Incentives

Murray Chass writes this morning.

In his interview with Costas, Torre expanded his views of the incentives.

“I don’t think incentives are necessary,” he said. “I’ve never needed to be motivated. Plus, in my contract, I get a million-dollar bonus if we do win the World Series. So that’s always been there. And, you know, as far as needing incentive to go ahead and win a ballgame, that I thought, I used the term insulting.”

Torre referred to a $1 million bonus for winning the World Series. He indeed had that in his last two contracts, which covered the last six years of his employment. In the 2002-4 contract, he was able to earn $200,000 for winning the division series, $300,000 for winning the league championship series and $500,000 for winning the World Series.

The 2005-7 contract eliminated the division series bonus but provided $400,000 for winning the league championship series and $600,000 for winning the World Series, the bonuses still adding to a maximum $1 million.

Obviously Torre did not object to those bonuses, did not reject them as insulting. He signed those contracts and readily accepted the incentives they offered. Even though the Yankees didn’t win the World Series in those six years, Torre earned $700,000 of a possible $3 million in the first contract but nothing in the second because the Yankees lost the division series each year.

Interesting. He goes on to write that back before the 2007 season Torre had talked about a one-year deal with Steve Swindall, before Swindall was disappeared from Yankeeland. Fair points.

But isn't it interesting that the same columnist who couldn't be bothered to learn what VORP is and means (a highly useful stat for evaluating player's offensive contribution), took the time to investigate Torre's past contracts at the commissioner's office. Oh, but wait, he didn't really do the investigation.

With the benefit of details obtained from information on file in the commissioner’s office, we now know that Torre either suffered a lapse of memory Friday or was counting on his questioners not knowing about some of his contracts with the Yankees, the last two in particular.

I wonder how those documents were "obtained."

Clearly, the Yankees are fighting back in the PR war with Joe Torre. But Randy Levine really should move on -- despite rants such as this Yankee fans have, as we debate Mattingly v Girardi and wait for A-Rod to opt out -- because every baseball fan in the world knows that Torre knew he couldn't manage a team for which management didn't want him managing.