From Bruce Jenkins, via BBTF:
To me, Sheets’ most telling comment Friday concerned his willingness to pitch through the 2008 stretch drive despite knowing that his arm, as they say, was falling off.
Asked if he thought the Brewers would have handled him differently in retrospect, he said, “They couldn’t have handled me differently. I was on the bump (mound) – I wasn’t taking myself out of there. If I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d go out there and be willing to blow my arm out again.”
This is something too few people understand. Every time a pitcher gets hurt – at least in modern times, in the paranoia over pitch counts – it’s the manager’s fault. The pitching coach’s fault. Has to be somebody’s fault. Dusty Baker, as sensitive to a player’s plight as any manager in the game, still hears from horribly unenlightened critics who believe he carelessly blew out arms on the Giants, Cubs and now the Reds.
It’s competition, folks. It’s a strong-willed athlete who would do anything to take the mound. It’s a manager with faith, and the good sense to ride the hot hand. It’s Robb Nen, Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets. The injuries come, or maybe they don’t, but the operative phrase is “Let’s go,” not “Jeez, I’m pretty worried.”
No, No, No, No, a thousand times no. Jenkins suggests that Baker was correct in having Mark Prior and Kerry Wood throw all those pitches in 2003 simply because they were competitors who wanted to so. All pitchers want to pitch and believe that they can get the next guy out. If managers simply said “Let’s go” in every situation, you would have hurlers getting injured with regularity. The organization hires the manager to manage the club’s assets, and part of that job is to know when it would be best for the long term success of the club to pull your best option at the moment from the game. Yet managers frequently ignore that responsibility in order to save their own skins, understanding that they may not be around much longer if they lose games with their best arms on the bench.
A balance needs to be found, where the manager is maximizing the value that he can extract from the pitcher without putting the pitcher at risk for negative long term repercussions. Managers such as Baker have shown an inability to consider the long-term health of the organization by throwing caution to the wind and only considering the immediate consequences of a decision. That is a failure by the manager, as well as a poor job by the organization in allowing the field general to continually put his players at risk. Joe Torre had a problem of that sort in regard to relievers, where he would recklessly “ride the hot hand” until the player got injured or became tired and ineffective. Thankfully, it seems that Joe Girardi has no such problem, and is on the same page with Brian Cashman and the rest of the organization in terms of effectively managing pitchers.
What do you think? Is Jenkins right? Should pitchers just be allowed to pitch?
The MLB has released team schedules today and, after a quick once over, it looks like the Yankees will have quite the 2010 season. While the year will begin and end with play in Boston—let’s hope that we win this year and can rub it in their faces at Fenway—one of the stories that will surely emerge now that the schedule has been released will be about the weekend series against the Dodgers in June (25-27). The series is in LA, therefore, Joe Torre won’t make his return to the Bronx, however, you can bet that it will be billed as an emotional series (and for many, it will be). The Yankees will also face the Astros, Diamondbacks, Phillies and the Mets, of course, in interleague play.
You can see the full schedule here.
With the the Dodgers in town, Joe Torre was asked for his take on the new Yankee Stadium and what he thought of it. He says he hasn’t thought about it, and has no desire to do so. Here’s the story:
When asked before Wednesday night’s game against the Mets if he had any interest in seeing the Yanks’ luxurious new park, the Dodgers manager said, “Nope. None. I’ve heard good things about (the new stadium). That’s about it.”
Catacombs video It’s Alive divx Having grown up in Brooklyn, played Mayor’s Cup games in high school at the old Stadium and won four World Series rings while Yankee manager, Torre said he’d like to remember the place the way it was.
“I left there, and I knew it was gonna be my last time. I would have been very surprised if it wasn’t my last time, so I took everything in,” said Torre, who managed the Yanks from 1996-2007. “I have so many great memories there.”
I’ve always been amazed at Torre’s attitude over his departure. For a guy who always made it clear he knew the ever-present risk of dismissal working for George Steinbrenner in the Bronx, he acts like he was somehow betrayed. One can only assume that he felt entitled to keep the job for as long as he wanted to. But that, of course, is not how things work here in New York. Its also important to remember that it was he who turned the Yankees down, they did offer to bring him back for one more year.
Torre can say he’s not bitter all he wants, he certainly acts like someone who is. Between these comments, his press conference after leaving the Yanks and “The Torre Years”, it’s abundantly clear that he holds a grudge against the Yankee brass that let him go. They certainly would have reason to have hard feelings towards him as well. He painted Hal’s father as a buffoon and a bully and Brian Cashman as a nerd who knows nothing about Baseball in his tome. As long as Cashman is the GM and Hal owns the team, its hard to imagine these two sides coming together to retire his number 6 someday. Given the way this has all gone down, that doesn’t bother me one bit.
