2008 Managerial Candidate: Joe Torre

With Joe Torre entering a lame duck year, there is a great deal of speculation over who will manage the Yankees in 2008. This is the first in a series profiling prospective candidates. It will continue at infrequent intervals until Torre either receives an extension, steps down, or is fired. The first candidate is the current manager, Joe Torre.

The resume: Managed the Mets, Braves, Cardinals, and since 1996, the Yankees. Has led the team to the postseason in each of his eleven seasons in the Bronx. Won four World Series, six American League pennants, and ten American League East Championships.

Strengths: Teams in New York have to deal with an inordinate amount of publicity and pressure. Nobody is better at shielding his team from that pressure and getting them to focus on the task at hand. Torre is a master communicator and demands respect from his players, which is important considering the number of huge egos in the clubhouse. He makes sure that the team keeps an even keel and never panics. He trusts his players and does not follow knee-jerk calls from the fans to shake things up just for the sake of change. While his in-game decision making has not been as good since Don Zimmer left, he does not make more mind-numbingly bad decisions than any other manager does over the course of a 162 game season.

Weaknesses: After eleven seasons, the team might need a new voice. A leader can only communicate in so many different ways until he ends up repeating himself and the team stops responding. Sometimes a fresh voice is needed to end that complacency and provide maximum motivation. Torre also might be burned out. Working under George Steinbrenner with the Yankees for over a decade takes a toll.

Outlook: I’m inclined to believe that this will be Torre’s last season in the Bronx. He already has his ticket to the Hall of Fame punched. He is getting up there in years, and his daughter is growing up. Joe loves managing, and the money is good, but he will be able to stay around the game and spend more time with his family as a broadcaster and a consultant for the Yankees. He will make more than enough money on the lecture circuit.

My take: There still is nobody else I would want managing this team. Torre is the perfect manager for New York and Steinbrenner. Joe deserves to stay for the entire 2007 season. Considering all that he has brought the team and the disarray that would come with a midseason dismissal, firing Joe would be an awful decision. Still, a part of me hopes that he will step aside after the year. He does not have too many years left in him, and there are a number of worthy successors on the market that might not be there down the line. I also want to see him leave on his own terms. A successful man of such dignity deserves to go out like that. Whenever it is that Joe does leave, a lot of his critics who blame him for everything that goes wrong are going to realize just how good they had it under Joe Torre.

Abreu’s Status Won’t Affect Bernie’s

The New York Times reports that Bernie Williams will not be called in by the Yankees now after Bobby Abreu strained his oblique muscle. Williams is sitting at home waiting for the Yanks to ask for his services.

On Monday afternoon, Cashman all but sealed the end of Williams’s career as a Yankee by saying that the club was well stocked with outfielders and would not pursue him now.

“It’s not an option,” Cashman said of Williams’s return. “There is no option. We know Bobby’s coming back. It’s just a question of when.

“This is why this winter, when people came after us for Melky, we didn’t move him. And we always have Kevin Thompson and Kevin Reese, among others.”

The sad fact of the matter is that Bernie had his chance to compete for a job by accepting the team’s invitation. He knew that to make the team, he was going to have to compete for a job. When he turned that competition down, there is a good chance that he effectively ended his career with the team. One cannot win a competition in which he does not take part. Reese and Thompson are both ready to become adequate backups in the Majors. They should not be benched for Bernie when he decided to turn down his chance to beat them out.

Great News for Frank Torre

The Palm Beach Post reports that two of Frank Torre’s children are matches to become donors for a kidney transplant. Joe Torre’s brother needs a new kidney because medication for his publicized 1996 heart transplant has deteriorated his.

First, Elizabeth Torre, 37, and Frank Torre Jr., 30, will undergo more tests in the next week to confirm their transplant eligibility before surgery can be scheduled.

Elizabeth Torre said she expects to donate one of her kidneys because her younger brother and his wife are expecting their first child in April.

“I am absolutely ready to do it. He’s my father,” said Elizabeth, who has two sons, 9 and 11.

“Obviously, it’s a little scary, but I’ve read enough about it to know it has a very high success rate.

“And he has no options, because if he stays on a kidney waiting list, he’ll never get one.”

