Steve and the Tank! - Don't Fire Joe Torre

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

All signs are leading that the Yankees will fire 12 year manager Joe Torre. Never mind that he has delivered 12 years in a row of post season play, 10 division titles, 6 world series appearances and 4 championships. The last three years the Yankees exited in the first round, and four years ago was the collapse against Boston. Yesterday GM Brian Cashman admitted, "I'm sick of losing." Hinting that this might be the busiest off-season of the last decade, with multiple free agent signing/departures on the horizon.

This is exactly what the problem of the Yankees is. In years past the Yankees were about pitching and small ball. This won them 3 championships in a row and 3 in 5 years. They did this with quality pitching and small ball-nobody on the Yankees hit over 30 home runs in those years. Ever since they signed Jason Giambi and went the route of the long ball, things changed. They started failing in the post season. Good pitching shuts down good hitting and anything can happen in a best of 5 series. You witnessed it the last 3 years in a row.

This is not Joe's fault. He has done the best with the team he has. We are judging him by the team performance in the post season. Sure there has not been a championship in 7 years. But each of those last 7 years Joe has managed well and gotten the team to the playoffs. Thats more than any other team can say, no other team has made the playoffs 12 years in a row. (Actually the Yankees are 13, but we are only looking at Joe.)

Keep Joe Torre at least another year until Don Mattingly is ready.

Posted by Steve in New York.