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October 29, 2007
Breaking Dodger News: Joe Torre the New Dodger Manager?
According to Peter Abraham of The Journal News, Grady Little will be fired as the Dodger manager in favor of former Yankee manager Joe Torre. Don Mattingly is expected to follow Torre here to Los Angeles as bench coach. All of this can happen as soon as tomorrow.
Let me just make it clear that this is still unconfirmed.
Torre, 67, rejected a one-year $5 million contract from the Yankees last Monday. As most people know he won four World Series rings with the Yanks in 1996 and 1998-2000 and took the Yanks to the postseason in all 12 years he managed there. But less known is his managerial record prior to being the Yank's skipper.
- 0 playoff appearances with the New York Mets from 1977-1981.
- 1 playoff appearance with the Atlanta Braves from 1982-1984.
- 0 playoff appearances with the St. Louis Cardinals from 1990-1995.
But perhaps this will pave the way for Alex Rodriguez in a Dodger uniform?
I'll have more on this as details filter through.
Update: An MLB source is telling CBS2/KCAL9's John Ireland that there is 0% chance of a managerial change on Tuesday. Video of this report here.
AP Photo by Kathy Willens
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have the dodgers ever had a black or latino manager?
for some reason i think i know the answer.
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The answer is a resounding no.
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but that microsoft paint-altered photo is brilliant.
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I have to say that I don't like this move at all. Torre has been successful largely because he's had some of the best lineups this game has ever seen. He's no miracle worker, as this MSNBC article points out.
Little was beset by injured pitchers and sub par signings (ahem, Pierre) and, though 82-80 is hardly superb, I think he is still a good manager and certainly not worth firing.
The Dodgers have a solid team and Little's brand of small ball is more suited to the National League than Torre's brand of hit more home runs than anyone else.
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Ditching Grady is a good start (kent, you're next!). Torre managed the Angels for a while too, without much success. I don't care. Anyone but Grady. I like the way the Rockies and Diamondbacks play. I hope we can keep up next year.
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Actually Ali, I altered it in Photoshop. I could've spent time to make it look nice, but I didn't want to. :)
Jeremy, that doesn't explain why Little played Pierre in CF in all 162 games. Also why did he continue to use Tomko and Hendrickson in the rotation long after they were done?
But I agree with you. I don't like the move. That's why I pointed out his managerial history prior to the Yankees. I forgot to point out that in all of those years, he only won the division once: the NL West with the Braves in 1982.
Sofubi, Torre didn't manage the Angels. He was just their broadcaster from 1985-1989.
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I cannot comprehend how anyone could not call Torre an overwhelming upgrade from Grady Little. Please don't use the Phil Jackson corollary when trying to discredit Torre's obvious success. Sure, he inherited a Yankees team in 1996 that went to the playoffs the year before, but that team was in transition. Jeter, Rivera, Pettite, and Posada were youngsters like Kemp, Martin, Broxton, Billingsley, and Loney. Those "Paul O'Neill Yankees" were a hard-nosed National League type of club that scrapped. They bled at-bats and trusted each other to keep an inning going which is something the Dodgers need to learn. Little played "small ball" because he insisted on playing a slap-hitting Pierre and a washed up Luis Gonzalez over Matt Kemp. The 1996 Yankees were led in home runs by Bernie Williams (29) and Tino Martinez (25) and got double digit contributions from O'Neill (19), Jeter (10), and a total of 35 from the three-headed DH of Darryl Strawberry, Ruben Sierra, and Cecil Fielder. Minus the DH spot and given an entire season of at-bats, I can see Kemp, Loney, Martin, Ethier, and Kent matching or besting the total of Bernie-tino-O'Neill-Jeter. Torre will be on a mission to dispel the notion that he can't game-manage and needs all-stars to win. He was a catcher in the National League so he knows the NL brand of baseball. The way the Dodgers went into the tank last season only reveals that Little had lost control of the clubhouse. Torre's status in the game would prevent the same from happening. Longtime Dodger fans will be understandably apprehensive about such marquee signings because of the sting of the Fox regime, Kevin Malone, and Davey Johnson, but the "Dodger Way" was built on seeing the future before it came and being prepared to make the necessary adaptations to maintain success. It wasn't prefected decades ago and meant to remain in a static state of suspension, it's meant to be ever-changing to adapt to the dynamic nature of Major League Baseball.
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my bad (re: torre as angels manager), I was young and my memory is foggy.