Grady Little DURRRRR

"DURRRR" is exactly what's going through his head right now. Probably because he doesn't have cognitive abilities that are greater than that of a four year old (a four year old who doesn't understand the basic strategies of baseball). Sidenote, how good is that doll? Granted, he didn't really fuck up that much this season. The team still had a winning record...by two games. And when you were picked by many people to at least appear in the World Series, let alone win it, yet finished fourth in your division, you're probably going to face some scrutiny. Because of this, the Dodgers are taking a direct 180 approach from their previous policy -- the "Well, we'll stand by him because he's old and retarded" stance -- to a newer one of "We want a new cup of Joe" policy.

I'll admit, it's a bit of a backstabbing move. You don't go and turn your back on your manager after you've firmly stated he will be back for the next season. And you typically don't go and turn your back on old people (unless they are really pissed at you). Fortunately, many in the Dodger organization feel he killed our season, and they've been pursuing one of the two Joes on the open market: Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. Since the former just agreed to man the Yankees for three years, we're down to one choice. Coincidentally, I think someone called for hiring this guy a couple of weeks ago...

So what this means is all good things for Dodger nation (expect for fans of Rick Honeycutt). 82.2 % of people polled on ESPN say that Joe Torre is the right man for the Dodgers position. (Thanks for getting something right Sportsnation!) Don Mattingly will most likely be taking along, and I've heard some things about Torre bring more of his coaching staff along, so we'll have at least two geniuses managing. The only question now is (as was posed by Dodgerblues yesterday): What's the deal with ARod?

Personal feelings first, I am torn. I loved those days with the Mariners with Ken Griffey Jr, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner, Randy Johnson, John Olerud, and Alex Rodriguez. And then he bolted for money. I felt like a bit of me died inside (doctors determined it was in fact my childhood innocence) that one of the best players in the MLB betrayed my team for cash. And then he moved on to the Yankees and started routinely sucking in clutch situations against my one of my other favorite teams, so I felt some form of retribution. What does this all add up to? If ARod were to follow Joe, would I be happy or mad, or maybe both? Would he finally be able to hit in the clutch, or would he continue to stink it up like a 100 year old egg? (That video isn't that funny, but you should try to find the one from Fearfactor).

I think I would do what decent New Yorkers did. I'll cheer him when he's kicking ass and taking names, and I'll boo him when he's farting all over the place. But will the Dodger's frontoffice be shelling out the money, and increasing their payroll to more than the collective GDP of Australia, Iran, and the African continent? If you looked at all the ludicrous spending they had this past offseason on worthless acquisitions (see: Jason Schmidt's wasted starts, Juan Pierre's fielding inabilities and lackluster OBP, and Randy Wolf's old), one might think they are running low on cash. And it'll take a lot of cash to buy ARod. Then again, the Dodgers have done worse in the past.

Lastly, the benefit of bringing ARod to LA would be monumental. It would actually complete the analogy I started a few weeks ago (Yep, still sticking to it) about the Dodgers following in the footsteps of the most recent Lakers dynasty. Joe Torre will become Phil Jackson, and he will have many a Kobe Bryant to work with in Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, etc. But the Shaq in the Equation? That's ARod. A pretty good player with a weird personality who hasn't made the impact he should have in the postseason quite yet. So I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed. If he sucks/starts bitching, maybe they'll find a way to ship him to Miami too.

At the very least we won't have a man who's IQ is comparable to a cucumber manning the helm anymore.