Sweet Lou?
There are reports out now that suggest Joe Torre will be fired and replaced by Lou Piniella.
Piniella is a winner.
He had wire-to-wire champs, the 1990 Reds.
He’s had four 1st place teams and four 2nd place teams. He’s had four 3rd place teams.
He had a team that won 116 games in a season.
He’s won 90+ seven times – - missing an 8th by 1 win.
Piniella understands New York, the Yankees, and Big Stein.
Piniella will add some fire to the Yankees. For sure, no longer will Yankees batters get HBP and nothing happens. Also, if there’s a questionable call made against the Yankees, the umpires will hear protests from Lou.
Mattingly, Guidry, and Bowa all have relationships with Lou. So, I would expect some of the coaching staff to stay.
Lou can be tough on pitchers and catchers. He’s not “Torre kill the RP” tough. But, Lou will push his starters like Torre never did in New York. If Piniella joins the Yankees, this could be an interesting situation for Hughes and Clippard.
Lou Piniella would not be the worst replacement for Torre. The only concern that I have here is the A-Rod factor. Lou and Alex have a long relationship. It’s strong too.
Personally, at this stage, I believe that A-Rod is too large of a distraction to help the Yankees. He adds too much drama to the scene. It’s all A-Rod, all the time, in New York (and in the national media) these days. It’s somewhat “T.O.” like at times in terms of media attention. (I’m not saying that Alex is a trouble maker like Owens.) And, even with the talent, who needs that baggage?
I would be shocked if Piniella joined the Yankees and then A-Rod was sent packing.
As much as I feel that the Yankees need to get rid of their tired blood, if choosing Lou means that A-Rod stays in New York, I would probably pass on Piniella and go after someone like Ron Hassey – meaning take someone respected in the game but who has no ties to anyone on the current Yankees roster or front office.
But, with what’s happening in Yankeeland, and over in Mets camp, these days, Big Stein probably wants a ‘name.’
And, Sweet Lou Piniella is probably the biggest name out there now.
Do you really want Pinella managing a pitching staff?
There are lots of complaints about Torre’s usage of bullpens, Pinella’s is worse.
He is the guy that leaves a kid out on the mound for the opposing team to take the lead and score 13 runs just to prove a point. (as the case with that game against TB a couple of years ago). That is a terrible way to handle young pitchers.
Is he the guy you want managing Phil Hughes? He would be my second to last choice for Yankee manager. (With only Dusty Baker as last).
How is Pinella a winner? If we truly judge success around here as winning the World Series, then Pinella is not a winner. He’s won one ring in his managerial career. That’s not exactly a good success rate. And he had the best regular-season team in history and couldn’t even get to the World Series. Isn’t that the main complaint about Joe Torre right now?
Lou would be the absolutely worst choice for this team — for many reasons, but especially the A-Rod issues it would bring. (Think the Alex v. Jeter thing is bad now? Well, just bring Lou into it and we’ll NEVER hear the end of it.)
Pinella is not the answer. Why not take a look at Girardi?
Girardi or Bowa make the most sense to me. Odd, because they are very different sorts. I like Lou too, but I’m not sure Lou has a 5 or 6 year stretch left in him, which is what the Yankees need to make the most of the contracts they hold on quality players.
Nothing will change until this roster changes. Torre is being scapegoated for a roster that really had little chance of winning a ring (despite what the ESPN “experts” say). Firing Joe just for the sake of firing him is frivolous and will cost this team. As for Pinella-Hughes, I have two words for you: Travis Harper.
HARPER!
That was the pitcher. I just kept referring to him as “the kid reliever”
Finally someone put a name to him. Thank you!
Where is this idea coming from that the team didn’t have a chance to win? Did you watch the regular season? This team was GREAT. The lineup was amazing, the bullpen good, and pitching (outside of Wang, who was brilliant) good enough.
The idea that the Yankees had some kind of lousy team is ridiculous.
The team was fine until Torre put Sheffield and Matsui in and took Melky out. The team that went into the playoffs was not the team that won the division — and that is squarely on the shoulders of Joe Torre.
