Why Yankees manager Joe Torre needs to go

May 5, 2007 - 11:55 PM By Tom Covill PA SportsTicker Staff Writer

It's time for the New York Yankees to cut ties with the longest-tenured manager in the American League.

Joe Torre took a lot of flak from the New York media when the Yankees lost five of six games to the hated Boston Red Sox the past two weekends, dropping their record to an American League East-worst 9-14 at the time. But that's not the reason the 66-year-old skipper needs to go.

Despite his four World Series rings, Torre's weakness always has been his management of the bullpen, and that shortcoming was on full display during a doubleheader Thursday against the Texas Rangers.

Torre trotted out his ace closer, Mariano Rivera, not once, but twice in the two games - the second time with a comfortable three-run cushion and the bottom of the Rangers batting order coming to the plate.

Not only did this show a complete lack of trust in everybody else in the bullpen (all of whom, presumably, were fresh after Wednesday's game was rained out) but it exposed the 38-year-old to another injury - something New York's staff can ill afford with three pitchers on the disabled list and three more having just returned.

Rivera sat out much of September last season with a balky elbow. Torre promised in spring training that he would not use his closer for more than one inning at a time and would closely monitor his workload.

It didn't take long for Torre to break that promise, bringing Rivera in with one out in the eighth and a four-run lead against the Red Sox on April 20. Rivera blew the save.

Thursday's games in Texas were the final straw. Rivera and Kyle Farnsworth both pitched an inning in both games.

Some would argue that Rivera needs more work to be effective, and therefore two saves in one day may have done the future Hall-of-Famer some good.

But if Mike Mussina threw one inning and the game was stopped for a long rain delay, would he be expected to re-take the mound when the game resumed?

Letting Rivera go back to the mound with a three-run lead five hours after his first save was simply a poor decision. Torre is a master of manipulating egos and making the pieces of a $200 million machine fit together, but the bullpen has always been his glaring weakness.

This certainly was not the first time that Torre's bullpen management has been questioned. Torre owes Scott Proctor a written apology for last season, when the righthander pitched 102 1/3 innings in 83 appearances.

Proctor pitched in four games during a five-game series against Boston late last August, despite the Yankees holding big leads in three of the contests.

The 30-year-old Proctor, who was making less than $500,000 in 2006, was leaned on despite the fact that the club had spent big money to bring in Farnsworth and lefthander Mike Myers.

Proctor made just 29 appearances in 2005 - a total of 44 2/3 innings - but saw that total grow to 83 games and 102 1/3 innings in 2006. Those appearances included 19 on zero days rest and 36 on one days rest, along with 42 multiple-inning appearances.

Twice Proctor appeared in both games of a doubleheader in August.

This season, Proctor has appeared in 16 of the Yankees' first 27 games, a pace that would leave him close to 100 appearances at season's end. Luis Vizcaino, Brian Bruney and Myers also are on pace to get close to 100 appearances.

Ron Villone shared the abuse with Proctor last season as Torre's preferred lefthander out of the bullpen. The journeyman reliever caught lightning in a bottle in the beginning of the season, carrying a 2.25 ERA after his scoreless inning of work on August 15.

Torre decided to use Villone four games in a row beginning with that appearance August 15. Despite yielding two runs in two innings of work on the third day (August 17), Torre trotted the lefthander back out the next day, where the exhausted reliever proceeded to allow three earned runs.

Villone's ERA ballooned to 5.04 by season's end. After a 2006 campaign during which he was used on zero days rest 19 times and made 29 multiple inning appearances, Villone failed to make the Yankee's 2007 roster.

The list of casualties from Torre's overuse also include Paul Quantrill, Steve Karsay and Tanyon Sturtze. All of whom had arm problems that could directly be attributed to overuse.

Although part of the blame lies with general manager manager Brian Cashman, who has failed to allocate the $200 million dollars of resources the team possess in the bullpen, Torre's continued mismanagement of the relief corps has left the team shorthanded each October.

In a market that demands success every season, that should be enough to force Torre's dismissal.