The roster of managers this spring includes 12 managers who did not hold those jobs last spring. None of the new managers is named Bobby Valentine.

Despite his return from a seven-year exile in Japan and a desire to return to the major leagues, Valentine found relatively little interest in his services in the widest-open managerial market in years. The few teams that did consider him and interviewed him obviously opted to hire others, in all instances younger and less experienced managers.

Based on developments, it appears that Valentine’s reputation has finally caught up with him and left him on the outside looking in, currently as the replacement for Joe Morgan on ESPN’s Sunday night baseball cablecasts.

From previous columns, you might have the impression that I am not a Valentine fan. You would be correct, although in his earlier days, when he managed the Texas Rangers, I actually liked him.

But then two things happened.

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The closest I can get Tony La Russa to Bernie Madoff is that La Russa manages the St. Louis Cardinals and Madoff managed a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme. Or perhaps La Russa has a law degree and Madoff has been dealing with assorted people with law degrees.

Yet this week the two men – La Russa in Jupiter, Fla., Madoff in Butner, N. C. – made comments about baseball matters that are undermined by their questionable behavior and comments in other matters.

La Russa, who has always been a fierce defender of his players, felt the need to come to the aid of his premier player, Albert Pujols, in the superstar’s contract negotiations with the Cardinals.

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The standard started dropping in 2009 when Zack Greinke won the American League Cy Young award with 16 wins and Tim Lincecum won the National League award with 15 wins. It fell even lower last year when Felix Hernandez won the A.L. award with 13 victories. Now the standard has hit rock bottom. Ross Ohlendorf has won his salary arbitration case despite having won only one game last season.

One victory equals $2,025,000, the three-member panel of arbitrators ruled last week. The $1.4 million salary Pittsburgh submitted wasn’t enough of a raise from the $439,000 salary Ohlendorf earned last year.

The poor pathetic Pirates didn’t have to wait for the 2011 season to extend their historic 18-year losing streak. The arbitrators have done it for them.

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