It seems like people have developed instant amnesia. As soon as the Yankees lost in the post-season, it was like the regular season never happened. They had a very good team this year — the best since ’03, in my opinion. Only Torre felt the need to alter it right before the playoffs and we paid the price.
The thought of Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes’s arms in the hands of Lou Piniella scares me to death.
Pinella would be a terrible choice. Yankee fans were pissed when Torre overworked mediocre pitchers like Sturtze and Villone. How will fans react when Pinella puts Wang out ther for 130 pitches a night and moves Hughes to middle relief after one bad start? If you want to hang this year’s lose on Torre, fine. But bringing in Pinella to replace him is dumb.
Agreed. I do NOT want Sweet Lou here. I’d much prefer Girardi, Mattingly, or even Pena.
I wouldn’t have said it before this season, but I don’t think Girardi is a good fit here. I’d love to see Pena get a shot, though, and Bowa would be fascinating to watch. The biggest beef I’ve had with Torre is in his handling of the pitching staff, and Piniella is worse than Torre in that regard.
Plus, though this team needs a fire lit under it, I’m not so sure that Piniella is the right guy to do that.
I definitely wouldn’t want to see Mazzilli take over for Torre.
Here’s the thing. If they do trade A-Rod, other than stealing Ramirez from the Cubs, who do they get that can come anywhere near A-Rod’s production? Yes, he’s been awful in the playoffs but they miss those playoffs without him last year, and he had some big moments throughout the year in 2006.
I realize Aaron Boone will be a free agent and he’s “clutch” since he hit the most clutch home run you can possibly hit (hey, never mind that the rest of his playoff performance was as awful as A-Rod’s, he knows when to turn it on, extra innings in a game 7). Don’t judge Boone on a season’s worth of work or even a handful of bad playoff games, he came up in the clutch, which A-Rod will never do (sarcasm button was on if this blog doesn’t support that).
Anyone else feeling a little gun shy on the potential Torre move? While I basically feel it needs to be done, I do like the guy and various blogs have scared me off of Piniella.
Jeremy, I’ve read that the LA teams are most interested in Arod. Notably the Angels. I dont know what we could get, but probably some combo of Kendrick, Gordon, Santana, Aybar. And if we don’t get a 3b, Cano came up as a 3b, so he could probably move there without too much hassle. I’m not worried about compensating for Arod’s loss. There’s not going to be a vacuum. There’ll be someone there. And please don’t forget about Damon, Jeter, Abreu, Giambi, Posada, Matsui & Cano. That’s more than enough for a lineup. Having Arod didn’t make much difference anyway. Look at this year, they lost 2 guys with 200+ rbi and still won the division.
And the 90s Yanks did a lot more with a lesser lineup. On Boone, no, I DONT want him. I KNOW how badly he did outside of the Wakefield HR.
Shit. This Piniella stuff scares me. I’d rather have Torre another year than Piniella. In fact, I’d rather have almost anyone over Piniella.
With the group of players they have now, Torre is the best manager for this team. They don’t have a team that can be managed because of all the ego’s and Joe knows how to deal with them best. I actually commend him for the changes he made in Game 4. He probably knew they would lose anyway because I’m sure he could tell by the body language the team was dead. I don’t think this group of guys can be motivated by a manager no matter who that manager is. If anything you need to get rid of the group of players before you get rid of Torre, I think you get rid of both if anything.
They would still make the playoffs without ARod, the guy stunk in the clutch the whole year, so if anything they did worse with him in there, so thats a silly argument and he certainly didn’t help in the playoffs, so to say they wouldn’t be in the same position is ridiculous.
Also the best manager for this team is coaching across the city for the Mets…anyone have any thoughts on Willie being good for this team? I think he would be the perfect fit but I doubt he would leave the Mets but anything is possible.
I’d pass on Piniella…
If it’s “fire” and “intensity” that you want, why not hire Bowa?
Anyway, it’s not that big a deal. Torre isn’t the reason the Yanks didn’t hit in the DS.
Also the best manager for this team is coaching across the city for the Mets…anyone have any thoughts on Willie being good for this team?
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Had the Mets not called, he’d be Torre’s replacement, I thought