Baseball 101: Bye bye, Yankees

Joe Torre is one of those managers who seldom shows a temper and never seems to get himself into trouble off the field. His teams have won three World Series rings, so it is hard to understand Steinbrenner's pre-emptive announcement that failure to win the ALDS would lead to Torre's dismissal. It is a grim fact of life that winning is the only way a manager can keep his job and Torre has done that, never winning fewer than 94 games in a season. For a Yankees' manager, however, the manager is required to deliver a World Series ring every five years or face termination. What makes this situation unfare is that Joe Torre is not the problem.
The problem the Yankees have is the same one that has kept the Braves from reaching a World Series since 1999: lack of good starting pitching. The Braves picked up Mark Texeira this year and increased their run production by one run per game, but their pitchers managed to give up more runs than they could score. Hence, the Braves went home early. For the Yankees, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, David Wells et al. aged, moved on, got traded, etc., and the team needed new life in the starting rotation. Instead, they sank huge sums into Jason Giambi, who will make $21 million next year. Still needing good pitching, they tied their hopes to Alex Rodriguez and, as though he were not enough star power, they also got Johnny Damon. These players make the Yankees' bats the deadliest in baseball, if all you pay attention to is the names. Unfortunately, when the names Jeter, A-Rod and Matsui all bat under .200, they are worth as little as kids making a tenth their salary. Moreover, the huge investments in bats left little money for helping the porous pitching staff of the Bronx Bombers.
The Yankees are in a shambles and it is Brian Cashman's fault, the general manager who decided to blow more cash recovering the aging talents of Pettite, Clemens and Mussina rather than focussing on young pitching talent that could last for more than one season. Torre did his best with what he had. There is only so much a manager can do when his pitching is suspect, and baseball's oldest law still holds true: good pitching will beat good hitting every time. I hate the Yankees, so I hope they keep up this strategy of signing batters to inflated contracts and ignoring their pitching problem, but it is sad to see Joe Torre lose his job.