Dodgers: in the playoffs. Yankees: not.

MITCHELL BLATT

Joe Torre has now managed his team to the playoffs for thirteen straight years. In other news, the Yankees ended their streak of twelve straight playoff seasons and finished eight games behind the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Still happy with your decision to fire Torre, New York?

We’ve heard it all before: Torre can’t win in the playoffs. (He only has four rings.) He only got wild card last year. (Wild card is better than missing the playoffs.)

When you have the highest payroll in baseball, more is expected of you. But you can’t do much better than 12/12 on making the playoffs. The Yankees are a franchise. They should try to win every year. Obviously, the end goal is a World Series (and Torre has four of those), but only one team can win each year, so not winning doesn’t make a team bad.

There is no denying that Torre’s Yankees had been doing worse that past few years. They had lost in the divisional rounds for three straight years and only won a total of four games in the serieses, but if three years really enough to determine that the old manager no longer has it?

There really wasn’t a question that he could take a team to the playoffs, and he has proven that with the Dodgers. The question is if he can win in the playoffs, and that is hard to determine with the Yankees, where, if you don’t win the World Series, you’re considered a failure. Now that he is at the helm of the Dodgers, maybe it will be easier to evaluate him because there won’t be such impossible of a standard.

But at the end of the day, one thing matter: Dodgers: still playing, Yankees: not.

Links under the fold:

-More hyperventilating over LeBron possibly leaving Cleveland. Is this even a story anymore? (And One)

-Interview with Natalie Sitto, the blogger behind Need4Sheed.com. (Empty the Bench)

-Shaq playing around with midgets. (NESW)

-Sports Illustrated keep screwing the SEC. (Friends of the Program)

-On the Rams continued demise. (The Realests)

-The final installment of Iron Ref, round 10. Here we go. (Hugging Harold Reynolds)

Popularity: 6% [?]