Loboexpat
07-23-2008, 01:33 PM
It's been a turn for the worse in Torre's first year
by Ian O'Connor
The State Farm ad, a cute one, leads you to believe Joe Torre has officially retired in his job as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He drinks wheat grass between innings, writes screenplays between pitching changes, and spends off days riding his surfboard from one welcoming wave to the next.
Extra BP? A few more pregame hours in the video room surveying a wayward pitcher's arm slot?
Who needs any of that when you're living a life of green fields, blue skies, and late-arriving crowds, and when you're working a comfortable 3,000 miles away from the angry House of Steinbrenner?
One hundred games into his fifth big-league term, Torre has settled into the Dodger way like an old man settles into his favorite spot on a park bench. He says he is happy the stories about his baseball team are confined to the sports page. Whenever the cartoon character known as Alex Rodriguez is linked to the blonde of the month, Torre gets to be a disengaged observer rather than the interrogated boss charged to clean his third baseman's mess.
Only this portrait of Joe Cool, cruising on Sunset Boulevard, ignores one undeniable truth: Torre needs to win his division this year, if only because there isn't a single valid reason he shouldn't.
Sure, the Dodgers have had a ton of injuries, closing in on 600 man games' worth. But Torre's been around the sport long enough to understand two things about injuries:
1.) Everybody's got 'em.
2.) Nobody wants to hear about 'em.
The Dodgers should take the National League West, wretched as it is, and Torre will have some explaining to do if they don't. Start with the reason he was hired on the rebound after his bitter divorce from the Yanks.
Grady Little wasn't just an 82-80 manager last year; he was an 82-80 manager done in by the clubhouse division between players old and young, and by the sudden availability of Torre, a candidate who'd won four World Series titles and earned a dozen consecutive trips to the postseason before the Steinbrenners and team president Randy Levine ran him out with an offer designed to be refused.
It was unbecoming of Torre to negotiate with the Dodgers while Little still held the job, but hey, that's how big-boy business is done. Frank McCourt, Dodgers owner, had every right to want someone who could do better than 82-80. His common sense told him that someone was Joe Torre.
As it turns out, 82-80 might just win this year's West. But even as the Dodgers swear their clubhouse has become a more harmonious place, Torre's still on track to finish south of .500.
Little was 56-44 at this point in '07. You don't need an advanced degree in math to know that a divided 56-44 team beats a united 49-51 team eight days a week.
"We're going to make everybody proud of the product we put on the field," Torre said on arrival in Los Angeles.
His Dodgers haven't inspired much in the way of pride, at least not yet. Fans in the market looking for a team worthy of their time, attention and disposable income would have to turn to Mike Scioscia's Angels, the club that forever haunted Torre in the Bronx. The Angels are 12 games better than the Dodgers in a tougher division of a tougher league.
Now turn to the page in your scorebook that covers team payrolls. At $118 million, the Dodgers are spending $52 million more on wages than the Diamondbacks, and $50 million more on wages than the Rockies. No, it isn't quite the absurd advantage over the competition that Torre enjoyed with the Yankees, who took a Bob Beamon leap over the $200 million barrier. But still, McCourt has laid out enough cash (not to mention the $13 million he paid Torre) to expect better than what his manager has delivered.
For the foreseeable future, Torre won't be fleeing the kind of lava that came pouring out of Mount Steinbrenner once the parades stopped and the procession of Division Series flameouts started. Ned Colletti, general manager, is the easiest of targets; he'll be gone long before anyone has a second thought about Torre.
McCourt is under fire for reportedly killing a deal for CC Sabathia that would've added $7.5 million to the payroll, a charge the owner denies. And when the owner and GM aren't absorbing major hits, Andruw Jones, who somehow managed to strike out five times in one game, rightfully assumes the role of helpless punching bag.
Torre is also protected by the disabled list and his players' fabulous talent for landing on it. Rafael Furcal, Brad Penny, Nomar Garciaparra, Takashi Saito, Juan Pierre, and on and on and on. The pitching staff has covered for the human frailty, allowing the Dodgers to stay in the race.
If you can call this a race.
The Dodgers are due to win it, long overdue in fact. They haven't won a playoff series, never mind a championship, since Kirk Gibson did his thing against Dennis Eckersley in 1988. They've played 13 postseason games since that magical run, and lost 12 of them.
Torre embraced this challenge after the Yankees all but told him they no longer required his services. On his return to New York, a road trip to Shea at the end of May, Torre confirmed that he'd had it with his hometown's intensity and pace.
"I'm glad my time has come and gone as far as the high-wire act all the time," he said. "New York is great for the good times and memorable for the bad times.
"I obviously have a lot of friends here and it was a special time for 12 years. But it was time to move on and I'm glad I made the decision, not for any other reason than I'm more comfortable where I am."
Comfortable? Torre shouldn't get too comfortable.
He's not a ceremonial Dodger in the Tommy Lasorda mold. Joe Torre is the active and accountable leader of a team that has no good reason to lose a division its manager was hired to win.
