Cardinals' house is filled with unhappiness

[bigh0rt]

Walt Jocketty. I received an e-mail recently from a Jocketty acquaintance, asking me why Walt seems so miserable. This is a familiar inquiry around Busch Stadium. What’s wrong with Walt? Plenty. Despite rolling in money, ownership kept the payroll at roughly the same level as last year. Ranked sixth in payroll as recently as 2005, the Cardinals are 11th in spending in MLB, according to USA Today. Jocketty is limited. Last offseason, he was unable to do much about the starting-pitching concerns, which have evolved into a full-blown crisis. Jocketty is underpaid compared with other top GMs. And Jocketty has also witnessed the organizational rise of Jeff Luhnow, a hand-picked associate of Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt. And Luhnow’s ascendancy has been at the expense of Jocketty loyalists. Jocketty’s big moves — signing Kip Wells and Adam Kennedy — are busts. Wouldn’t you be grumpy?

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[StlSluggers]

Yet I'd still venture to say that Jocketty, TLR, & Duncan have accomplished more with what they have than many other organizations could have accomplished.