Here’s hoping the procedure is successful and that Frank and Elizabeth both live happy and healthy lives for years to come.

Mantle and Bush Cheer Jeter

A Derek Jeter baseball card was mistakenly printed showing Mickey Mantle and President George W. Bush cheering the Captain on from the background according to the New York Daily News.

“Somewhere in between the final proofing and its printing, someone at our company – and we won’t name names – thought it would be funny to put in Bush and Mantle,” said Clay Luraschi, a spokesman for Topps.

When the cards were proofread, Luraschi said, “We couldn’t do anything but laugh.

“Okay, it’s in the set and it’s funny,” Luraschi conceded. “It’s caused quite a stir.”

The wide variety of baseball cards I collected as a kid has been in storage for years, but this story reminds me of how I loved cards like this. Error cards are unique and valuable. Those cards stood out from all the others. A lot of kids are going to treasure that card for a long time.

Villone Happy That He’s Back

Peter Abraham of The Journal News has written a great article about Ron Villone and how his love of being a Yankee and his family brought him back to Tampa even though his roster spot was not guaranteed and he could have found more money elsewhere.

“I was talking to several teams, and I had a few offers,” he said. “I just got in my car and drove to Florida.”

Along the way, Villone contemplated whether to take a guaranteed two-year deal with another American League team or try his luck with the Yankees again.

Villone knew the Yankees needed a lefty reliever. Going with only one-batter sidearm specialist Mike Myers would be a risk. A Yankees fan all his life, he also valued the idea of being in pinstripes.

The biggest issue was his family life. Villone’s ex-wife and two children live in River Vale, N.J. Villone lives a few towns over in Upper Saddle River. Being a Yankee means being able to watch 10-year-old Megan play softball or bringing 9-year-old Ronnie into the clubhouse after a game.

When a person makes a decision solely based on money, it often turns out to be a mistake. A lot of players who have failed in New York recently came to the Yankees only for monetary considerations. They hated spotlight and pressure, but they thought that a lot of money would make it worth it. These players ended up being miserable in an atmosphere they hated, and their play was a reflection of that. That is why it is so refreshing to see players like Villone. He might not make the team. Even if he does, he might not be productive. He at least has his priorities straight and loves the challenges that come with playing in New York. That is half the battle when one plays with the Yankees.

A Tale of Two Injuries

Minor injuries occur often in Spring Training. As players exert bodies which had grown used to rest over the long winter, invariably there will be aches and pains. The Yankees have a pair of casualties. Bobby Abreu strained an oblique muscle. He will be out of action for a few weeks, but he should be healthy in plenty of time for Opening Day. Bobby will have ample time to get his timing back and ready for the season by the time he is ready to continue his Spring Training. Odds are that the same will not hold true for Carl Pavano.

The first Pavano injury of a new year has become as much of an indication of spring’s arrival as Punxsutawney Phil not seeing his shadow on February 2. Glass Carl took a line drive off his foot. For most players, this would be a minor occurrence in the mold of Abreu’s strained muscle. However, anybody who has come to know Carl Pavano realizes that this probably will not be the case. This will be used as an excuse for him to sit out as long as possible and eventually lead to another injury, preventing him from ever taking the mound. Pavano surely will talk big about how he will get back on the mound and prove himself, but the reality is that he will use this to continue his $40 million robbery of the team. He might as well have saved the Yankees the trouble back in 2004 and just walked into Yankee Stadium with a gun demanding that money the team gave him.

Crosby and Zim Offer Food for Thought

Bubba Crosby is enjoying life as a Red according to the Cincinnati Post.

Monday’s drama in Tampa was that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter aren’t best friends. In Sarasota, Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn were ganging up on Ryan Freel and busting up the entire clubhouse in laughter.

“That’s something we lacked in New York. It felt like everyone would go their own separate ways. Here guys go out and do things together,” said Crosby, who was signed to a free agent contract in the off-season. “I think that’s a huge part of the game. The Yankees have had $200 million-plus payrolls the last few years. Money doesn’t mean championships all the time. You look at St. Louis, it looks like the guys love each other and hang out.”

