MSTI.com’s 2008 in Review: Manager Joe Torre

But here’s what else we got with that. We had to have Mark Sweeney wasting a spot on the bench all year long. Once Furcal was out injured, we had to have Pierre leading off every single day despite overwhelming evidence that it was hurting the team. We had the bizarre usage of young ace Chad Billingsley in his first outing, which ruined his April - and fortunately nothing more serious than that. We had Jeff Kent continually slotted into the cleanup spot despite it being completely obvious he couldn’t handle it anymore. We had the abuse of Russell Martin and insane usage of him at third base on his “days off”, and we had Andy LaRoche never getting a chance to play despite the clear need for him. Possibly most infuriating of all, there was the insistence on using the lousiest pitchers in the bullpen in the toughest game situations.

Finally, we had the most face-blowing quote of the entire year:

  “I tried to reason who was going to give me the better at-bat - Berroa or Loney,” Torre said.

It took me months of intensive therapy to get over that one, friends.

To say nothing of that bizarre kidnapping case.