Managerial changes in Tampa & Charleston
ByThe Yankees announced two managerial changes in the lower levels of the minors today. First, Low-A Charleston manager Torre Tyson has been promoted to High-A Tampa, where he replaces Luis Sojo (yes, that Luis Sojo) as manager. I honestly have no idea why Sojo left/was let go, but I do know he’s had a few disagreements with management over the years. Tyson was at the helm of the River Dogs for the last three years, and with a 232-186 career record, he’s the winningest manager in franchise history.
Replacing Tyson as Charleston’s manager is Greg Colbrunn, who served as the team’s hitting coach since 2007. He replaced Tyson at that job too. Colbrunn, of course, is a former big leaguer, having played for seven teams in 13 years and retiring in 2004 as a .289-.338-.460 hitter. He was part of the Diamondbacks squad that beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. Congrats to both guys, especially Tyson, who by accounts is a class act and will some day be managing in the show.
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Charleston is low-A, Tampa is high-A, that makes Staten Island just A? I know this sounds stupid but I am just confused.
Technically speaking…
High-A = “Class-A Advanced”
Low-A = “Class-A”
Staten Island is in “Class-A Short Season,” because they only play half a season. It’s below the other two.
Thanks, that makes sense, the schedule is short but I was thinking of seeing a game this season.
Staten Island games are awesome and I highly recommend them.
Cecala, you will love the stadium at Staten Island, overlooking NY harbor, and, I agree, the games tend to be awesome.
Luis Sojo will be missed.
Due to the reincarnation of “We Are The World” with all the new famous stars (plus some old ones, i.e. Lionel Ritchie who by the way never aged and may look younger than when he participated in the song 25 years ago), I propose we here at RAB do our own charity song.
The proposed song is a mixture of Rancid’s “Ruby Soho” and the old Kingsmen song “Louie Louie”. It shall be called “Louie Louie Sojo”.
Half the proceeds will go towards helping Haiti and the other half will go towards a Luis Sojo plaque in Monument Park that reads John Sterling’s famous compliment about him “The best .200 hitter ever”.
I think we could do a good one with just Ruby Soho.
Destination unknown. Louie louie louie-louie So-jo.
Sounds like a hit. We may give the original “We Are The World”, and it’s $30 million raised, a run for its money.
one of my fav bands. can’t wait til they come around again.
His other aliases on the plaque could be his pen name “Harry Pelotas”
Sounds like a job for The Bleeding Deacons.
I’m sure he’s a brilliant manager and tactician, but the names “Torre” and “Tyson” give me the heebie jeebies. Those two names haven’t been associated with smart decisionmaking recently.
hangover-tyson-in the air tonight.
made of so much awesome, kittens purr at its mere unwrapping.
i really want to see him start coaching at the MLB level sooner, rather than later.
in freakishly related news, from facebook:
Cxxxx Wxxxxxx Rxxxxx i hate this stupid cold…
10 minutes ago · Comment · Like
Txx Rxxxxx stupid cold what?
WHY IS MY BURRITO TAKING SO LONG TO COOK IN THIS MICROWAVE!!!11!!
torre tyson? what were his parents thinking?
steve b’d
Who WAS that dude? That was WEIRD.
he was manic and scary
He started hitting on me.
Between this guy today and barry last night, I think it’s safe to say that we need baseball NOW.
Amen.
The funniest part of all of that was, what percentage of RAB posters don’t already know that my government name is Eric? Like, 2%, tops?
So, therefore, my parents never gave me the name “Archimedes Torquemada” and blah blah blah.
Bizarre.
It was like, he started off seeimg to be semi-normal, then I thought he was just engaging in the banter normal to the RAB world. Then he wouldn’t stop, his banter got weirder, and he stopped making relevant somments. It was, decidedly, odd.
somments=comments
Meh, Steve B. appears to have just been a bored troll, whereas barry appeared to be a hot-tempered, red-blooded ‘merican with a potty mouth and a strange persecution complex.
Both should be ignored.
Now, in an effort to be efficient, to respond to your post below, Rick, I may not be Mike but it would appear that the organizational void would be at hitting coach, so it stands to reason they’d fill it externally or promote from GCL or SI, at which point they’d fill that spot externally.
The important lessons to be learned from that episode:
1.) I have low self esteem. I promise to correct that problem for you guys by immediately thinking higher of myself and being more narcissistic. I won’t let you down.
