Russa said Monday that he has every intention of returning to manage the Cardinals in 2009, pending the wishes of ownership and the team’s front office. Considering he took a team widely predicted to finish below .500 to an 86-76 finish, those wishes would seem to be a foregone conclusion.

“I was at the owners’ last night,” he said on Monday. “There’s always a farewell thing for the staff. It was a social thing, it wasn’t an official thing, but nobody said they didn’t want me. And I’d like to be back. So I’m assuming.”

That doesn’t sound like a man with his foot out the door.

The greater question pertains to pitching coach Dave Duncan, who is not signed for 2009. Duncan has been La Russa’s pitching coach dating all the way back to the 1980s, when they were together on the staff with the Chicago White Sox.

“I think that he has put himself in a position where his value is unquestioned,” La Russa said. “I think the whole industry knows about it, and we have an edge, so I’m hoping that we play the edge and keep him. But you’ve got to recognize the value that he has. I don’t think anybody doesn’t recognize that value, including other clubs and our club. So we’ll see.”

He even sounds like he will stay if Duncan is gone.

Here’s the Cards Sporting News statistics page. Ryan Franklin had 8, and Izzy had 7 to lead the way.

I don’t think LaRussa was the problem for this team not winning 100 games. Izzy completly losing it, Villone not being able to get a lefty handed hitters out (i.e no reliable LH reliever) , McLellan wearing down from to many innings, Franklin not being able to close, Carp not making it back, Wainwright missing 2 months, and ultimately losing Ankiel and Mather in Sept all conspired to hurt this team in 2008.

winning 86 was an impressive year.

Take $18M worth of 2 starters off the Cubs including a cy young winner (i.e Carp, Moulder) for the whole season. Lose another $6.5M in a starting LF (Encarnacion) who may never play again. Be forced to eat $2.4M and cut your best utlilty man (Spezio) due to substance abuse problems. (note – that is $26.8M is dead money). Then have your $8M closer suddenly lose all abillity to get anyone out. Throw in a multitude of everyday baseball injuries and see if they win 100 (which they didn’t anyway).

No, TLR was not the problem in 2008 no matter how much you disagree with his moves or dislike him.

saying that Lopez should play SS and Uggla should play 2B? If that is the case then we better rework the pitching staff toward fly ball pitchers because a boatload of gound balls would get through that infield. My only real issue with the Lohse signing is I think it probably precludes a signicant upgrade at SS. Unless someone else comes in and throws ridiculous money at Lopez, he will probably be our 2B next year. Hopefully, it will be only a one-year deal with a club option. I hope we have learned our lesson on giving recycled 2Bs multi-year deals.

Also, I don’t ever want to see Randy Flores in a Cardinal uniform again. Garcia will miss pretty much all of 2009 and I think it would be a little bit of a surprise if TJohnson comes back. It 2would be a great thing to have a quality lefty in the ’pen, but a bigger payroll team will probably land Fuentes.

this season, but this was not going to be a 100 win team…period. We weren’t that good. I don’t even agree with the notion that we “underachieved.” The pen could’ve pitched better and the offense from the MI was, by and large, horrific. Playing Kennedy and the other infielders in corner OF spots was absurd but they didn’t cost us 14 wins, not by a long shot.