I have not been the biggest supporter of Tony LaRussa in St. Louis on a regular basis. I have, however, been known to say “it is hard to argue with results”.

The man has hit his pitcher eighth (giving birth to one of the most must read sites on the ‘net), has converted an outfielder into a second baseman, and plays match-up baseball with his bullpen to a maddening level. He even seems to draw other managers into his mindset on the opposite side of the field, engaging in a chess match that involves numerous arms, double switches, and pinch hitters in single innings.

But he gets the job done.

Today I come to you to point out the seemingly obvious. To bring your attention to a genius at work. To show that, not only is he managing this game, he is establishing a way of managing this game that has never truly been seen. Much like the introduction of left-handed specialist relief pitchers and the closer, sometimes a truly different mind can bring you a fresh look at an age old problem.

Tony has exposed the League Championship Series schedule to his benefit in a whole new way. By carrying 12 pitchers and putting to use the travel days that occur, at most, three games apart, LaRussa has made it apparent that he will use every weapon in his arsenal to handle most any inning that the opposition will threaten.

The typical idea with a pitching staff is to shorten a game to six or seven innings. With two solid relief pitchers and a close-the-door closer, the starting pitcher simply needs to go six innings and turn the ball over to his capable bullpen. A starter that goes seven or eight innings then provides some rest for the bullpen and keeps the arms fresh.

However, given the layout of a league championship series, managers know that they can go to those two or three shutdown arms frequently and thus cut the requirement of the starting pitching down drastically. The schedule for these series goes two games – travel day – three games -travel day – two games, giving rest days to the players in regular fashion.

Enter Tony LaRussa.

A manager that loves to play the match-ups between hitters and pitchers suddenly realized that he did not need to have his starting pitcher go that long into a game for his bullpen to be able to shut down the remainder of the contest. People everywhere are quick to point out that no starter has gone six innings for the Cardinals in the NLCS. Very few are acknowledging that LaRussa may very well be utilizing the strong bullpen to take over early on and is not looking for much more than four innings out of his starters.

Requiring the starter to get into the fifth or sixth inning and realizing that he can play the lefty-lefty match-up or turn to a reliever with strong numbers against a strong hitter in a key situation and know that there is no concern to find someone to keep the game moving to the back-end of the bullpen is a commodity that LaRussa seems to both covet and exploit.

The starters are doing their job. The bullpen is doing their’s as well.

LaRussa seems to be making the right calls at the right times.

It’s hard to argue with results.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball as well as the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com.
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.com.
Follow him on Twitter here.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that simply just by setting goals, we come that much closer to achieving them. As a baseball player, establishing goals is the easy part. The hard part is staying on the same course towards that goal until it is reached, and are able to reap the benefits. There are a lot of distractions, and just as well, there are a lot of reasons to feel discouraged about your chances of achieving your goals that you have in baseball. But ultimately, the fact that the difficulty is high, and so few succeed, may serve you for the best in the end.

Baseball Goals as a Process

Through the process of facing challenges, goal setting is an essential part of taking initiative to achieve your goals. You have to have goals setting otherwise you wouldn’t know what your true goals are, what your deepest desires are, or specifically what you want out of this game. It’s not enough to simply say, “I want to play professional baseball”, or “division one baseball”, or “run a 6.5 sixty”. You have to be willing to write down your specific goals and how you will go about accomplishing them. Notice how I said write, not simply acknowledge them and try to remember them. It needs to be written down and put in a place where you can see or look at it every day.

Why is it important to look at these everyday?

When Hank Aaron was asked, “what was the most important catalyst to his success,” he’s simply said, “visualizing”. We attract into our lives what we think of, the mental pictures that we hold in our heads. So having your written goals put in a place where you can see every day will allow you to see these goals as already happening, as you presently accomplishing them. Imagine what you could accomplish if you wrote down what you desired the most out of this game, looked at it everyday, and imagined what it would feel like for it to have happened, The possibilities are truly endless, your success is truly and solely in your hands.

So you want to run a 6.5 sixty? Then list 10 things that you can do to make them happen. You don’t have to list them at once, but at least a few things. Maybe make a commitment to do plyometrics on your own three times a week for a whole month, or a commitment to stretch twice a day to increase flexibility.

If you have a goal of increasing your bat speed and smoothing out your swing, take the time to participate in simple tee ball drills. If you a player up north and it’s snowing, get indoors and work on your skills with indoor baseball drills.

Now that you know you are taking control of your life, you will be more convinced that what you desire, you can manifest into your life. So with action and the daily reminder of what your intentions are for baseball, improvement is inevitable.