REACTION, DODGER FANS! BadFuture
by Ian O'Connor
The State Farm ad, a cute one, leads you to believe Joe Torre has officially retired in his job as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He drinks wheat grass between innings, writes screenplays between pitching changes, and spends off days riding his surfboard from one welcoming wave to the next.
Extra BP? A few more pregame hours in the video room surveying a wayward pitcher's arm slot?
Who needs any of that when you're living a life of green fields, blue skies, and late-arriving crowds, and when you're working a comfortable 3,000 miles away from the angry House of Steinbrenner?
One hundred games into his fifth big-league term, Torre has settled into the Dodger way like an old man settles into his favorite spot on a park bench. He says he is happy the stories about his baseball team are confined to the sports page. Whenever the cartoon character known as Alex Rodriguez is linked to the blonde of the month, Torre gets to be a disengaged observer rather than the interrogated boss charged to clean his third baseman's mess.
Only this portrait of Joe Cool, cruising on Sunset Boulevard, ignores one undeniable truth: Torre needs to win his division this year, if only because there isn't a single valid reason he shouldn't.
Sure, the Dodgers have had a ton of injuries, closing in on 600 man games' worth. But Torre's been around the sport long enough to understand two things about injuries:
1.) Everybody's got 'em.
2.) Nobody wants to hear about 'em.
The Dodgers should take the National League West, wretched as it is, and Torre will have some explaining to do if they don't. Start with the reason he was hired on the rebound after his bitter divorce from the Yanks.
Grady Little wasn't just an 82-80 manager last year; he was an 82-80 manager done in by the clubhouse division between players old and young, and by the sudden availability of Torre, a candidate who'd won four World Series titles and earned a dozen consecutive trips to the postseason before the Steinbrenners and team president Randy Levine ran him out with an offer designed to be refused.
It was unbecoming of Torre to negotiate with the Dodgers while Little still held the job, but hey, that's how big-boy business is done. Frank McCourt, Dodgers owner, had every right to want someone who could do better than 82-80. His common sense told him that someone was Joe Torre.
As it turns out, 82-80 might just win this year's West. But even as the Dodgers swear their clubhouse has become a more harmonious place, Torre's still on track to finish south of .500.
Little was 56-44 at this point in '07. You don't need an advanced degree in math to know that a divided 56-44 team beats a united 49-51 team eight days a week.
"We're going to make everybody proud of the product we put on the field," Torre said on arrival in Los Angeles.
His Dodgers haven't inspired much in the way of pride, at least not yet. Fans in the market looking for a team worthy of their time, attention and disposable income would have to turn to Mike Scioscia's Angels, the club that forever haunted Torre in the Bronx. The Angels are 12 games better than the Dodgers in a tougher division of a tougher league.
Now turn to the page in your scorebook that covers team payrolls. At $118 million, the Dodgers are spending $52 million more on wages than the Diamondbacks, and $50 million more on wages than the Rockies. No, it isn't quite the absurd advantage over the competition that Torre enjoyed with the Yankees, who took a Bob Beamon leap over the $200 million barrier. But still, McCourt has laid out enough cash (not to mention the $13 million he paid Torre) to expect better than what his manager has delivered.
For the foreseeable future, Torre won't be fleeing the kind of lava that came pouring out of Mount Steinbrenner once the parades stopped and the procession of Division Series flameouts started. Ned Colletti, general manager, is the easiest of targets; he'll be gone long before anyone has a second thought about Torre.
McCourt is under fire for reportedly killing a deal for CC Sabathia that would've added $7.5 million to the payroll, a charge the owner denies. And when the owner and GM aren't absorbing major hits, Andruw Jones, who somehow managed to strike out five times in one game, rightfully assumes the role of helpless punching bag.
Torre is also protected by the disabled list and his players' fabulous talent for landing on it. Rafael Furcal, Brad Penny, Nomar Garciaparra, Takashi Saito, Juan Pierre, and on and on and on. The pitching staff has covered for the human frailty, allowing the Dodgers to stay in the race.
If you can call this a race.
The Dodgers are due to win it, long overdue in fact. They haven't won a playoff series, never mind a championship, since Kirk Gibson did his thing against Dennis Eckersley in 1988. They've played 13 postseason games since that magical run, and lost 12 of them.
Torre embraced this challenge after the Yankees all but told him they no longer required his services. On his return to New York, a road trip to Shea at the end of May, Torre confirmed that he'd had it with his hometown's intensity and pace.
"I'm glad my time has come and gone as far as the high-wire act all the time," he said. "New York is great for the good times and memorable for the bad times.
"I obviously have a lot of friends here and it was a special time for 12 years. But it was time to move on and I'm glad I made the decision, not for any other reason than I'm more comfortable where I am."
Comfortable? Torre shouldn't get too comfortable.
He's not a ceremonial Dodger in the Tommy Lasorda mold. Joe Torre is the active and accountable leader of a team that has no good reason to lose a division its manager was hired to win.
REACTION, DODGER FANS! BadFuture