Cardinals rumors: 3 familiar faces to replace Oli Marmol, 1 to avoid at all cost

Cardinals Rumors: Do not hire Tony La Russa again

Tony La Russa is a Hall-of-Fame manager and a Cardinals legend. However, he’s getting up there in age, and struggles to connect to the modern ballplayer. We saw this play out with the Chicago White Sox, where he clashed with young players like Tim Anderson and Yermin Mercedes, even pushing the latter away from baseball altogether.

La Russa will always have a place among the pantheon of all-time great managers. However, like those who came before him, eventually the game passed him by. La Russa’s untimely demise with the Chicago White Sox was a spectacle to behold, with Jerry Reinsdorf’s right-hand man eventually being unceremoniously let go in favor of a younger manager.

TLR wouldn’t provide the jolt Mozeliak and the Cardinals front office is looking for. If anything, he’d just be more of the same. La Russa struggled to manage the back-end of the White Sox bullpen, and keep track of the everyday duties of being a manager in MLB towards the tail end of his tenure on the south side of Chicago.

It was all the evidence the rest of baseball needed to ensure his days as a manager are over.