Why Is Torre Managing the Dodgers?

Joe Torre has been hired to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers — $13 million for 3 years. As I mentioned the other day when Grady Little stepped down, I respect Torre a great deal for his work in New York, but I don’t think he’s the right guy for the Dodgers given their circumstances.

Bill Plaschke compares the Dodgers hiring of Torre to “installing leather seats in a jalopy.” First off, when is the last time you heard someone use the word “jalopy”? Second, I’m not sure Plaschke has a clear grasp of what, exactly, Torre brings to the table jalopy bench:

He will do wonders for the career of Russell Martin, catcher taking care of catcher, the way Torre took care of Jorge Posada.

Martin’s career is doing just fine without Torre’s help. To suggest that Torre “will do wonders” for Martin is to suggest that the latter will turn into Mike Piazza or Johnny Bench. Look, I have to watch Martin play on the opposing team several times a year — he’s a fantastic young player who scares the heck out of me — but he’s not Bench or Piazza, and no amount of cajoling (or “taking care,” if you prefer Plaschke’s phrase) will change that.

He could make a star out of James Loney, much the way his calm nature helped make a star out of Derek Jeter.

Lessee, Torre’s calm nature versus Jeter’s talent. I’m thinking Jeter’s talent may have played a role, but I could be wrong.

He will be great for the confused bullpen, every man given a single role, every single night, Beimel to Broxton to Saito in the manner of Stanton to Nelson to Rivera.

As someone who has watched his team’s manager slavishly follow the same formula over and over again, I can tell you it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Situations should dictate action, but in an era when the “save” stat is glorified beyond reason (and makes for a nice chip at the bargaining table), I can almost understand this fixation on creating defined roles for every last man in the bullpen.

Almost.

Plaschke’s misunderstanding of the Dodgers’ situation aside, I still think that Torre is a bad fit for this club. He has a roster of talented young ballplayers who need to make the transition to big-league contributors. You don’t bring Torre in to develop young players, you bring him in to win championships.

The Dodgers finished fourth in the NL West in ‘07. Their GM, Ned Colletti, worked under Brian Sabean in San Francisco for many years and picked up the latter’s tendency to overpay for veteran players of questionable value.

When you have a stable full of young talent, that’s not necessarily the best strategy. The Dodgers are sitting on a gold mine, and they don’t know it. Now that Torre is in Los Angeles, there’s increased pressure to produce right away, which means that some of the kids will get squeezed out in favor of more proven commodities.

I guess my real point — and I’m getting to this in a very roundabout way — is that the Dodgers’ key strength from a player personnel standpoint is an abundance of young talent. Their front office, on the other hand, is more veteran oriented. So, now, is their field manager.

If the Dodgers were just a piece or two away from championship caliber, then I’d understand the hiring of Torre. Given where they actually are, though, it seems more like window dressing, an attempt to attract attention so that — well, just because.

As a Padres fan, I’m fascinated to see how much damage Colletti and company are willing to do to their farm system in the name of providing Torre with bit players to help complete what they think the puzzle is. The Dodgers have gotten the baseball world’s attention with this hiring. What remains to be seen is how quickly they tire of that attention.

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