2.) I don’t, use, enough commas. I had, no idea, that I needed, to use, more, until now. I’m, sorry.
Narcissism: Drowning yourself because of your reflection.
That is, in fact, the original myth after all.
Mike – Are you a bit surprised to see staff changes this close to camp? With Colbrunn taking the managerial slot, does this mean a new hitting coach will be hired in Charleston?
Yeah, a little. That’s why I wonder what’s going on with Sojo, it seems like odd timing. I’m sure Charleston will have a new hitting coach in place by the start of ST, if they don’t already.
Maybe we just found out that he lied on his resume.
Assistant GM Jean Afterman: Wait a second.. Luis Sojo never served in Vietnam! WE’VE BEEN DUPED!!!
LULZ. Fun Fact: George O’Leary served in Canad’am and also fought in the Battle of New Mexico City, defeating a troop of Lithuanian soldiers to preserve the ancient pueblo city walls.
Watching Luis Sojo manage was kind of like watching Joe Torre manage the 2007 Yankees. Lots of betting if he would fall asleep on the bench.
Luis Sojo makes Joe Torre look like Malcolm X.
/inexplicable’d
I thought Torre did a decent job in the 07′ regular season. The 07′ postseason, though, now that was a different matter.
in fact, replace decent with very good. That was quite a turnaround.
I think in Torre’s and Sojo’s cases their success was due more towards their players than their own genius moves. Both did a lot of eyelid checks during the regular season.
THIS.
I will disagree. Reading the Torre book, he was not nearly as “asleep” as he seemed. He calld tons of meetings, and in fact refers to a particular meeting in Toronto as the turning point of the year.
So your evidence that Torre wasn’t asleep at the wheel is… Torre’s book where he says he wasn’t asleep at the wheel and blames pretty much every failure, large or small, on everyone other than himself?
Hmmm… yeah. No.
I’m not going by his opinions or statements. That the meetings happened is pretty indsputable, so pointing out a certain meeting as a turnaround, (Not to mention, the team did turn around) doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Nor do I think that it’s unreasonable to draw the conclsuion from this that Torre did a very good job with the 2007 Yankees.
That the meetings happened is pretty indsputable, so pointing out a certain meeting as a turnaround, (Not to mention, the team did turn around) doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png (safe)
I KNOW. You don’t think that the meeting was a major factor, I do. Therefore, we are at an impasse.
I think that a lot of the blog fails to give Torre due credit a lot of the time though.
Just a quick counterpoint:
Joba’s ML debut was during that 2007 season. Joba’s August and September addition solidified a bullpen that had been shaky to that point (as it had been for the prior few seasons, mind you).
Joe Torre’s boss had to give Torre a strict set of rules to keep Joe Torre from PERMANENTLY BREAKING his new bullpen addition (as he had done during the prior few regular seasons, mind you). Keep that in mind when you claim that Joe Torre’s great managerial acumen was on display during Torre’s “pretty decent to very good” display of Managing 101 during the 2007 regular season.
Torre has his flaws, and I don’t deny them. But you can’t:
A) Blame Torre for something he MIGHT have done with Joba but didn’t do (yes he had rules, but still).
B) Use that as evidence that his managing in other aspects of the game is bad. His bullpen management is irrelevant to his skills in motivating players and getting mixed personalities to gel into a good team, also an imprtant part of managing.
The reason the Joba Rules existed is because Torre broke/exhausted Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill, Scott Proctor, Steve Karsay, etc. etc. etc.
They put the
Joba RulesTorre Rules in place because of Torre’s history of breaking his bullpens by drastically overusing his top 2-3 relievers.Both points are unaffected. At best, you’re saying Torre WOULD have broken Joba (not an out there assumption but still, it didn’t happen), and the other aspects of his management have nothing to do with that aspect. So in effect your comment refuted neither of my points.
I think we assign way too much credit and blame to managers, particularly when it comes to things like “motivating” and “managing personalities”. How can we really know if they gelled or not? I think Torre was also aided by a strong “core” of respected players. Perhaps Torre was a key component of that, but it’s hard to separate what he did and what was part of the actual mentality of the clubhouse.
