It is absolutely
disgraceful to check out the ESPN website the day after the critical game 6
in the Cleveland-Boston ALCS only to find more than half of the articles are
about Joe Torre. Just how Yankee-centric is the baseball universe?
Well, consider these facts that the average fan could be forgiven for being
unaware of: Derek Jeter is not the
best shortstop in the league. He is a good hitter, but, defensively,
he is, at best, sixth or seventh.
Roger Clemens has been washed up for about a year now.
Johnny Damon is just about the worst centre-fielder in
baseball today. Torre's not dumb- by the end of the season, Damon was
in left field.
It takes more than
just a few hot months before anyone knows if any other young pitcher is
going to have a great career. It takes a Yankee rookie-- apparently--- about one
inning.
Before everyone gets their
thongs tied in a knot over the departure of Joe Torre from the Yankees, we
all should take a bit of a sober look at his real accomplishments. The
number 1 fact to consider when assessing his skills as a manager is this:
The New York Yankees have had the highest payroll in baseball every year for
the 12 years Torre managed them. In that period of time, Torre won
four world series.
From one point of view,
that might be considered a fair accomplishment. You had the best
players money could buy and you won the championship 33% of the time.
From another point of view, Torre's "success" is unremarkable. A small
lump of coal, given charge of the highest paid team in baseball, might have
done the same.
Given that, Torre was a
decent manager for the Yankees. The role of a player is to
actually do things. The role of the manager is to put the right
players on the field at the right time and let them do their jobs. The
most important skill of a manager is his judgment of a player's performance
and endurance at specific stages of the game and the season. Grady
Little is infamous for leaving Pedro Martinez in too long in game 7 of
the 2003 ALCS. Torre rarely makes a mistake like that, though I
thought he should have given the start in game 4 this year to Mussina..
Nor, however, has Torre
been able to get the Yankees out of the first round of the playoffs for the
past four years. That is partly-- maybe largely-- due to the fact that
he is stuck with a group of aging, over-rated veterans like Damon and Giambi
and Clemens and Sheffield. It may be partly due to the fact that Derek
Jeter is a great hitter but a merely average shortstop, and Alex Rodriguez
can't seem to rise to the occasion in the playoffs.
It also may be partly due
to the fact that Torre is not quite the genius many baseball writers think
he is.
