Torre

It's almost hard to believe how little the Yankees and Steinbrenner in particular know about baseball.

In general I believe that the impact a manager has on a baseball team is very overrated and that most managers loose games for their teams with incorrect situational strategy and pitcher usage.

Torre is one of the few managers who has a tangible benefit to the team, to the organization, to the city both on and off the field. Maybe he over uses his bullpen, but the majority of the blame has to go to Cashman and the Baseball Ops people for allocating $200 million in payroll and only finding 2 reliable relievers. The ravenous fan base he has, his ability to work with the toughest media better than absolutely anybody, his ability to manage 25 different egos on a team composed with nothing but stars - the reasons for Torre's greatness stretch well beyond his record.

I'm a die hard Yankee hater, but I respect the hell out of Joe Torre...apparently much more than the Yankees do. For Steinbrenner and family to offer the most accomplished man in the game to take a 30% pay cut, give him no long term job security, to publicly announce while the ALDS was still on going that he would be fired if the team didn't win, and to have the gall to offer him incentive clauses in his contract -- pitchers coming off arm problems get incentive laden contracts, people who have to PROVE something get incentives. Torre has nothing left to prove to anyone -- either shows that the Yankees are completely ignorant about the difficulty in winning an championship or they were threatened by Torre's iconic stature in NYC. Either way it's atrocious.

Personally I feel it's the latter, that Steinbrenner & Sons are just incompetent. Remember the 80's and early 90's George? Steinbrenner seems beholden to the good old day when winning was preordained, when Paul O'Neills and Scott Brosius...Brosii?...roamed the earth.

Playoff baseball is different than regular season baseball, but the best teams don't always win in either. The Yankees weren't the best team in baseball this year, not even the best in their division.

But that's not Joe Torre's fault. I can't believe that I just got another reason to hate the Yankees.