Torre: Genius or Leprechaun?

Dave Paisley

If the Yankees win the World Series this year, there will no doubt be a rush to proclaim Joe Torre "Manager of the Century" or some such nonsense. Managing in New York City, and especially managing the Yankees, is a breeze when you're winning. And Joe Torre has certainly won -- lots. But how much of this can we credit to Torre and how much to the luck of the Irish (all right, Italian-Irish)?

The hard work of building the Yankees up into a contender was done before Torre ever got there. Let's not forget that Buck Showalter had taken a pretty good Yankee team to the playoffs the year before, and only a highly improbable comeback by Seattle prevented the Yanks from progressing past the first round.

There are a couple of ways to examine a manager's performance. First, there's what talent he puts out there every day based on what he's got. Then there's how much better he can make that talent on a day-to-day basis. The final piece is identifying holes in the roster and telling the general manager what spare parts to go pick up. We can argue a little bit about the relative roles of GM and manager (not to mention that of the owner), but to assume that Yankee managers, and especially Torre, are totally at the mercy of the moves the GM makes would be a bit naive.

Here are the position players on the current playoff roster. Catcher is an interesting place to start, with the Girardi/Posada fiasco perhaps the first hint that Torre isn't exactly a genius. To bring Girardi in wasn't bright, but it's taken him long enough to relegate him to backup status. I'm not sure if we can blame Torre for paying him $3.4M this year, but sheesh, someone deserves spanking for that one.

Player	Pos	OPS	How Acquired
Posada	C	.742	On farm
Martinez	1B	.799	Acquired from Seattle 1996
Knoblauch	2B	.847	Acquired from Minnesota 1998
Brosius	3B	.721	Acquired as free agent 1998
Jeter	SS	.990	In place - debuted 1995
Ledee	LF	.822	On farm
Williams	CF	.971	In place
O'Neill	RF	.812	In place
Davis	DH	.811	Acquired as free agent 1998
Strawberry	OF/DH	1.112	In place
Curtis	OF	.764	Acquired from Detroit 1997
Spencer	OF	.691	On farm
Leyritz	C	.672	Reacquired from San Diego 1999
Girardi	C	.625	Acquired as free agent 1996
Sojo	IF	.621	Acquired as free agent 1996

At first base, Tino Martinez was acquired to replace the retiring Don Mattingly, and while he's good, he's not great. With one great season and three pretty average seasons, it's hard to make the case that Torre has made more of Tino than he started with.

Over at second, anyone could have traded for Chuck Knoblauch, a veteran known quantity, and one of the best second basemen around at the time. Here's a case where, certainly last year, Knoblauch was quite a bit worse than his recent history. He's also developed defensive shortcomings that weren't apparent before. Tough to give Torre any credit there.

At third base, Scott Brosius was a good pickup in 1998, but an awful guy to lock up for any amount of time after that. Sure enough, look at his awful 1999. No credit for Joe there.

At shortstop, Derek Jeter was already in place when Torre arrived. Do we give him any credit for Jeter's development? Any more than Lou Piniella gets for Alex Rodriguez or Jimy Williams for Nomar? No, I thought not.

Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill in the outfield were both in place, and both have continued to do what they do. Bernie did hit a little power surge on Torre's arrival, but that also coincided with the mythical age-27 season, when many power hitters break out. The other outfield spot has been pretty much inconsequential, but we can note that Ricky Ledee was already in the farm system when Joe arrived.

So the hitting lineup was either already in place or has been bulked up by veteran acquisitions -- known quantities where nobody was taking a risk (except giving away lots of pitching.)

The pitching lineup has many similar features. Cone and Pettitte were already with the Yankees, while Hernandez was picked up with lots of cash. And any band of itinerant monkeys could have traded for Roger Clemens, coming off two Cy Young seasons. Strange, though, how Clemens hasn't produced for Torre the way he has elsewhere.

Pitcher	Pos	ERA	How Acquired
Cone	SP	3.44	In place
Hernandez	SP	4.12	Acquired as free agent 1998
Clemens	SP	4.60	Acquired from Toronto 1999
Pettitte	SP	4.70	In place
Nelson	RP	4.15	Acquired from Seattle 1996
Mendoza	RP	4.29	On farm
Stanton	RP	4.33	Acquired for 1997
Irabu	RP	4.84	Acquired as free agent 1997
Rivera	CL	1.83	In place

As for the bullpen, Mariano Rivera was already in place. Maybe we'll credit Joe for letting Wetteland walk and handing the job to the younger (and much cheaper) Rivera. Jeff Nelson was a much unheralded, but key, pickup in the Tino Martinez trade. Stanton's just another lefty and Irabu was picked up with money and the cachet of the Yankees.

So, a large part of this team was in place when Torre arrived (or waiting in the wings) for which we can give the managerial credit to Buck Showalter. The holes have been filled by acquiring solid veterans by either free agency or trade, and none of them has performed much better than previously. In the cases of Girardi and Brosius, much worse than the Yankees hoped, I'm sure.

So where's the managerial genius, hmmm?

about the author

Dave Paisley would like to thank the geniuses who asked Brandy to sing that song approximating "The Star-Spangled Banner" Saturday night, as it allowed him to make a supermarket run as she "performed." Borrow a cup of Nacho Cheez Whiz at drdjp@strikethree.com.