Furthermore, it’s not a game like football or basketball where there are defined strategies for plays. It’s almost always, “this is my starting pitcher, this is my starting lineup—let’s see where this goes and then we’ll make some changes if it’s not really working out.” There aren’t really “game plans.”
Sure, those changes are important, but aside from the bullpen management (which I think Torre was particularly poor at), what’s really there to do? Maybe a hit-and-run in one inning, or a stolen base, a bunt at some spot, a pinch hitter?
The point is I believe the manager has far less impact on the game than we like to believe. They maybe have a say in a few important moves in the game. Unless we’re in Billy Martin territory.
Tehn all debates and comments about managers are basically pointless since they have very little impact on the game. So saying Torre looked “asleep” isn’t even that ridiculous, because what could he do anyway?
Also, saying Torre LOOKED asleep is just as ridiculous as me saying that, necasue the team drastically improved after a big meeting in Toronto, that he helped gel the personalities. We really don’t know.
Perhaps. But if you’re asleep, wake up, scratch your nuts and just say “Scott Proctor, yeah, you’re up” and go back to bed, there comes a point in which it’s detrimental.
I see what you’re saying—it must go both ways—if he was bad, fine, but we should also give him credit for successes. The problem is we don’t have a WAR or any kind of metric to evaluate managers. If I were actually severely mentally handicapped and somehow were chosen to manage an MLB team (I mean, c’mon, Brendan Fraser and a monkey made it to the big leagues) and they were STACKED and won in spite of my decisions, should I take credit for them winning 5 championships in 8 seasons?
Both points are unaffected. At best, you’re saying Torre WOULD have broken Joba (not an out there assumption but still, it didn’t happen), and the other aspects of his management have nothing to do with that aspect. So in effect your comment refuted neither of my points.
No.
What I’m saying is, the reason Torre didn’t break Joba like he broke other bullpen pitchers before his is because Joe Torre’s powers as a manager were intentionally curtailed by his superiors to prevent him from ever having the chance to break Joba. Joe Torre’s decisionmaking process as a manager was so untrustworthy by 2007 that his bosses stepped in and made the unprecedented step of banning him from using the players on his roster however he saw fit .
That’s a pretty damning statement. Good managers don’t need to be told by their bosses, “Don’t pitch this new 21 year old kid we’re giving you–who is the future of our franchise, mind you–every fucking day or his arm will fall off.”
Right, but what does that have to do with the other aspects of his management?
Joe Torre is bad at managing the bullpen. Okay, that’s established. Now what does that have to do with the other aspects of management?
TIt’s not that easy. You can’t just “cruise” to twelve straight playoff appearances, 7 pennants, and 4 world series.
That is tremendously difficult. Four World Series is a TON of World Series. That’s as many as the Mets and Phillies combined.
What other aspects of management are there, really?
He’s not the pitching coach or the hitting coach. He’s not actively improving the skills of any of his players.
What responsibilities does he have other than making in game decisions and managing egos? And, of those two, which is the more important? The former.
You say “Oh, well, he’s not good with managing a bullpen” like it’s not by far the most important part of his job as manager. It is.
The only other really important thing a manager does is guiding a team to the finish line AND keeping them fresh and ready for the playoffs. Torre didn’t really do that well either.
Yeah, he only won four world series and went to 7. He was terrible at keeping them in good shape for the playoffs.
Bullpen management is important. But why do you just assume it’s more important than personality management? Right now at any rate, no stats quantify personality management (not that it’s impossible, you’d need to implement polls or something), so we don’t know.
So your evidence that Torre wasn’t asleep at the wheel is… Torre’s book where he says he wasn’t asleep at the wheel and blames pretty much every failure, large or small, on everyone other than himself?
I just wanted to say it again, but fancier and with more emphasis.
I already responded.
I liked the part in that book where they had a huge meeting and then… lost the game, but Torre was like “well we had a meeting so it’s okay!”
I liked more when the team played teriffic baseball the rest of the season and made the playoffs. But I guess Torre gets no credit for his sucess and only blame for his failures.
I’m with you that Torre doesn’t get enough credit and was partially the victim of a lot of bad luck after 2001-ish, but that doesn’t mean that part in the book wasn’t kind of funny to me.
A) The 2007 Yankees team was full of terrific players. Having them play terrifically over a larger sample isn’t all that uncommon.
