Musical Managers

Joe Girardi has been named manager of the New York Yankees. It’s a 3-year deal worth an estimated $7.5 million. That’s a little more than the slap in the face offered to the departed Joe Torre. On the bright side, Girardi is less entrenched than Torre was, which should make him a little easier for the Steinbrenner kids to push around.

Girardi probably deserves better. As he was in Florida, he’s being set up to fail. With the Marlins, his problem was that he couldn’t drive that franchise into the ground and force the team to move elsewhere. Now he gets to succeed one of the most successful managers in big-league history while one of baseball’s most notorious owners hands the reins over to his sons, who appear eager to leave their mark on the club they’re inheriting.

And you can be sure, they will leave a mark.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Grady Little has resigned as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Presumably this opens the door for Torre, while Little gets to make good on his plan to “play with my grandkids.”

Despite Torre’s track record in New York, I’m not sure he’s the right guy for the Dodgers. My gripe isn’t so much with Torre as it is with the fact that I don’t think the Dodgers are quite where they believe they are in terms of being competitive in the NL West.

As we saw down the stretch in ‘07, this division has become very tough. Frankly, if the Dodgers are going to be a serious player next season, they’ll need to make some aggressive moves over the winter. Actually, they were plenty aggressive last winter; this time they need to be smart as well.

Torre has demonstrated the ability to work well with big-league egos, with guys who are accustomed to fighting for (and winning) championships. How will he respond to a team that isn’t assured a spot in the postseason? How will that team respond to him?

And can his grandkids play with Little’s grandkids, or would that be awkward?

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