Joe Torre!! JOE TORRE!! Give Me a Fucking Break!

Can everybody please stop fellatiating Joe Torre, for chrissake?! It's seriously starting to piss me off. In the last two weeks, I've read more glowing reviews of his work in Los Angeles than I read in 5 years in New York, when he got his hands on 4 rings with the Yankees.

The Dodgers aren't winning because of Joe Torre. They're winning in spite of him. Lets run down a list of factors in this.

1) Manny Ramirez played 53 games in Los Angeles. He batted .396/.489/.743 with 17 homers and 53 RBI in that time. He was worth a run a fucking game!!! Pre-Manny, the Dodgers were a .500 team. With Manny, they were STILL only 6 games over .500... which brings us to #2.

2) They play in the NL West. This is, by far, the worst division in baseball. Everybody sucks. Look at how many games the San Francisco Giants won this year. Now name 3 good baseball players on that roster. I dare you. You can't do it! That division is awful. The Baltimore Orioles could have won that division. The Kansas City Royals could have won that division. The Toronto Blue Jays would have won 100+ games if they played half their games in that division.

3) Look at the at bats that Andruw Jones, Nomar Garciaparra and Juan Pierre took this year. And consider that you could have gotten better production from a kid at Triple A... because Joe Torre notoriously sucks up to veterans at the cost of younger, more talented players.

Facts being facts, if the Dodgers were in any other division in baseball they wouldn't be in the playoffs. In fact, the AL West is the only division where they'd even rank as high as second!!

Here's the Dodger's placement, based on their record, by division.

AL East - 5th Place, 13 games back of 1st Place, Tampa Bay.
AL Central - 3rd Place, 5 games back of 1st Place, Chicago.
AL West - 2nd Place, 16 games back of 1st Place, Los Angels of Anaheim via Kentucky University of Georgia.

NL East - 4th Place, 8 games back of 1st Place, Philadelphia.
NL Central - 5th Place, 13 games back of 1st Place, Choke-ago Curses.

Here's a list of teams that missed the playoffs with a better record than the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Record GB Team
89-73 - New York Mets
89-73 - New York Yankees
88-75 1.5 Minnesota Twins
86-75 2.5 Houston Astros
86-76 3.0 St. Louis Cardinals
86-76 3.0 Toronto Blue Jays
84-77 4.5 Florida Marlins
84-78 5.0 Los Angeles Joe Torres

So I guess what we're really dealing with is this simple fact.

When Joe Torre is your coach, your team gets to choose which division it plays in.

Next Stop! Dodger Blue!!!

So in case you haven't heard, Willie Randolph is no longer the Manager of the New York Mets. He lasted a while, he had some good times and alas, he's fired in the middle of the night, 3,000 miles from home, after a win.

They let this guy twist in the wind for a month and then shit-canned him in the farthest possible place from home. Seems like a pretty harsh set of circumstances for a guy who's really not to blame for how bad the Mets have been this year.

You probably realize that the Mets payroll this year is around $140 Million, but as a Yankee fan, I'll be the first person to tell you that when your team is doling out that much payroll, a LOT of it is going to guys who aren't giving you the sort of production you were getting when you signed them. And spending money's no guarantee of winning a fucking thing any more.

Delgado is a $16 Million-a-year dead body.
Moises Alou's making $7.5 Million... and he's played in 15 games.
Pedro's on the books for $11 Million.
El Duque's getting another $7 Million to be the Mets answer to Carl Pavano jokes.

People got caught up in the "collapse" or the idea that the Mets had a bad month last September. The fact of the matter is they're a poorly constructed team and it caught up to them.

Reliable hitters in the Mets Lineup: David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church (DL)
Reliable arms in the Mets Rotation/Bullpen: Johan Santana, John Maine, Pedro Feliciano, Billy Wagner

Point is, Willie's the scapegoat because Omar Minaya failed to understand that a few of guys have overachieved for the last year or two (Oliver Perez, Jose Reyes) and a bunch more were going to decline dramatically or be hurt (Delgado, Castillo, Pedro, El Duque, Alou).

The bottom line is that the GM needs to get shit-canned along with the manager. And I think we all know that Willie's going to end up in Los Angeles, where he can resume his former job of sleeping on the bench next to Joe Torre.