B) The 2007 Yankees played better baseball during the second half of 2007 primarily because Kyle Farnsworth was replaced by Joba Chamberlain and Kei Igawa/Darrell Rasner/Matt DeSalvo/Tyler Clippard were replaced by Roger Clemens and Phil Hughes. There’s that, too.
Of course there’s that, but the fact is that they were 10 games back early and below five hundred as late as, I believe June, and Torre guided them into a playoff berth. Obviously, the manager wasn’t the only person responsible. However there was a reason they were all playing bad, and Torre corrected it.
However there was a reason they were all playing bad, and Torre corrected it.
You THINK he fixed it. You THINK that.
Yes, I do. As I said above, we are at an impasse on this point. I just think that the people on this blog give Torre no credit for his sucesses and all the blame for his failures.
And we have pretty valid reasons for doing so.
But on the flip side, how do you know that what he did had no effect? How do you know that he REALLY did nothing?
I offered a way in which Torre tried to take control of the team and you shot it down, saying that we don’t know that it had any effect on the team anyway. So what exactly should he have done? And remember bfore you answer that he was doing a lot behind the scenes anyway.
Allright, I believe Girardi overmanged to excess in the playoffs, underused certain pitchers, and tried to tinker too much with lineup in the WS. I also think he lost control of the team at times, evidenced when Cashman had to visit Atlanta to get the team under control. Therefore, I feel the team won despite, not because of, Girardi.
Yes, he had a 103 win season, but they started slow, and with that talent, it’s no surprise they ended so strong. Anyway, he eeded Cashman to bail him out both in Atlanta and by getting him the nicest toys to play with in the offseason, and even then in the playoffs he does such shit as pulling Roberson vs. the Angels in the ALCS, catching Molina and not Posada vs. Burnett, and using a 3-man rotation (particularly bad in the WS).
The team would have been better with a different manager, so therefore I give Girardi no credit for the sucess, and all the blame for the failure. See, I could do it too.
You didn’t offer evidence of a way in which Torre positively affected the team..
You offered evidence of Joe Torre saying “I, Joe Torre, positively affected the team”. That’s some pretty shitty evidence.
He held meetings, the team improved. What more evidence do you want? In that case, it’s impossible to judge how any manager is afffecting any team.
“and using a 3-man rotation (particularly bad in the WS).”
Okay I know this has been discussed everywhere like 80 million times, and while I agree Girardi had quite a few head-scratchers in the playoffs, what other options did he have there, Gaudin? If anything, not using Gaudin was particularly GOOD in the WS, because lefties devour him and the Phillies obviously have a lot of lefty power.
I was being completely sarcastic. I like Girardi, I was just pointing out how, in hindsight, any manager could be made to look like they were a detriment to the team.
Ah. Okay, that makes sense.
The Yankees won the World Series. That doesn’t mean that Girardi didn’t make decisions that made me want to scream at times, including during the postseason. The same goes for Torre. But overall, I think they both did a pretty good job. The teams they were generally given helped. I think their flaws seem magnified because we watch them so intently. For someone who’s considered such a genius, I thought Scioscia did a pretty poor job during the ALCS. Pinch-hitting for the insanely hot Mathis with Maicer Izturis? Putting the last out in the bat of Gary Matthews Jr.?
As to the whole “Girardi lost the team in Atlanta, Cashman had to get them back” thing, well, keep in mind that I think it’s pretty much the whole narrative thing that the media loves to do and the 2009 Yankees didn’t win the WS because of this game, nor did the 1998 Yankees win because of that brawl with the Orioles or whatever else, but the Yankees were STILL getting no-hit in that game, even after Cashman’s meeting with the team, until Girardi got himself kicked out.
How will this affect Melvin?
It won’t, he already signed with the Rockies
my friend ran into luis sojo at city hall in Caracas, Venezuela a few weeks ago. he said sojo was trying to get some inner city baseball thing going. he also manages a very good Venezuelan winter league team.
My friend’s girlfriend’s sister’s neighbor’s favorite clerk at the local deli living in Caracas said that Luis Sojo is actually staging a coup of Chavez and plans to become supreme leader of Venezuela.
(Just messing with you.)
[...] Axisa at RAB points out some minor managerial moves in the lower levels of the Yankees’ farm [...]
[...] promoting Greg Colbrunn to manager of Low-A Charleston last week, the Yankees filled his previous gig as the team’s hitting [...]