

But while Luhnow gathered information about how he'd recommend changing the team's process long term, “At the same time, I was getting myself as up to speed as possible on how I could help the baseball decisions that fall,” Luhnow said. “And there were a lot. There was trading J. D. Drew and what we were going to get back from that. There was signing free agents like [Jeff] Suppan and [Reggie] Sanders and—how can we make sure that if we're going to go out and sign a free-agent pitcher that we get the right guy? Obviously we had scouting reports from pro scouts on all that, but I felt like my responsibilities were to make sure that we didn't make a mistake, by really understanding their performance history. And so Suppan was probably one of the first signings that I felt like I influenced.

“But I do remember, in particular, it was Suppan, I was really intrigued by the consistency of his win-share production year over year. And the fact that he was kind of money in the bank to earn between ten and thirteen win shares every year regardless of environment or—and to me, on what I thought was a play-off-contending, championship-contending team, that would translate into ten to fifteen wins. Which when you add it to Matt Morris—it just seemed like a number three starter that would stabilize the rotation, and that's what I argued. I remember arguing that to Walt and Bill, and I think I successfully moved Suppan to guys to consider. Because he wasn't the sexiest guy in the world.… He was just, kind of, Mr. Consistency.”

But while Luhnow participated in meetings through normal channels on Suppan, a pitcher the Cardinals ultimately signed, his direct link to DeWitt manifested itself that winter as well, in another key move the Cardinals made.

“The other one was the Drew trade, because I was kind of involved on the sidelines on that almost,” Luhnow said. “Bill was asking me, ‘What's your opinion on things?' Separate to—not in front of Walt. It was almost like a double check.

“So I do remember the first [Drew] trade proposal, looking back on Drew was [exciting] in my opinion—because Drew was a spectacular producer. Now, injury-prone and all of that, but I had this feeling like we're giving up a lot. And Atlanta, we knew Atlanta was interested, but they really needed him. And so I remember telling Bill that I didn't think we were getting enough back from that original proposal. So the deal didn't happen. Whether or not Bill killed the deal or Walt also agreed, I don't know, but that was my opinion. And at the winter meetings, I remember Bill calling me and saying, ‘What do you think we need to do to get in addition to'—'cause we were getting Ray King and Marquis—‘in addition to those to guys?' I said, ‘Well, to be honest, well, I think we need a legitimate prospect on top of those two guys to make this deal fair.'

“And so I went and researched a lot of prospects stuff. I read as much as I could. I read our own reports, but I read all the prospect reports … going onto blogs. Everything. And I really felt like [Adam] Wainwright was the guy. 'Cause he had fallen off a little bit. He'd been their number one prospect. Still is in the top five but had fallen off. Had a bad year. And I remember, that's the guy I recommended to Walt.” Other members of the front office, including special assistant Bob Gebhard and DeWitt, pushed for Wainwright as well.

Wainwright, ultimately, came to St. Louis in that deal. Four top-three Cy Young Award finishes later, he's been one of the most important pitchers in Cardinals history.

But there's a lot more to unpack here than just the addition of a signature starting pitcher. As Luhnow put it, “I felt like, wow, this is unbelievable. A guy like me who was selling jeans six months ago—three months ago—is not only participating in this but potentially even having an impact in the major league trades. That's crazy. This is fantasy come alive. This is every fantasy GM's dream.”

As for Jocketty, if he hadn't realized before that the hiring of Jeff had fundamentally altered the front-office power structure, he certainly did now, with Luhnow weighing in on Walt's major moves. And the effect on the Cardinals was nothing less than seismic.

Mozeliak, the assistant general manager, quickly took a position as essentially a moderate figure within the front office, a role he'd occupy for almost five years.

Ultimately, though he considered walking away once the factions grew so bitter, some advice he received helped him navigate how he thought about all the changes. He understood the necessity of altering the way the Cardinals evaluated talent—as he put it, “I always felt like the old world was just too subjective. Almost too random in the sense of, there has to be a way to make smarter decisions.”

But that didn't make it any easier to see longtime friends angry and afraid, and his mentor Jocketty undermined.

“So Mark Lamping was our president at the time,” Mozeliak recalled. “He and I were driving down to Springfield to discuss the Double-A franchise, and so obviously it's a three-and-a-half-hour drive. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. And I've always looked at Mark as someone that I could get trusted advice from if I needed it. So we're driving down and I'm venting to him about where we are from a baseball side of things—and bear in mind, we had just gone to the World Series in '04, won 105 games.

“So it was—within that time period between '04 and '05 and that off-season, but, I was, like, what is this? This is tough, man. People just don't get along. It's, if you're seen going to lunch with Jeff, you're an enemy. It was just a really awkward period.

“And so the best advice I ever got, though, was from Mark. And he said, ‘Mo. In the end, you work for Bill and that's where your loyalty has to go. And try not to worry about picking sides internally here. Just do your job, and if you do that, everything will be fine.' So, I mean, I actually thought at one point of just leaving here. It was getting so tense and it was very stressful.”

But though DeWitt understood the inherent risks in this overhaul, he didn't plan to back away from the Luhnow revolution over some hurt feelings.

“Well, I told the other people that this was not threatening to anybody,” DeWitt told me. “It was some independent work and it was a way for us to develop tools to help make the best decisions. And that's the way it was positioned.

“He certainly wasn't universally accepted. That's been pretty well documented. Anytime you make a change in an organization that's different from the direction that it's been headed—and especially one that had a lot of success—I mean, you're going to get pushback. I did get pushback, but I wasn't going to change because I knew in the end that it was something that had to be done.”

So, with a 2004 draft to prepare for, and an international scouting department to build up from almost nothing, Luhnow received more than just the title DeWitt had decades before in Cincinnati.

“I told Jeff, ‘Look, I'm going to give you resources. Whatever you need,'” DeWitt said. “So he hired some smart guys, and also from the outside. And they went about their business in doing that.”