Since the New York Yankees won their last World Championship they have spent about $1 billion on salaries and have nothing to show for it. They must clean house and everyone must go. Joe, Brian Cashman, and even George Steinbrenner. The Bat Boys, the bullpen coach, Don Mattingly, and Bob Sheppard. We just have to find someone who has the authority.
The Yankees are a paper juggernaut, a faux dynasty that has been assembled to win in the regular season thanks to the endless stream of money derived from the Yankee’s own television network and endorsement deals. The Yankees win meaningless games, and win these games with the highest payroll in the history of sports simply because they have the money to burn.
Their judgment, however, is suspect.
And come playoff time, this Yankee organization can’t compete with the good teams in the league. Don’t give me history. The Yankees didn’t spend $200 million this year on history and history doesn’t win ball games. Good pitching and timely hitting win games, and the Yanks haven’t come through with either since 2000.
If you’ve ever played the computer game Command and Conquer you’re familiar with a tactic called the “tank rush,” where early in the game you devote all of your resources to building as many tanks as possible so that you can just overwhelm your opponent. Where inexperienced players invariably fall to such a strategy-less tactic, the real players deal with, and overcome this tactic to win the game.
The Yankees have used the “tank rush” philosophy in building their team for far too long. And while this may work during the regular season when they can “tank rush” the Royals, Orioles and Devil Rays for 30 wins a year, once the Yanks face the real competition when the games really count, it’s game over.
On the heels of the Yankees latest choke job we’re hearing stories of George Steinbrenner meeting with the “Yankee Brain Trust” to determine what to do with Joe Torre and other personnel issues.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Michael J. West
I just can't agree. As far as I'm concerned, a manager who gets his team to the postseason should be safe in his job. Said it about Grady Little in '03, and I still believe it now.
2 - sal m
so a manager who has been at the helm for 6 years without winning in the post-season, including the biggest collapse in sports history, should keep his job because his team got to the watered-down post-season?
3 - Donnie Marler
One of the oldest adages of baseball, "good pitching beats good hitting,"
Let's give Tiger pitchers some of the credit for the Yankees collapse. They did a hell of a job!
Jim Leyland? Love the guy, always did. His players would run through a wall for him. This time of year, who knows what that's worth?
4 - John Guilfoil
No team plays just to get to the post season. Grady Little was rightfully fired because he made a tactical mistake. Remember he had the best bullpen in baseball at the time and left in a tired, semi-injured starter. But that's just specifics.
5 - Michael J. West
Grady Little was the scapegoat for the 2003 playoffs. That tired pitcher he kept in was the best pitcher in baseball (and with him, injured shouldn't even be considered because he's ALWAYS injured). And bear in mind that it was AFTER Little finally replaced Martinez that the Yankees finally won the game in '03.
Look, Torre has proven himself far more than competent as a manager. The world's greatest collapse in '04 could easily be seen as a fluke, although there might have been a reasonable case for his firing after the sweep in '05. That was pathetic baseball.
But this year? They finished regular season 97-65, tied for best record, including what the Boston Globe called the Second Boston Massacre, and had their ninth consecutive first-place finish. And as Donnie points out, they were up against a STELLAR Detroit bullpen, and it's hard for me to blame Torre for A-Rod, Sheffield, and Giambi's poor hitting.
6 - sal m
6 years without winning is grounds enough for dismissal...torre's biggest mistake this post-season was forcing sheffield back into the lineup when he clearly wasn't ready...the yanks were fine without sheffield and should have left the lineup alone.
7 - Michael J. West
6 years without winning is grounds enough for dismissal...
That's ridiculous. Five years without a pennant isn't even grounds enough for dismissal. You talk as though the very idea of the World Series is stamped "Property of the New York Yankees" and that it's therefore a crime every time they don't win it.
8 - sal m
6 years without winning a world series is grounds enough for dismissal when your team has spent about a billion dollars on salary.
it isn't a crime everytime the yanks don't win, but they should have something to show for all the money that they've spent. the choke against the red sox? the collapses against the marlins and d-backs?
that's not just losing, that's choking big time.
and since the yanks have been so spectacularly bad despite their payroll and star power, torre's dismissal is certainly warranted.
9 - Matthew T. Sussman
Sal sounds rather anti-Torre. Does this mean he's part of the Labour Party?
10 - Mark Saleski
choke, choke, choke.
bullshit. the yanks lost to the sox in 04 because their pitching stuff was out of gas.
if the yankess bring on lou pinella, no amount of kicking dirt across home plate will improve the pitching staff.
it's always about pitching.
