The NY Daily News’ blog has a sensible post advocating that Torre keep his job:
Torre is still the perfect man for this team. He has guided them to the playoffs for 12 straight years. No other manager has gotten his team there in each of the past two. He has kept them together through the bad times, including this year’s 21-29 start and the 11-19 start in 2005. Both times, the Yankees reached October.
Did they get anywhere in the playoffs? No. But as every player, coach, manager or GM will tell you, these series are crap shoots. Last year, Chien-Ming Wang was the team’s best playoff pitcher. This year, he was a disaster in both of his starts. A-Rod has been a train wreck in the past three postseasons (this one included … his .266 average is fine, but he was 0-for-5 with four strikeouts with men on base. Not good).
A manager is there to get his team through the grind of a 162-game schedule and get them in a position to have a shot in October. Torre has done that every year. …
Bobby Cox has taken the Braves to the postseason 14 times since 1991, yet they have one World Series title to show for it. Do the Braves fans want him gone? No, because they realize how hard it is to get there year after year.
Does Torre have flaws? Absolutely. Any half-sentient Yankee fan can go chapter-and-verse on his use of the bullpen (one suspects that the Joba Rules had as much to do with Flash Gordon and a litany of other burnt-out relievers as they did with Kerry Wood and other burnt-out young aces). But at the same time the blow-hards who say that the Yankees have accomplished “nothing” under Torre in the last seven years are wildly off-base.
You can make an argument that Torre’s time has passed, but as I’ve argued elsewhere you shouldn’t base it on a playoff series, and especially not this one. (To wit: Double-play Derek Jeter had more to do with the Yankees’ losses than did Torre.)
October 9th, 2007
I can’t imagine the logic for letting Torre go. 12 post seasons including 4 world series wins?
I’d got to imagine that the Red Sox would be happiest team in baseball to watch the Yanks have to rebuild under a new manager…
It will be interesting if Steinbrenner could find a way to keep him while saving face.
October 9th, 2007
It’s easy: Steinbrenner announces that the outpouring of support for Torre by fans and players has touched his heart and that Joe will be back in 2008.
October 9th, 2007
What heart?
October 9th, 2007
(and yes, I do know about his generous charity giving, but thats separate of baseball)
October 9th, 2007
Torre will simply be a scapegoat.
Don’t get me wrong, the Yankees not winning a WS in 7 years while maintaining a fantasy lineup and $200M+ payroll is a travesty. The fault for those losses, however, falls only partly on the manager. In my humble opinion, the fault lies as follows IN ORDER:
#1 George Steinbrener – The fact is that his free-spending short-sighted demands (examples are limitless but include Clemens, Mondesi, Wright, Pavano, the Unit, Giambi, etc) over the objections of Torre, Cashman, and Gene Michael put the Yankees in the position they are right now with payroll inflexibility, injury and depth concerns, and a lack of team cohesion and desire. Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, and Paul O’Neil all wanted to win more than anything. A-Rod and Gary Sheffield may want to win, but being respected, and therefore paid, is even more important. Observers of the Yankee clubhouse, and even Johnny Damon himself, describe a cold and corporate atmosphere where everybody comes to the park, does their work, and go their seperate ways.
2. Brian Cashman – For the exact reasons above coupled with the fact that he simply didn’t have the backbone of previous Yankee GMs like Michael (until last year) to stand up to King George and demand better, not older and more expensive, players. Every GM in baseball, and most non-delusional Yankee fans, know that pitching, defense, and timely hitting in bunches wins in October, and yet year after year, Cashman puts together a roster with 9 rally-killing slugers and a collection of aging and injury-prone pitchers.
3. CM Wang – Wang is supposed to be the “ace” of the Yankee staff. What kind of an “ace” has a 19 ERA and gets outpitched at home by Paul Byrd? Wang simply did not delliver, but the truth is, he isn’t really an ace. On most championship teams, including the Yankee teams of the 90s, he would be a 2nd or maybe 3rd starter.
4. Roger Clemens – As predicted on this blog, the Clemens signing was probably the worst personnel move since the Herschel Walker trade. The old man, who never won a big game even in his prime, brought next to nothing in an elimination game at home. He was hurt, I get it, but that is what happens to 45 year-old pitchers from the National League who haven’t picthed an entire season in years.
5. A-Rod – I don’t care that he had 4 hits including a meaningless HR at the end of game 4. The guy is the biggst fraud in baseball. I’m going on record right now. I DO NOT WANT THE RED SOX TO SIGN HIM. If they do, I will root for the uniform, but I will never like him and I will never want him to stay on the team. He is a LOSER. L-O-S-E-R. How many times did he strike out with RISP? How many meaningful hits has he had in the playoffs in his entire career? Mr. April strikes again.
6. Joe Torre – Torre is not without blame. He got outmanaged again this week, although he was working at a disadvantage since Eric Wedge had the better team. Starting CM Wang on short rest, when he was awful in Game 1 was a mistake that I CAN’T BELIEVE more people did not anticipate. Look at the history of October baseball and you will see dozens of recent examples of pitchers who excelled in a game coming back on short rest to stink it up. What do you expect when the guy stinks in his first game? Torre made other mistakes. As a result of the Earl Weaver roster he has been given every year, he has abandoned his small-ball roots that helped his teams win in the 90s.
All this being said, Torre will be let got and several Yankee stars may/will follow him to potentially include A-Rod, Posada, Rivera, Clemens, Pettite, and Abreu.
As a Sox fan, it will be REALLY entertaining to watch . . .
October 10th, 2007
I’m not a Yankees fan, but I’ll defend them against being an “Earl Weaver roster” and having Torre abandon “his small-ball roots.”
Their OBP was the highest in MLB. They were 4th in MLB for walks taken. For the season, this Yankees team lead all eight playoff teams in these categories: OBP (.366), SLG (.463), At Bats, Runs, and Hits. Just because they were 2nd in HRs didn’t mean the didn’t manage the offense well.
Now, your pitching argument I completely buy. Overall ERA of 4.49. 6th worst in MLB in walks granted. Inability to get strike outs (K/9 was 19th in MLB) added up to “free” base runners and balls in play advancing them. We saw that throughout the ALDS.