skyking162

Here’s the one aspect of the Joe Torre situation that hasn’t been addressed well enough: If the Yankees felt that Torre was ineffective in leading the Yankees deep in the post-season, why do they think Don Mattingly will be any better? Both have similar personalities — quiet and respectful, more of a leader than a loud motivator. No, Joe Torre was not a great strategic manager (embarassingly, no current manager is) but I doubt Donnie Baseball’s suddenly going to outperform him in that area, either.

Given the players going into 2007, what should Torre have done differently? Is it his fault Mussina, Jeter, Abreu, Damon, and Jeter underperformed this year? If so, why doesn’t he get credit for Posada’s and ARod’s historic seasons? Is it his fault that the bullpen was bare until Joba was called up? Is it his fault there were zero decent first base options? I’m not sure who gets credit for calling up the young pitchers who helped save the season (Joba, Kennedy, Hughes), but Torre deserves some credit for being willing to rely on the young guys down the stretch — Melky, too.

We really have no idea what effect Joe Torre had on the players in the locker room, but from past praise by management and players, he’s probably a good leader. So what did he do differently this season? Was he simply a victim of playoff unluckiness (and playoff luckiness from 1996 to 2000?) Are the Yankees really going to head in a new direction and Don Mattingly is a better manager to lead the ship? I’m confused — not sarcastically confused, but truly confused. What does Don Mattingly provide that Joe Torre didn’t?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 10:10 am and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.