11 - sal m
i actually like torre, it's just that he hasn't gotten the job done...name another team in any sport where a team fails - more than one time - when the manager and/or general manager don't get shown the door?
when you recount the failures of this team what is the defense of torre?
12 - Donnie Marler
but Sal, the Yankees DO have something to show for all the money they spent! They've got the biggest collection of sniping, whining, complaining millionaires going on vacation money can buy!!
Mark is spot on! It's always about pitching. Detroit just proved that in spades.
13 - Michael J. West
So Torre, with nine consecutive first-place seasons, gets fired and they pick up Piniella, who captained Seattle for TEN SEASONS without a pennant and took the Yanks from second to fifth in the 80s? You think that will help?
14 - El Bicho
It was just announced on ESPN that Torre is staying, which must mean some major changes to the line-up. I'm sure Jeter's support helped Torre.
However it certainly would have been understandable if Steinbrenner had let Torre go. The team has plateaued, and it's going to be tough to move those bloated contracts. He does think The World Series belongs to him, so being a competent manager and only winning the AL East are failures in his eyes. The Yankees are not the Braves.
While Torre always gets the highest-salaried team, he doesn't always get the best team. Upper management doesn't seem to understand that, and keeps spending money on names that are just past their prime. More work needs to be done in the farm system.
15 - sal m
and yet besides jeter offering his support, there hasn't been one good reason offered as why the yanks should keep torre.
16 - John
if a team is built to fail in October it will fail in October. Its not the managers fault. Torre would never build a team this way. Torre knows how to win George doesnt.
17 - jeff
hell, i'll still take torre. you can have bruce-effin-boche.
18 - RJ Elliott
Your players get you into the post-season. (And the Yankees buy enough good players to accomplish that objective every season.) But your manager gets you the ring.
And Joe Torre has failed in that department for six straight years. He should be canned. But it appears he won't be.
Wanna bet the streak goes to seven?
19 - Lefty Relief
Anyone who watched the Yankees play throughout the season realizes that the team you saw in the playoffs did not play on the field together until two weeks before the ALDS. That's not the team that got the Yankees to the playoffs.
Before that, due to serious injuries to the most expensive players -- except homegrown Jeter (& A-Rod, aka "E-Rod," sadly) -- Torre managed a rotating series of minor leaguers and utility men, plus and minus trade deadline changes, with 3/5 starting rotation available at any one time.
THAT's the team Torre managed into the playoffs, for the 11th consecutive year.
It's hard for me to call that a failure. Last year, maybe. 2004, the Red Sox played dirty and the Yankees refused to. 2003, hmmm, there were a lot of issues. But I thought this year was one of his finest.
20 - Victor Lana
Hey, Sal, I'm a Mets fan, but I've always liked Torre and think that he was set-up by Steingrubber to take the fall (some forget how Yogi Berra was unceremoniously fired long ago and then became a Mets manager).
The Yankees (organization) have this great tradition crap but then never adhere to it when it comes to relationships with players, coaches, and managers. Does anyone think Willie Randolph would have ever had a chance to replace Joe? Not in Steingrubber's World.
21 - Michael J. West
Your players get you into the post-season....But your manager gets you the ring.
Now wait a minute. The manager gets no credit or blame for the first 162 games, then suddenly it shifts and he gets ALL the credit or blame for the last 15 to 20? That's a little reductive and unfair, ain't it?
22 - Mark Saleski
what, you think reductive thought only happens in political discussions? nah! ;-)
23 - Michael J. West
The ironic thing is that for all the vitriol and mudslinging in the political arguments, you're far more likely to get punched over the sports ones.
24 - matt
Lefty Relief - How did the Sox play dirty in '04?
25 - sal m
my argument isn't "reductive."
there's not another manager/head coach in any sport that could have kept his job after not winning a championship over this period of time and with the highest payroll and the best team in the league.
the pro-torre clan makes it sound like this year was an abberation. but since the yanks lost a heartbreaker to the d-backs in the 2001 world series they have underacheived.
in 2002 - a season in which they won 103 games -they lost to the angels 3-1 in a series where torre made some blunders, most notably putting jeff weaver into a close, pivital game.
in 2003 they lost to an inferior marlins team with a payroll more than 50% LESS than the yanks.
in 2004 they staged the biggest choke in sports history by losing to arch-rival red sox after being up 3-0.
in 2005 the yanks despite a plus-$200 payroll couldn't win a playoff series while the white sox won it all with a payroll that was about a third of the yanks.
the yanks had a lot of injuries this year, but since they also have spent more than twice any team on salaries they have plenty of good back ups. their injuries just leveled the playing field.
this legacy of failure should have cost torre his job.