Yankees and Torre

I believe I've written before here about I was completely behind Torre, and that firing him was the worst move the Yankees could ever make.


But now, there's enough blame to go around. Now, this becomes a commentary on what's wrong with sports.

I am disgusted with the new trend in sports; a player (or now manager) gets a huge contract... performs poorly... then gets a reduced offer the next time $ comes up... and takes it as a slight and gets horribly disgruntled and goes elsewhere, commonly for even or less money.

Can someone explain that to me?
I keep seeing people call it an insult to offer Torre a paycut!
Likewise that it would be incentive-based.


But at this point, I have to side with management to some degree. Torre really didn't fulfill expectations. I am all about the amazing comeback he made this year... it was awesome! But in all honesty, the Yankees have high expectations and rightfully should. With the amount of money they pay their team, they want to win.

I admit, maybe the expectations might still be a little rough... considering it all really comes down to sets of 5 and then 7 games. 2-3 is a workable record for any 5 games in the regular season. It can't be the theme, or a team will only win 65 games... but teams lose series in the regular season. 3-4 is even moreso a fair record to have in any 7 regular season games. But both records are death in the playoffs. Note how this is even an argument against a BCS playoff... the body of work of a long season means more than a few small games. A team could go 152-10 and still lose a playoff series easily. Basically, you lose one home game (if you have advantage... the Yankees didn't), you may well be done. It's amazing how small of things a season of work come down to. Timing is EVERYTHING. Ask the Cardinals last year. If the playoffs were in September, they fail miserably! So there's a lot of luck and stringent timing requirements on whether you'll be a playoff king or dud.

But anyways, the point is the Yankees did really let down the past 4 years. Especially when you start things with the huge embarrassment of the ALCS meltdown vs Boston. That was one of the most exciting and enjoyable things I've ever watched... but it had to be a huge tough to wake up after that one if you were a Yankees fan. That was after coming out as duds against Florida and Anaheim in series the two years prior, and one of the great game 7s vs Arizona the year before that. When you look at their trend, its definitely downward. 2001 - Lose game 7 of the WS. 2002 - Lose 1st round in 4 to Anaheim (eventual champs, all in somewhat close games). 2003 - Lose WS in 6. 2004 - Lose ALCS in 7 after having it nailed down. 2005 - Lose 3-2 in first round. 2006/07 - Lose 3-1 in first round. They've definitely fallen off when it comes to playoff competitiveness... and haven't been a real threat since the falling apart versus Boston.
And so, how is it so unfair to offer a paycut? Especially when you add in incentives that could make the contract basically as lucrative as previous years?


I heard the argument that managers can really only have a negative impact on teams. But with a team like the Yankees, I don't think any passable manager could do awful with the Yankees. When it comes down to it in sports, your job is to perform, to win. To say he shouldn't have been expected to do any better... well, it's got a bit of validity because of what how we run playoffs... but honestly, his performance hasn't been up to what the Yankees expected. Steinbrenner may be tough to please, but I can't fault him for being entirely unreasonable given what he puts into the team.

The point is, teams and players won't take pay cuts anymore even when they deserve them, and that disgusts me. There's no loyalty anymore, it seems.

Now I can't stop without pointing out that the situation and way it happened do not bring the Yankee organization out looking great either. The ultimatum during the playoff series probably was detrimental more than anything. And the way they let him hang looks bad too.
But now we can see the Yankees were working on things. They had to come to internal agreement... then they had to try to work things out with Torre. We're still in the playoffs, it's not like they left it forever. I agree, maybe they could've shown a little more support while trying to work the contract internally.

But the suggestion players would have taken Torre as a weak manager had he accepted a paycut... seems ludicrous. How would they have treated the organization had the Yankees renigged on their position entirely and just thrown money at him? There is already this air about the Yankees that the team is the finish line. A lot of the players in NY have traded loyalty and the energy given by being a fan favorite on a normal club to get more money... and maybe also add to their playoff hopes. This is like retirement! If there is no requirement to perform, what are they doing? I applaud the introduction of performance requirements in the contract. Maybe it's a sign the Yankees finally aren't the evil, obscene empire they once were. They too want success. And maybe they finally aren't willing to buy it outright, but their players have to earn their cash.


Perhaps what killed the Yankees organization is the meager level of vesting. Honestly, to force Torre to make the World Series to come back for another year still seems like the biggest insult. Because they still seem to be saying they aren't supporting him. That was their mistake a couple weeks back, and it was still their mistake. A trip to the playoffs should basically be enough to guarantee another year. Perhaps it was just that the basis was a 1 year offer. I see nothing wrong with offering Torre 2 or 3 years base, and then the chance to earn more. Perhaps the one year deal (plus the high level of success Torre needed to have to earn the extra money) is what killed the deal. As it is, the Yankees come out pretty big losers. Will be interesting to see how the future goes!