Torre-blue Rumors

Before the Red Sox could even put the last shot into the poor Colorado rockies, offseason rumors started percolating like a cheap and bitter pot of coffee. Never one shy to drum up some attention around him, dodgers owner Frank McCourt must have accidentally let one slip once we began seeing unsourced stories about an impending buyout of Grady Little's contract and having interest in Girardi as a bench coach, and Joe Torre as the new manager. Dodger beat writer Tony Jackson also ran with this story that had too much smoke not to be fire for him. This morning, the Journal is calling it a done deal and even adding that Don Mattingly will come over and be on Torre's coaching staff. It's looking more and more like the rumor-mongerers got it right. I couldn't even call this rumor ridiculous yesterday when I read it because it fits our owner. Putting myself in his shoes for a second...

"I'm (my team and I) still not getting the respect I deserve over here. I'm the Rodney Dangerfield of sports owners. I own the freaking dodgers, for crying out loud, who are in one of the top 5 markets in the country. I want to be famous, like Stienbrenner used to be, or maybe how Jerry Buss used to be before he started get pulled over drunk."

McCourt watches a news report of Joe Torre's firing from the yankees.

"Holy spit! There is my high media profile staring at me from the television screen! I'm going to be in the pay...puhs! I'm going to be in the pay...puhs. Damn, this fame thing would be a helluva lot easier if they'd just let me buy the Red Sox."

I think you get the picture. He probably is doing this (if he's actually doing it at all) from some other reasoning as well. How often does a Joe Torre drop onto the managing marketplace? The dodgers have been a long time without a stable, respectable manager that had his own bit of cache (Lasorda). Continuity used to be the franchise's middle name. This is a guy you can keep around for a while until he dies or decides he's good and ready to retire permanently.
After that, having Don Mattingly as your manager doesn't sound too bad, especially when he had all that time to learn from one of the best. One wrinkle is that his kid Preston is in the dodger farm system so who knows how that will play out if his kid makes it to the big show. However, there are two owners of the dodgers, the second one being Mrs. McCourt. Jeff Kent has such a good relationship with the Mrs. McCourt that he may have an invisible hand working some moves behind the scenes in this managerial switch--and get your mind out of the gutter, reader, because I didn't mean it like that.

Jeff Kent made the worst noise when the dodgers fell this season. He handed out a lot of blame and like the kid who's ball it is that started the street game, he threatened to take his junk and go home. I still dislike him for his poor attitude. I really wish he would take his balls, go home, and never come back. But he apparently won't, because he has undue influence over the owner's wife and in the Torre firing, he saw a new opportunity to maybe win.

You see, when you are a wannabe superstar who was Robin (Kent) to the Batman (Bonds) who overshadowed you, you can be corrupted Golumesquely (oh I just fell in love with a made up word) into a creature who only wants to win, wants to win being the batman of his new team, but will never take any responsiblity for one's own or the team's failings however, all the while coveting shiny, golden, rings like nobody's business. That's Jeff Kent in a nutshell. In his rage at not getting his precious with little time left to gets it, Kent scapegoated the only part that the McCourt's would be willing to remove, the manager.

The McCourt's had already made it clear that this team was and is about youth, and Kent knew that coming in. So his crying wouldn't motivate the McCourt's into trading a bucket of young talent for some veteran pitcher or something (besides, McCourt likes to live a little on the cheap side if he has a good excuse to--and Loney, Kemp, and especially Martin are great reasons to). Reason that couldn't work is that Jeff Kent is -and never was-remotely as talented as Barry Bonds, his arch-nemesis. Bonds could carry a team. Jeff Kant. You don't build a team around Jeff Kent just like no owner would build a team around Kenny Lofton, Brian Giles, or Moises Alou. These guys are all still good, but they aren't great. If any one of these guys is your main man well best of luck to you in 3'rd place.

In Kent's delusional mind, I think firing Grady Little and hiring a more authoritarian and players-on manager, will mean that Kent will get to boss the young kids around more and Torre will 'make them' listen to him. I'm doubting it. Torre, at least to me, doesn't seem to take crap from anybody in a calm, cool, and collected manner. I doubt he allows Kent to tyrannically run the clubhouse in that passive-aggressive fashion that only Jeff Kent can, and tell all these kids how to play the game. There is more than one way to skin a cat, and the Jeff Kent school of how the game is played is not the only one that works. Lighten up a little, dude. This is baseball, not the military or police academy.