Bubba takes things to an extreme with this statement. It does not matter how much the Reds get along. The Yankees are going to be a good team. The Reds are going to be lousy. That has to do with talent. Still, Crosby is correct when he touches on the chemistry intangible. People are naturally more productive when they are with people that they genuinely like. They do not worry about messing up because they know that their friends have their back. They work harder to come through for their friends as well. It is difficult to say how much of an impact this has on success in baseball, but how anybody could argue that these principles taken from all areas of life do not apply to baseball would be baffling. Some teams have been talented enough to overcome a lack of chemistry. Some fed off it when their backs were against the wall. They could not quit on guys they cared about so much. They kept battling. The Yankees have focused on building the team around disparent superstars. Since the team started taking that philosophy, it has not won the World Series. It seems that the tide is at least starting to turn as Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson, constant irritants, are gone. Affable players like Kei Igawa and Bobby Abreu are in their place.

This purge has not been complete, though. There are still some players who seem like they’re on their own island. Alex Rodriguez is of course among the foremost of these. Many have blamed Derek Jeter for A-Rod not being a part of the group, but Don Zimmer acts as a voice of reason on this issue in the New York Daily News.

“What has he done wrong?” Zimmer asked. “If A-Rod hits a home run tomorrow, Jeter will be the guy on the top step, the first guy shaking his hand. What do you want him to do? Put his arm around him and kiss him?”

“They’re making (Jeter) out to be the villain. How in the hell could you ever make Jeter the villain, of all people, in this game?”

Zimmer, now a senior adviser with the Devil Rays, left the Yankees after the 2003 season, just months before A-Rod landed in the Bronx. He noted that the Yankees have had several star players come and go during Jeter’s tenure in pinstripes, using Darryl Strawberry, Cecil Fielder and Chuck Knoblauch as examples, adding that it is A-Rod’s “job to fit in” with the team.

“Here’s a guy, what’s he make, $25 million a year? What is it that Jeter’s done any different with him than anybody else who joined us? How in the hell can Jeter be criticized over A-Rod? I’m trying to figure that out.”

Zimmer truly hit the nail on the head. A-Rod has distanced himself from his teammates due to his attitude. Johnson and Sheffield did the same. However, because Derek and A-Rod have always been linked since they entered the Majors, Jeter is somehow held responsible. Derek Jeter has treated Alex no differently from his other high-profile teammates. Rodriguez did not leave many friends when he left Texas due to his narcissism. The infamous Sports Illustrated article last season outlined the ways in which Rodriguez had put off his teammates. Plenty of players have failed with the Yankees because they have not had the stomach to handle New York or booing. Plenty of guys have made no effort to fit in. Just because it happens to Alex Rodriguez, does not make it Derek Jeter’s fault any more than it was with the other players.

The Yankees can only hope that having Rodriguez’s friend, Doug Mientkiewicz in the clubhouse this season will get him to interact with others a little more and lead him to build stronger bonds.

Vintage Sheffield

Gary Sheffield continues to run his mouth even with a new team writes George King.

The blaze in his belly has carried Gary Sheffield from the streets of Tampa to the doorsteps of Cooperstown. Now, as he moved toward the first base line last October to be introduced with the reserves prior to Game 3 of the ALDS vs. the Tigers at Comerica Park, the pilot light deep in Sheffield’s soul went off the moment he found out he wasn’t in the lineup.

“Joe [Torre] took the fire out of me,” Sheffield told The Post yesterday at ProPeak Fitness, where he spent the winter chiseling his 38-year-old body getting ready for the first season as a Tiger. He was dealt for three young arms. “I am running out on the field with the extra players. Think of what was going through my head. It takes the fight out of you. I have been through a lot. To tell me that I had to run out with the extra players, that took it to another level. I wanted to make sure I didn’t lash out and affect the team, but the way we played it looked like we were affected already.”

That Sheff has some ego. He seems to think that his benching left the team so emotionally devastated that it had no chance against the Tigers. He does realize the team overcame the heartache of his wrist injury to obliterate the American League East, doesn’t he?

Sheffield never understood why he had to hit fifth in his first season. And he remembers the hurt he felt when he heard Torre wanted to sign Vladimir Guerrero instead of him.