From The Star-Ledger:
Damon credits the comfort level to manager Joe Girardi, who has allowed family around the team. “It was the rules before,” he said. “You couldn’t bring the kids to the ballpark — it just wasn’t a fun, conducive place to come to. I love Girardi being all about family.
“The rules are definitely very family-oriented now,” he said. “That’s a big reason why a bunch of the big free agents are excited to come here instead of shunning New York.”
I think free agents are excited to come here because of the money, but I get Damon’s point. The Yankees were very businesslike under Joe Torre, and that may have stifled some of the players that are products of the modern sports era. Girardi attempted to maintain that level of intense professionalism last season, often with disastrous results. The team seemed really tense for much of last season. Starting with the pool tournament that he fostered in spring training and bolstered by additions such as AJ Burnett and Nick Swisher, Joe has let fun back in the clubhouse. That cannot be a bad thing.
The Daily News has the story, Joe Torre and his LA Dodgers are slated for a series in the Yankee stadium next year. They report:
Joe Torre appears headed toward a Bronx homecoming in 2010.
Though next season’s schedule won’t be official for several weeks, an industry source told The Post yesterday that the Dodgers are preliminarily slated for a three-game, interleague series at Yankee Stadium, in what would be their first visit to The Bronx — barring a Yankees-Dodgers World Series this year — since the 1981 World Series.
As you can imagine, this means mixed feelings for many of the players who played under Torre.
Jeter is happy his former manager has found success in Hollywood — Torre led the Dodgers to the NLCS last year, and has the team in first place this season.
“He’s like a second father to me, and a lot of people that are in here,” Jeter said. “I’m happy that he’s happy. He’s given me every indication that he enjoys being out there in L.A.”
The Yankees faced the Dodgers in 2004, playing three games in Los Angeles. The Dodgers and Brewers are the only teams that have not played in The Bronx since the start of interleague play in 1997.
“It’s going to be great, because my first year in the big leagues [Joe] Girardi was the bench coach and Torre was the manager,” Robinson Cano said. “It would be great to see Girardi on one side and Torre on the other side. That would be fun.”
It certainly will be must-see TV, but as a fan I must admit to having mixed feelings myself. While I undeniably have warm memories of the early Torre years (as a Yankee fan, who wouldn’t) the overly dramatic way he left the team left a bitter taste in my mouth that lingers to this day. The idea that he was somehow owed more than the twelve years he served as Yankee manager (tied for second longest in Yankee History) is something I’ll never embrace. The confidences he breached in his book and the shots he took at people he owes his legacy to was disgraceful and sullied his Yankee heritage. After 12 years, I had enough of Saint Joe the Martyr to last a lifetime.
That being said, there are many current and former Yankees who have done things I don’t care for. Joe’s transgressions are fairly minor compared to others. You root for the laundry, and their exploits on the field. His accomplishments were the best of my lifetime as a Yankee fan who has been watching the team since the late 1970’s. I’ll stand and cheer for him when he returns to the Stadium.
Via Ken Davidoff:
Ray Negron may lack the name value of an Alex Rodriguez or a Joe Torre, but he has stories that would sell. For the better part of the last 36 years – the period that George Steinbrenner has owned the Yankees, in other words – Negron has been behind the scenes of the most famous team in U.S. professional sports. Yet, as he makes clear, “I am not for sale.”
Now an adviser to the Yankees, Negron has turned down offers from multiple publishers to share his memoirs and has found a different avenue to express himself. “One Last Time: Good-Bye to Yankee Stadium” is his third children’s book starring Yankees legends, with the proceeds again going to charity.
“Joe Torre was supposed to be an icon in New York,” Negron said this past week in an interview. “To me, what he did with that book ["The Yankee Years"] was just an insult to everything that’s supposed to be so good about the Yankees.
“You don’t take shots, you don’t talk negative, if you’re a manager. You don’t talk negative about your players. These guys were your players. These guys went to war with you. You don’t do that. That was really bothersome, because I expected more from him.”
I would love to read a book by Negron, but he has too much integrity to just spill the beans about the inner workings of the Yankees organization. I think those defending Torre when the book first came out should take a long hard look at Negron’s words. Negron has plenty to gain by revealing the secrets he knows, but would not expose the organization that turned his life around. If only Torre shared those sentiments.
I know this is a hot button type issue, and I did not want to start a major debate on this, but I did want to point out Joe’s comments.
From the LA Times:
Ventura, Calif., Viewer: Billy Bean, after he retired, he announced he was gay. Do you foresee a time in the future when an active player can safely announce he’s gay and if he did, what effect would that have on Major League Baseball?
