During a more-than two-decade career as a major league chief executive, Walt Jocketty rose to be viewed as one of the most successful general managers of the past half century.
Jocketty, who died Saturday at 74 years of age, oversaw front office operations of the Cardinals from 1995 through the 2007 season, then moved to Cincinnati, where he ran the Reds from 2008 through 2015.
Walt Jocketty led both Cardinals and Reds to great success
Over that span, Jocketty’s teams won eight NL Central titles, and his Cardinals won the 2006 World Series.
In St. Louis, Jocketty’s front office was responsible for bringing to prominence some of the franchise’s all-time greats, among them Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright.
Jocketty-built teams topped 90 victories eight times between 1995 and 2015, winning 105 games in 2004 and 100 in 2005. That 105-win Cardinals team went to the World Series, only to lose to Boston’s hex-breaking Red Sox.
Jocketty teams had a .522 career winning percentage.
Still, his tenures were not without controversy, and that was particularly true of his exit from St. Louis. At the end of the 2007 season, when the defending World Series champions finished a disappointing 78-84, Cardinal ownership announced that Jocketty had been terminated, citing differences related to the team’s operation.
Although the nature of those differences was never openly discussed, it was believed that the Cardinals saw Jocketty as too tied to an old-school approach at a time when the broader game was moving quickly toward an emphasis on SABRmetric analytics. In St. Louis, that approach was personified by assistant GM Jeff Luhnow.
The Cardinals replaced Jocketty with current team President John Mozeliak, and Luhnow eventually took his SABRmetric emphasis to Houston, where he ran the front office from 2012 until being fired as an outgrowth of the trash can scandal.
Jocketty was not out of work long. The Reds hired him as a special advisor to GM Wayne Krivsky, and by the following April, Jocketty replaced Krivsky as general manager. In 2010, the Reds went 91-71 and won the division by five games over the Cardinals.
A native of Minneapolis and graduate of the University of Minnesota, Jocketty got his start in baseball as Charlie Finley’s director of minor league operations in Oakland. He later became director of baseball administration, and in 1994 was hired by the Colorado Rockies as assistant general manager of player personnel.
The Cardinals hired him as general manager following the 1994 season, making his first big mark by firing manager Joe Torre during the season and hiring Tony La Russa at season’s end. La Russa would remain in the Cardinal dugout through the 2011 season, compiling a .544 winning percentage while leading both the 2006 and 2011 world champions.
Jocketty knew LaRussa well from his Oakland days, and he also knew first baseman Mark McGwire, who he obtained in a mid-season 1997 trade. With St. Louis in 1998, McGwire broke the single-season home run record, hitting 70.
Pujols emerged from Jocketty’s farm system in 2001, winning Rookie of the Year honors. Molina followed in 2004, as did Wainwright in 2005.
On three different occasions, Jocketty’s work won him recognition as MLB’s Executive of the Year. He won in 2000 and 2004 in St. Louis and again in 2010 for his work in Cincinnati.
When he retired as Reds general manager following the 2015 season — to be succeeded by Dick Williams — he continued as a special advisor until his death.