Insulting

I don't really care what the Yankee higher ups say about Torre for turning down an opportunity to manage the Yankees again, from a logical and rational standpoint Torre made the right choice. What this offer came down to was a difference in what was fair. Unfortunately for Torre he got the raw end of the proposed deal because it was a business decision, nothing personal--though in the end it's become that.

So what was the different in fairness? From the Yankee higher up standpoint, despite the perceived changing of guards, the Steinbrenner Doctrine as Buster Onley calls it, is still in place. All that matters is the championship, winning it and as soon as it is won, another one is needed. Not winning the championship is failure and there no excuses because the Yankees can spend and trade away any year they want to reach such success.

Anyhow, the Yankees took a page out of the book of corporate America in offering Torre a deal. Imagine the Yankees as a private company and they hire Torre to manage the operations with the goal being to have the highest profit of all companies. At first he does this in the first four of five years, but since (seven years), although he's been close, he hasn't reined the most profit in. So he has a performance review and the options on a table are: 1) fire Torre, 2) bring back Torre for a few more years, or 3) bring back Torre but give him additional goals to meet with incentives. The additional goals make sense as a business decision because some have not been met in the past few years (winning ALDS, ALCS, World Series). Additionally, because of Torre's lack of performance he gets a paycut--he was getting paid too much for too little the last few years. But if Torre meets all the goals, in the new deal he'll make more than he ever has before and get another year to do it again.

So from a business sense Torre didn't perform, so he got a paycut and less years in a contract offer. But if he did perform well, he could make more money and save his job another season.

But like the corporate America today, the decision left out things like having made the playoffs every year for 12 years straight, winning all those World Series up to 2000, and this season turning it around and making the playoffs when it looked like they wouldn't make it at all. It left out the leadership Torre had displayed, the respect his players had for him, and the loyalty the fans had for him. All of that doesn't go into a business decision because you can't put numbers to it.

And that's why it wasn't fair to Torre. The humanistic element was left out of it. There was no loyalty, no input from the players, and it added more pressure for him and his team to perform next year. Even if Torre accepted, he could have been fired if the Yankees started off terribly. Either way you looked at it, he was on a tighter leash, on the hook, back against the wall, it's not how Joe Torre played the game. It wasn't about the money, it was going to be there--this is the Yankees afterall.

To me, that's not how you treat an employee, it is insulting, and I think the Yankees will regret this decision.