Joe Torre: Well that’s a great question, I don’t know. But I just hope that an active player, if that’s the case, can feel free to do that. That’s all I can say. But I don’t know. Obviously, you have 25 players in the clubhouse, and, you know, it’s going to be tough for everybody to feel as maybe I do. But I’d like to believe our country is turning in that direction.
Larry King: You’d have no problem?
Torre: I’d have no problem.
This is a noble statement by Torre, albeit an empty one being that no such issue is on the horizon. However, as Joe notes, this is an issue that transcends the manager and plays upon people’s personal prejudices. Although being gay has become the “new cool” in some circles, I doubt those circles include major league clubhouses, where the bravado of “men being men” is so ingrained in the culture. Hopefully, we can reach a time where a player could come out without any sort of recriminations. However, if it happened today, the player would likely face a lot of resistance and discrimination from his current teammates, while creating a massive media firestorm.
10 bucks that A-Rod does it.
Earlier, Derek Jeter spoke to SI about the Torre-A-Rod situation:
“I’m just curious as to why people keep asking the same questions over and over. We’ve been down this road before. Alex is a teammate. I support him. Our whole team is behind him. We all support him. And we’re looking forward to a new season. To be quite honest with you, it’s old hearing the same questions. It’s something that’s been addressed before in the past. Everyone’s moved beyond it. And it doesn’t really need to be addressed again.”
Did you see that?
I support him.
Although I would have liked a bit more than the usual, generic statement (how about “leave the guy alone, already”), this was still nice. Maybe DJ read Anthony’s recent piece?
(H/T to WW)
Joe Torre was on with Mike Francesa this afternoon, and the master media manipulator did a nice job of defusing the hoopla over his tell-all tome. You can find the interview here, and I just wanted to run through the major points that he made.
1) Joe said that he was surprised by the reaction to the book, as he wrote the book to celebrate his time in NY and show people that winning did not come easy. It It was important to him not to be the primary voice of the book, but he stands behind everything Verducci wrote. Joe also said that there were things that he held back, and that he had no control over what Verducci wrote. The book was not intended to be an expose or a negative tell-all type, it was not written out of bitterness, and would have been written even if he was still managing the Yankees.
2) In regard to Mussina’s comments about Rivera, Joe responded as I did- “Is any of this stuff not true?” He said that it was not a knock, just stating facts, and that Mo was so perfect, it was tough to live up to himself.
3) He said that his relationship with Alex has not changed, and that it was not bad. Joe said he constantly tried to help Alex adjust to NY. The A-Fraud was just typical clubhouse agitating. He thinks Alex will probably get a title in NY eventually.
4) The Torre-Cashman relationship changed after ‘06. They always got along, but went in different directions on what was important- Cashman geared more to numbers, Torre wanted to stress that the game had a heartbeat. They fought over Bernie, who Joe felt was more of a threat than Phelps as a switch hitting pinch hitter off bench, and it ticked him off because he was ignored. He thought stressing OBP was not appropriate for a pinch hitter role.
5) He said that it was probably time to leave, and that he was relieved when it was finally over.
6) He did not think they had an inordinate amount of guys on juice, but said that it doesnt free him of blame. He did not realize how widespread it was, where players felt like they had to do it to compete.
7) In regard to his legacy, he cannot worry about it because he has no control over it.
8 ) He never said Cashman betrayed him, it is apparently not in the book. He just had to consider that maybe Cash wasn’t an ally. Torre conceded that Brian saved him from the chopping block a time or two.
9) He loved the Pavano move, wanted Tino back rather than Giambi, and regretted not being able to do more for Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown.
Update: Just found a more complete transcript, here.
A piece authored by Anthony McCarron of the NY Daily News has reaction from Jorge Posada on what has become the talk of New York – The Yankee Years tome penned by Tom Verducci.
During the article, Posada says Joe Torre was like a father figure to him and that he didn’t think the former Yankees skipper had done anything wrong. He also offered his two cents on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.
On the “A-Fraud” debacle:
“There was not one player on those teams that said those words,” Posada said. “Never. If we heard it, it was just (Borzello) messing with Alex and Alex would be right there and he’d be laughing about it. It was never out of disrespect at all . . . It was never said behind his back by any teammate.”
On his respect for Torre:
“Joe’s done nothing wrong, in my eyes. He’s been a father figure to me, so I don’t think he can do any wrong.”
On the now infamous “single-white-female” excerpt:
As for the suggestion in the book that Rodriguez has a bad case of Derek Jeter envy, Posada said, “I have no idea about that. I don’t know where that came from.”
