Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Yes, this relates to baseball, and yes, we’ve established that I’m a baseball nut. But wait — there is a business connection! In particular, there’s a key lesson in how not to run a ball club (corporation, taco stand . . .), courtesy of Mr. George Steinbrenner.

First, the context:

Report: Steinbrenner says Torre’s job on the line against Indians

Win or else! That was George Steinbrenner’s message to Joe Torre before the New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Indians 8-4 on Sunday night.

With the Yankees trailing 2-0 before Sunday’s win in the best-of-five, first-round playoff series, Steinbrenner reverted to the blustering boss of old and said Torre likely wouldn’t return as manager unless New York reaches the AL Championship Series for the first time in three years.

“His job is on the line,” the owner was quoted in Sunday’s editions of The Record of New Jersey. “I think we’re paying him a lot of money. He’s the highest-paid manager in baseball, so I don’t think we’d take him back if we don’t win this series.”

New York then rallied from a three-run deficit in Game 3 to force Game 4.

What possible benefit does Steinbrenner — or the Yankees — derive from airing this piece of laundry in public? Joe Torre belongs in the Hall of Fame for his managing career up through 2000, but he’s been pretty somnolent as a manager throughout this decade. He still has the same managerial weaknesses today that he did 15 years ago. (I’ll spare you the rehash of those weaknesses. Like I said, this is focused on the business side of the equation.) His team — which always has the highest payroll in baseball — has missed the American League Championship Series in each of the past two years. But Steinbrenner decided to pay Torre all that money, and Steinbrenner put the 2007 Yankees in Torre’s hands.

I can hear the Yankee faithful: “Doesn’t that give Steinbrenner the right to critize Torre?” Of course it does . . . but nothing is gained by doing it in public. It allows The Boss to vent his id, but (a) doesn’t help the team perform any better than if he delivered this message in private, and (b) creates an enormous distraction by setting off a media circus.

The Yankees didn’t lose Games 1 and 2 of this series because Torre was managing badly; they got beat by a good Indians team playing on the Indians’ home field. And they didn’t win last night because of Steinbrenner’s threats; they won because they’re loaded with good players and they’re a seriously good ball club. (Good enough, I guess, to tune out the media distractions that came with Torre’s threatened firing.) But they could lose in the long run because of Steinbrenner’s ultimatum, depending on how this series turns out.

• What if Torre actively mismanages the next two games but the Yankees win on a fluke anyway? Does the series win mean that Torre is reprieved from Steinbrenner’s threat?
• What if Torre manages the next one or two games brilliantly — brilliantly — but the Yankees lose on a fluke anyway? Does the series loss mean that Torre gets canned regardless?
• What if the Yankees win this series but then get blown out by the hated Red Sox in the League Championship Series — because of Torre’s mismanagement? Do you fire him because he’s a “bad” manager . . . or keep him because it’s more acceptable to lose in the League Championship Series than in the Division Series?

These conundrums would exist anyway for the Yankee top brass, but now that Steinbrenner has aired this laundry, they exist in public, where every Tom, Dick, and talk-show host can palaver endlessly over them. This being sports, the talk will in many cases devolve to discussions of personalities, character, “heart,” and so on. And all that talk will tend to obscure the basic challenge that confronts the Yankee leadership . . . and every leadership team . . . and every manager . . . throughout the life of any enterprise: Are we doing the best we can to succeed?

Maybe it is time for Torre to go — but painting yourself into a corner over the outcome of a best-of-five series is hardly the smart way to decide that. It’s hard enough putting the right people in the right roles within an organization; it’s a heck of a lot easier to do it when you’re doing it within the organization, rather than out in the public for all to see. With his ill-judged and ill-timed comments on Torre, George Steinbrenner has hampered his organization’s chances for success because he’s made his management team’s work that much harder. Maybe by now we should expect this from the mercurial Boss . . . but you’d hope he’d be smart enough to know better.