“I never expected how bad that hurts, you know your own manager,” Sheffield said of Guerrero being a Yankee. “I read that a lot. Think about it, I just came off a season [in Atlanta] where I hit .330 with 39 homers and 132 RBIs and broke Hank Aaron’s [single-season RBI record] and to come to the Yankees and all of a sudden before I pick up a bat, automatically I am a fifth-place hitter. It’s like you have to take a backseat to these guys because of their track record. What about my track record?”

Since Sheffield hit third during the 2004 season, it is truly baffling to figure out what he is talking about. Still, when Robinson Cano can hit .340 in 2006 and not complain about hitting low in the order, and Melky Cabrera can keep his mouth shut after being benched in the postseason, Sheffield’s whining about hitting fifth shows a lot about his character. It’s always about him. Take ‘I’ and “me” out of Sheffield’s vocabulary, and he might not be able to put together a complete sentence. It’s no wonder the guy has been run out of so many towns despite his vast ability.

Jeter Forced to Respond

In light of Alex Rodriguez’s recent comments to the media on his relationship with Derek Jeter, the Captain was barraged with questions over how he and A-Rod get along yesterday in Tampa.

“On the field and in the clubhouse, our relationship is fine. Away from the field, people want to keep tabs on how many times we go out to eat. That has no bearing on what we’re trying to do on the field.

I don’t have a rift with Alex. We go out there, we work together. This is our fourth year together. It’s annoying to hear about it all the time. Everyone assumes they know what our relationship is. They see us on the field. If one person gives another one a look, it’s a story. If we’re at opposite ends of the bench, people say it’s a story.

Last year when we dropped a pop-up, people said I gave him a dirty look and that we didn’t like each other. We laughed about it in the clubhouse. You guys didn’t see it, but we laughed about it. We support each other on the field and we want to win. That’s the bottom line.”

Sadly, this nonstory is going to keep going. Three years into the A-Rod era, the media still tries to fabricate some rift between a pair of future Hall of Famers to try and generate headlines. It’s a sad commentary on the state of journalism in American society. Here’s hoping that A-Rod avoids dropping any more gasoline onto that fire so that Jeter does not again have to be bothered with this nonsense to such a degree.

A-Rod Falls Hook, Line, and Sinker

The media has baited Alex Rodriguez into admitting that his relationship with Derek Jeter is not as close as it once was.

“People start assuming that things are a lot worse than what they are, which they’re not. But they’re obviously not as great as they used to be. We were like blood brothers. You don’t have to go to dinner with a guy four, five times a week to do what you’re doing. It’s actually much better than all you guys expect, but I just want to let the truth be known.”

It’s tough to tell who deserves more criticism for this. A-Rod should know better than to run his mouth like this. He has to know it is going to cause a media circus and a distraction for himself, the team, and Derek Jeter. Now Jeter is going to get even more of the absurd criticism that he is somehow responsible for A-Rod’s failures and lack of popularity in the Bronx. A-Rod’s comments were not incendiary on their own, but he had to know that the media would portray them that way to create a fake controversy and to generate buzz. For a man with as much media savvy as Alex, he sure is good at sticking his foot into his mouth and causing problems for his teammates. It is completely unfair to Jeter that he will receive heat from jealous bystanders who look only to take potshots at him. These clowns will now feel justified in their entirely off base criticisms thanks to A-Rod.

The media does not get a free pass here either. They have looked to play up this nonstory for years. Rodriguez never indicated any animosity between Jeter and him. All that he said is that they are not best friends anymore. Maybe the infamous Esquire article has something to do with that, but people need to realize how their respective lives have changed since they entered the Majors as best buddies. They have taken different life paths. Alex is married and a father. These responsibilities command a lot of his free time. Derek is still single and active on the social scene. They do not have as much in common as they previously did. As friends’ lives change, they can drift apart. I have very limited contact with a lot of people who used to be my best friends because our lives have taken us in different directions. That does not mean that I harbor ill-will to any of them. It also does not mean that I would not like to see them again. All that it means is that we have both grown and do not share as much in common as we did before. That is all that happened with Alex and Derek, despite how some sensationalist journalists will try to portray this.