19 to 21

No, that’s not how many pennants Joe Torre has won as a manager, it’s, Baseball... Then and Now

Volume 5, #41, October 22, 2007

News Item: October 26, 2000 – The New York Yankees defeat the New York Mets, 4-2, to win the World Series.

Perhaps Warren Spahn said it best, something to the effect that he was the only pitcher to have played for Casey before and after he became a genius. Spahn was a pretty witty guy (or maybe that line was subtle dig at its target), but his comment was, like one of his well-placed screwballs, right on the mark. And, it could have been made about other mangers in addition to Charles Dillon Stengel. Because very few highly successful managers don’t go through periods when they seem less-than-genius. Like say, Joe Torre. If Torre decides to continue managing in 2008 at the age of 67 and after 30 years in the hot seat, maybe he’ll end up with whatever team may want to sign John Mabry as a pinch hitter. Then Mabry can say that he played for Joe before and after he became a genius.

You see, John Mabry played for the 1995 St. Louis Cardinals, a benighted bunch that finished in fourth place in the National League Central with a 62-81 record. A team whose regulars included Danny Sheaffer, Scott Cooper and Tripp Cromer. With a starting rotation that featured Mark Petkovsek, Donovan Osborne, Allen Watson, Mike Morgan and Tom Urbani. And that was managed for the first 47 games (20-27) by Joe Torre… before he was a genius. In fact, at that point in his managerial career, Torre had a record of 894-1003 for a .471 winning percentage and exactly one first place finish – with a 1982 Braves team that won its first 13 games and then had to hang on for dear life at the end of the season (going 76-73 the rest of the way), even resorting to bringing back Chief Nock-a-Homa as a good luck charm. If, during the 1995 season, you had suggested that Torre would one day be a Hall of Fame candidate as a manager, you would have been quickly trundled off to a padded cell. To wit…

1977-1981 Mets 286-420

1982-1984 Braves 257-229

1990-1995 Cardinals 351-354

That’s not exactly a Hall of Fame record. And why, you ask? Well, if you have to ask, you weren’t following baseball from 1977 to 1995. The Mets were awful in the late ‘70s. The early 80s Braves, led by Dale Murphy and Phil Niekro were OK, but, as Bill James put it in “The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1987,” “The dynastic ambitions of Ted Turner flowered and died in two weeks in 1982, when the Braves opened the season by winning their first 13 games.” And the early 90s Cardinals, although they were over .500 from 1991 to 1993, well, no one was going to mistake them for the second coming of the Gas House Gang, unless it was for giving Torre gas. Tripp Cromer?

Now contrast that with the 1996 to 2007 Yankees, the Best Team That Money Can Buy (Bronx Division). The Yankees of Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, A-Rod, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite and Mike Mussina (among others). Think these Yankees might have an edge over a 162-game season playing against the 1978 Mets of Doug Flynn, Elliott Maddox, Lenny Randle, Bruce Boisclair, Nino Espinosa, Claude “Skip” Lockwood, Mardie Cornejo, and Mike Bruhert? Well, do you?

Let’s not be misunderstood, though. We come not to bury Ceasar, as was clearly the case last week when the Steinbrenners, peeved because the Hateds hadn’t taken the World Series since that five game win over the Mets seven years before, decided to fire Torre in the subtlest way possible, by offering him a one-year contract at a pay cut, a contract for a paltry, insulting, still-more-than-any-other-manager-makes $5 million a year. (That’s some insult. I’ll take an insult like that any day of the week.) After all, Torre had just run off a stretch wherein he had led the Yankees to a 1173-767 record over 12 years, with nine straight first place finishes and four World Series titles. A record not unlike that of… Casey Stengel.

 

Casey Stengel 1949-1960

12 years

1149 wins

696 losses

.623 winning percentage

10 first place finishes, including five in a row

7 World Series titles

 

 

Joe Torre 1996-2007

12 years

1173 wins

767 losses

.605 winning percentage

10 first place finishes, including nine in a row

4 World Series titles

If you’ll recall, Casey was canned by the Yankees after the 1960 World Series, at a highly embarrassing (for the Yankees) press conference where the Old Perfesser directly contradicted the Big Brass by refusing to go along with the fiction that he had retired. “Boys, I’ve been fired,” he said to the media, also commenting that he’d never make the mistake of being 70 again. Of course, maybe Del Webb and Dan Topping had been looking at Casey’s managerial record before coming to New York, when the Old Perfesser pretty much looked like a dunce (and he did briefly have Warren Spahn pitch for him prior to World War 2… in fact, he sent Spahn to the minors).

1934-1936 Dodgers 208-251

1938-1943 Braves 373-491

And while it’s not entirely fair to bring up the 1962-1965 Mets, they are on Casey’s resume, and they went 175-404 under his sometimes snoozing watch.

Or maybe you’d prefer to compare Torre’s record to the glory years of Bobby Cox, a contemporary with a similar pedigree, who also happened to precede Torre as the Braves manager from 1978 to 1981.

Joe Torre 1996-2007

12 years

1173 wins

767 losses

.605 winning percentage

10 first place finishes, including nine in a row

4 World Series titles

 

Bobby Cox 1991-2005

15 years

1431 wins

931 losses

.606 winning percentage (his whining percentage on ball/strike calls is much higher)

14 first place finishes, including 11 in a row

1 World Series title

Cox wasn’t always a genius, either. In fact, John Smoltz can make the same claim as Warren Spahn – he’s pitched for Cox before and after he became a genius, that is, in 1990, 2006 and 2007. Contrast those three years with the Braves’ championship run under Cox. He was indeed the Atlanta manager for those three years, but somehow Nick Esasky, Andres Thomas, Jimmy Kremers, Jim Presley, Pete Smith, Paul Marak, Martin Clary, Buddy Carlyle, Jo-Jo Reyes, Lance Cormier, Marl Redman, Kyle Davies, Joey Devine, Pete Orr, Willie Harris and Scott Thorman don’t quite have the same cachet as Greg Maddux, Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff, et al.

1990 – 40-57 (sixth place)

2006 – 79-83 (third place)

2007 – 84-78 (third place)

Total - 203-218 (.482)

Now throw in Cox’ first stint with the Braves, and his time managing the Blue Jays, a stretch that overall included a solitary first place finish and four years under .500.

1978-1981 Braves 266-323

1982-1985 Blue Jays 355-292

Add up his years outside of the Braves’ 1991-2005 run (‘cause those days are over, Braves fans), and you have an 824-833 record (.497) that’s not in anyone’s Hall of Fame. And that’s just the point. Look at any of the great Hall of Fame managers, including Stengel, Joe McCarthy, Connie Mack, Miller Huggins, Walter Alston, Sparky Anderson. Over an extended number of years (anything can happen in a single season), when they had the horses they won. When they didn’t, they didn’t. It’s as simple as that. Whether or not you think firing Torre was an evil act of the Evil Empire, whether or not you think Torre shouldn’t have been insulted by far, far more money than you or I will ever make in a single year, the fact is that, even if the Yankees lose half their team to free agency defections in the wake of Torre’s leave-taking, if they go out and, as they have done so many times in the past 30 years, just buy a new all-star team, they’ll still be the favorites to win. With a great team, even a Danny Ozark can win.

Coming up in “19 to 21” – will the World Series see a reprise of “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!”? Or will Curt Schilling put the freeze on the Rockies? Who knows? One thing for certain, though, is a review of Norman Macht’s new biography of Connie Mack.

-- John Shiffert