JOE Torre’s worst mistake of October was not starting Chien-Ming Wang on the road or failing to demand a delay when those Lake Erie midges showed up at Jacobs Field.
No, Torre’s biggest mistake occurred yesterday when he rejected an offer that while imperfect still allowed him to keep the job that has been so perfect for him. Torre erred in turning down the Yankees’ proposal to stay in the position that has made him rich and famous beyond what he could have dreamed a dozen years ago.
He gets to keep the riches and fame now, but not the job. And it is the job, that gave Torre items you cannot buy, notably that brew of purpose and electricity and responsibility that he will be unable to replicate elsewhere.
Torre did not make public his thoughts after he turned down the Yankees’ one-year offer with an option that included a cut in base pay. But the read here is that Torre believed: a) he had done nothing to warrant a paycut; b) that the cut and, especially, just one guaranteed year made him an instant lame duck; c) the offer was a symbol of lost faith or an was designed for him to reject. Either way he was burned out to be again trying to prove his credentials to all the same Yankee executives.
If I ran the Yankees, I simply would have given Torre what he needed to stay. He is the best managerial option for 2008 and – within reason – money shouldn’t really be an issue with this deep-pocketed organization. In May, after all, the Yanks offered Roger Clemens $24 million, his reps demanded a single-season record $28 million instead, and the Yanks quickly caved in.
Torre has to feel, rightly, he has done more than Clemens for the Yankees and had a better year in 2007.
But the people who actually do run the Yanks – the Steinbrenners – were going to make money an issue. George Steinbrenner has long believed Torre strong-armed the organization to renegotiate to record levels when the championships were coming ($6.5 million on average long term, $7.5 million for a one-year peak).
So in seven straight title-less seasons the Steinbrenner family saw the opening for a pay reduction. The offer, $5 million, was still more than any other manager with bonuses that had Torre reached the World Series would have spiked the deal to a record $8 million.
There was going to be no shame in accepting that deal, no loss of stature. No one was going to think, “Oh, there goes Joe Torre, he took less.”
And he was not going to be a lame duck. He is Joe Torre. His gravitas exceeds the length or dollars of his contract. He did not lose his job during horrible starts in 2005 or 2007, so that track record of rallying to make the playoffs was going to give him a full year in 2008 despite the lack of guaranteed future years. He also has to know George Steinbrenner’s belief in him is going to rise and fall – like always – on results. He was not going to have less backing from ownership, just more of the same, regardless of his pay.
Torre never did this job for ownership’s love anyway, he isn’t needy in that way. He did it for the juice that came from running this team in this time in this town. As annoyed as he might be at the Steinbrenners, Torre is walking away from that juice as much as the ownership.
He might have deserved more contractual respect. Or you might consider that his contract was done. He was a free agent, like Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. But unlike Rivera and Posada, there are not teams out there that are going to pay Torre close to what he was making or even what the Yanks were offering now. In other words, $5 million is no insult as long as Torre decided it was no insult.
So this needed to not be about money for Torre or his dealings with management. This was about the job he loved, the job that brought him so much of what money can’t buy. He walked away from that job. That is a forever decision. That was a mistake.