Could Torre Have Gotten Sabathia?

Less than a week ago I ranted about the Yankees not doing enough to woo coveted lefty CC Sabathia and now others have started to catch on.

Richard Justice of the Sporting News thinks the problem isn’t with general manager Brian Cashman, but instead with the absence of former manager Joe Torre. Justice may be on to something.

In the 80's the Yankees had trouble getting some of the top talent in the draft because players didn’t think all the attention was really worth it. In the early 90's the Yankees even lost a bidding war over Greg Maddux to the Atlanta Braves partially because Maddux didn’t feel like New York was right for him.

Then under Torre things changed. As Justice points out, he was even able to talk Mike Mussina, who had formally sworn that there was no chance of him becoming a Yankee, into coming to the Bronx. He took him on a personal tour of the area and made sure that he realized there would be no club house issues.

Today there is nobody to do that unless you count LeBron James. Even Derek Jeter said that he had talked with Sabathia on the phone recently, but denied that the conversation was a recruitment call like somehow that was a bad thing.

Once again I’m putting the call out there, the Yankees need to step up their game when it comes to wooing the hefty lefty. They’ve already made a $140 million offer and just merely increase that might not be enough. They have to go out there and let Sabathia know just how important his arm will be in the Bronx.

Theo Epstein would have done it and Torre probably would have too. Cashman and Joe Girardi have been mostly absent here and that worries me.

This article originally appeared at the Bronx Baseball Daily.