That said, if Jeff Kent wants to step up and stop his whole walking into the clubhouse five minutes before the game with earbuds in his ears and go out and play ball, finish the game and immediately leave, then maybe he should deserve more of a say in the clubhouse. But it's a two way street, Jeff Kent, and prodding the owner's wife to switch managers isn't going to change what's needed from you to help the young, talented players you have to play with win as a team.

I seriously hope that if things have to go down like this for Grady, that the next person the McCourt's sit down with about negotiating a buyout (or trade) is Jeff Kent.

That last sentence would've been a great ending but I'm not done yet (or if I'd moved that Jeff Kant line to the end). Hiring Joe Torre would be a statement that, 'we have the right guys but not the right manager to bring them all together to win'. I believe that is partially true. Grady's style was an easygoing one which suits the city but not necessarily that particular team all that well. I'll always remember from my days in New England when I turned it to sports talk radio to while the Sox were rolling with a 12 game winning streak to hear the theme for today's talk being, "Are the Red Sox winning because of Grady Little or despite him?" I was guffawed when I heard it. Here they are in Boston winning and yet they still find a way to undermine it. This is why they haven't won since 1918.

Back to my point which is that Grady's style is to dole out playing time like a doting grandfather gives out change for the ice-cream man to his grandchildren. This motivates the role players into overachieving which leads to improbable wins which allows the players to all sit around the team hot tub singing camp songs. Thing is, the Boston team Little managed was far deeper and far more offensive than his L.A. teams and you just can't afford to play trot out the kookie lineups when that's the case. As much as I hate to admit it that is one point Kent made that I agree with in that the lineup shuffling did more harm than good.

I am letting out an exhale right now. It's because despite doing it for probably the wrong reasons, our owner is making the right move. Grady is a good manager. Torre is a great manager. When you have the opportunity to upgrade in that manner with the uncertainty of when another great manager will become available, you have to jump at it. McCourt did, although he probably did it for his own ego.

Idle Musings in light of the Torre Hiring

Will this give the dodgers an edge on signing ARod? I doubt it hurts L.A.'s chances. I've never kept track of the yankees enough to know how Arod's relationship with Torre is.

If they get Arod, what happens to Andy LaRoche? He probably gets traded for pitching. If not, maybe they can convert him into a left fielder and in turn jettison Juan Pierre to help afford ARod. If Colletti is still the G.M. and this isn't the whole Jim Tracy/Paul DePodesta dual firing taking place all over again this offseason, Ned will probably get too little back for one of the top 5 third base prospects in the game right now. The Little-Torre reasoning works well here too. Why go with a great prospect at a position when you can sign someone whom quite possibly is one of the top 20 hitters of all time?

Lotsa reasons and here are the top 10 of 'em:

1. He acts like a little bitch sometimes.
   
2. He's pulled some cheap, beer league plays.
3. He's overconcerned about what people think of him (serious problem if you're gonna live in L.A.).
   
4. His agent is Scott Boras.
   
5. He could split the clubhouse if he's given too many perks.
6. His contract could put the dodgers in the position of having to deal away some young players during their arbitration years because they've become un-affordable.
7. It would set up the extremely annoying dynamic of Jeff Kent questioning ARod's desire whenever the team loses (more of a reason to get rid of Jeff Kent I guess).
   
8. More ESPN coverage of the dodgers.
9. Having to see ARod's smug face plastered everywhere or broadcast from the dugout every dull moment during a televised game.
10. He's a freaking Yankee...

Based on the current GM's track record of bad luck in signing high profile free agents to compliment the rising young stars in the dodger organization, his especially bad relations with ARod's agent, the growing number of clubs seeking new G.M.'s, and the dodgers apparent surplus of new G.M. material in Logan White, Kim Ng, and DeJon Watson (all currently have the assistant G.M. job title) Colletti himself may be looking for a new job with a different club altogether. There has been growing interest in Kim Ng and Logan White as potential new G.M.'s. White and Watson are both renowned for their successes in talent evaluation in their previous baseball jobs and with the dodgers, traits that are extremely useful to a team with alot of young talent. Ng continues making a name for herself as a saavy negotiator. All, save Watson have been mentioned in the news whenever another team is interviewing/seeking a new GM.

If the McCourts are going to splurge on a manager ($600k-$800k for Little to $4-$5 mil for Torre) a year, that may mean going to internal candidates to 'go cheap' at the G.M. position as well as promoting their talented front office people to keep them from leaving. Their skills fit the character and circumstances of the dodgers organization far better than Ned Colletti, who honed his skills under the tutelage of Brian Sabean who just scratched together a gang of vets to put around Bonds. I don't think it's a coincidence that the dodgers currently have 3 assistant G.M.'s.