Tuesday, March 04, 2008 |
Joe Torre's Honeymoon? What About Ned?
But I've been thinking a lot lately about how long Joe Torre's honeymoon will last in Los Angeles. I tend to think fans and the media will expect winning from the get-go. That might be an unreasonable expectation, even for a good team, in a division as tough as the 2008 National League West, but nevertheless, I think that a Torre backlash is waiting to happen. Once people who are preoccupied with his star quality see that he has blind spots like every other manager, the focus figures to turn from his strengths to his weaknesses. The backlash might not come right away, but it usually comes. The 2008 race might be too challenging for it not to.This becomes reminiscent of the Dodgers' 2005 campaign in which Jim Tracy made the same roster mistakes with other players, mainly Hee Seop Choi, though there were other hilarious gaffes, too, like his insistence on playing the likes of Jason Phillips at first, or Mike Edwards at all. (You might recall that Edwards — believe it or not — actually got the majority of playing time at third that year.) But ultimately, these kinds of decisions come down to the roster the general manager assembles, and in that case, the blame fell on Paul DePodesta. In 2005, you could defend some of that by noting that injuries were a huge part of the problem that year, since DePo's plan A at third was Jose Valentin.I think the fastest way for Torre to become unpopular in this city - not just for readers of this site, but on a widespread basis - will be to play Pierre regularly in a losing cause.
From that point, at least, you could criticize DePo for failing to assemble a team with adequate depth, and it's a fair charge; the dropoff from Valentin to Edwards is pretty staggering. Moreover, the expected production from Valentin had to be questionable to begin with, considering Valentin had just come off a .216/.287/.473 season playing in a slight hitter's ballpark. In 2008, plan A is Juan Pierre in the outfield, somewhere, and the vibe I'm getting from all the papers is that Pierre will end up in left. If that's the case, and Torre sticks to it, the person who needs to be blamed is Ned Colletti. While Torre will deserve some of the blame for that — after all, he does write the lineup card — he's hardly to blame for the players Colletti saddles him with. The overall consideration to me is that, as the roster churns and Colletti is responsible for more and more of it, the decisions being made are decreasingly optimal. The fact that Bill Plaschke hasn't killed him in print is really the only reason Colletti is still working in this town.
Labels: dodgers
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