Wave Goodbye, Joe!

So, the Yankees have been unceremoniously ushered from the postseason by a Cleveland team full of 26-year old nobodies. And, since this is becoming a fairly regular thing, the time of scapegoating is upon us. And, since a team not being to able to perform is always the manager's fault, of course Yankees' skipper Joe Torre has fallen directly in the crosshairs. I, for one, think the Yankees' front office of George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman are aiming at the wrong guy. They should be aiming at themselves.

It's no secret that the Yankees have a tendency to try and win championships by buying them, paying top dollar for the best talent available. It's also no coincidence that this practice started roughly the same time that Steinbrenner took over the team. And, on paper, it's a great idea. But it doesn't work (not all the time, at least). Del Webb owned the Yankees for 19 years; he won 11 Series in that time. Steinbrenner has owned them for 34 and counting; he's won six. In the Steinbrenner era, before Torre (who's been the manager for 12 years), the Yankees went to the postseason six times, winning two Series. Since Torre, they've gone to the postseason every year, and won four Series.

And they could probably win more, if, every year, Cashman and Steinbrenner didn't saddle him with their real-life rotisserie team that they've paid WAY too much money to put together. And they aren't getting much for their $195 million, which is $50 million more than the second-highest team, namely because they just throw money away. (By contrast, three of the four teams remaining in the postseason are in the bottom eight in payroll.)

$28 million for Roger Clemens, who turns 56 this year, to pitch whenever the hell he feels like it. $23 million for Jason Giambi to, apparently, do nothing but blow the lid off the whole steroid thing. $10 million for Carl Pavano to remain in a constant state of disability.

They also love to sign players well after the iron has cooled. Johnny Damon: Great player...with the Royals and Red Sox. The Andy Pettitte they brought back from Houston (at top dollar) is not the same Pettitte that left for Houston. And losing Soriano and assuming the debt load on Alex Rodriguez's contract may have seemed like a good deal at the time, but...hey, that A-Rod sure puts up some great numbers, don't he?

What Steinbrenner and Cashman don't seem to understand is that the Yankees of the '00s are not the Yankees of the '50s: they just aren't going to win every year. And throwing more money at the problem isn't going to help.

Remember the Cleveland Indians? Two years after closing out the '90s with five straight division wins and two trips to the Series, they flushed the entire franchise down the toilet and started over again. And now they're playing for another trip to the Series.

I think the Yankees need to take a look at this strategy. They have close to $100 mil in contracts coming due, and it might not be wise of them to spend all of that in one place, as they usually would. There IS affordable talent out there. You don't have to sign the entire All-Star roster. Hell, the Yankees' best pitcher isn't even making $500,000; there are more (younger) players out there who are that good.

But, these are the Yankees. They've fucked themselves by putting all of their eggs in the same basket, letting A-Rod's contract come up the same year as Posada, Abreu, and Rivera's. So, they either lose a good portion of their team and start over, or they resign the whole thing and end up with the same team next year that couldn't do anything this year.

And all this is Joe Torre's fault HOW?

There is a ray of hope: reports are coming down that Steinbrenner is giving up control of the team to his sons. Hopefully, they're a little bit more sensible than their old man. And they'll keep around the best manager they're likely to see in a long time.