Stepping Down

Joe Torre, the long-time manager of the New York Yankees, is stepping down from his job.

Today, Torre rejected a 1-year offer for $5 million dollars a year that still would have made him the highest paid manager in baseball. "It's a difficult day," general manager Brian Cashman said.

Don Mattingly , the bench coach for the Yankees is expected to replace Torre as manager next season, but broadcaster Joe Girardi, the NL Manager of the Year with Florida in 2006, is another top contender. Torre led the Yanks to 12 straight playoff appearances and won four World Series championships.

This was a day, that the fans in New York could see coming though. After getting to the World Series in 2003, the Yankees had high expectations for the next few years, but no rings came out of it... not even 1. Under Torre, the Yankees went 1,173-767. He trails only Joe McCarthy (1,460) for wins among Yankees managers.

This is the 2nd big loss to the Yankee organization in the past week, as owner George Steinbrunner stepped down and gave the Yankees to his sons, Hank and Hal.

"It is now time for the New York Yankees to move forward," Levine said

What's Wrong With New York?

The New York Yankees have been.... well, have been awful this year. They started with one of the worst records in Yankee history, and there is one main reason why. Their pitching.

They started the year with key pitchers Mike Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang on the DL. This led to Carl Pavano being the starting pitcher on opening day. The 2nd pitcher was Andy Pettite, who was coming back to New York for the 2nd time. He was a disappointment. From then on, they had new, young pitchers, or old pitchers. The problem started to get well documented during the Yankees 7-game losing streak during mid April.

This problem is being backed up by the strong play of their batting lineup. Star Alex Rodriguez , who is in a contract year has had a record breaking April hitting a couple game winning homers and getting 14 home runs.

Because of their struggles, Joe Torre was supposedly on the chopping block. GM Brian Cashman also had his job on the line. But according to George Steinbrenner, their jobs were safe.

With the Yankees extremely high payroll though, I don't understand why they wouldn't get or even try to get free agents Gil Meche or Ted Lilly.

It will be cool to see if they do anything about this problem.