THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: What does your gut tell you as far as whether or not Tony La Russa will return with the Cardinals next season?

JOE STRAUSS
There are more reasons to believe TLR will return than not. It’s been 10 days since the Cardinals’ inglorious exit from the postseason. No one needs to tell the manager how much the organization invested into this season. He is soul-searching to examine what went wrong, whether he still commands his players’ attention and, at 65, to determine if he still wants to put himself through the annual 8-month grind. The Cardinals may be prepared to make him the game’s highest-paid skipper, status he briefly enjoyed before the LA Dodgers hired Joe Torre two years ago. TLR says he is not interested in managing elsewhere should he step away. However, there is some intrigue given than Torre and the Atlanta Braves’ Bobby Cox have both indicated next year will be their last in the dugout. The Dodgers job especially may be appealing. That strikes me as a longshot scenario, though.

RICK HUMMEL
Tony is back. One of his biggest concerns is that he is wearing thin with the media, which probably is exaggerated. His popularity with the fans, even though the Cardinals had an abrupt exit from postseason play, rarely has been higher. He is getting along nicely with general manager John Mozeliak and he has the best hitter and the top two starting pitchers in the National League.

DERRICK GOOLD
He’ll be back. The reasons to return far outnumber the niggling little hangups he really has to search to find. If La Russa is going to manage somewhere in 2010, the only somewhere he is ready to consider is the Cardinals. He either just wants to hear how much the team appreciates him and would like him to return, or he’s waiting for the results of Albert Pujols’ surgery to know for sure about the team’s chances to contend …

BRYAN BURWELL
To me, it’s hard to imagine that La Russa would walk away from the Cardinals with Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright at his disposal.