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Not as long as 1978 - 1996. And the teams has always been in position to win the WS every year since 1996.

Joe Torre is still the best manager the Yanks have ever had in their history. Let the debate begin....

~~~Not as long as 1978 - 1996.~~~

That's not the point. One man did not manage the team during those years.

Joe Torre is still the best manager the Yanks have ever had in their history. Let the debate begin....
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Really? You'd rank him over Stengel and Martin?

~~Joe Torre is still the best manager the Yanks have ever had in their history. Let the debate begin....~~

There is no debate. The two greatest Yankee managers are Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel. (There is a debate between those two guys.) Both of them had significantly higher winning percentages than Torre as Yankee manager and both won three more world championships than Torre. Both were also thought of as being very innovative managers. Torre has not been the innovator of anything. Torre has been in the right place at the right time and he has been smart enough not to rock the boat too much.

This is one of those posts that makes me think how lucky I feel to be following the Yanks during this glorious run of post-season play -- 1995-2007 is pretty amazing. Despite "no ring" since 2000, I'll take it any day over those horrible mid-late 60s/early 70s teams and the dreadful 80s to early 90s.

So even if Torre doesn't get a ring this year, I will never think of him like Houk!

it should be noted that houk, like torre, did win a world series prior to his "streak". I know houk won with the 1961 team. Don't know if he won others.

Stengal was a mad-man, the only thing he was an innovator of was creating a new dialect of the English language. But I'm sure he wasn't at the "right place at the right time".

McCarthy DEFINITELY was not at the right place at the right time. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Nuff said.

I can understand Billy Martin, but Martin loved to kill a starting pitcher's arm. Were abuse points in place then?

Torre had to manage in a different era, and when he had a boat load of superstars he didn't win jack. Torre, in my mind, will go down as one of the most underappreciated managers in Yankee history. I almost have a self-fulfilling prophecy to see the Yanks have a run for a few years where they are 83 - 79, 81 - 81, 85 - 77, etc, so like that I can see people complain about the good ole days.

Please tell me how these other managers were "innovators"?

Steve - you spelled "tenure" as "tenture", but that could just be Stengelese he's talking.

~~That's not the point. One man did not manage the team during those years~~

Right. And firing the manager after the team won 103 games, but not the WS brought exactly how many rings?

Torre does have his flaws as a manager (everyone does) -- he is a bit too much of a button pusher in ingame decisions, but I think his ability to massage all the freaking egos in the clubhouse, deal with the media, and run interference with The Boss (probably less important these days) more than make up for it.

From what I can tell, Joe spends the first have of the season trying to figure out what kind of team he has that year -- who can pitch in pressure situations, who's bat is good that year. In the second half, he plays to win the division. When Stengel & McCarthy managed, if you won your division, you were in the WS. Nowadays, there are three rounds of playoffs to win the WS; and as anything can happen in a 5 or 7 game series it is more difficult to win it all.

Great point, rbj. Great point here:

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From what I can tell, Joe spends the first have of the season trying to figure out what kind of team he has that year -- who can pitch in pressure situations, who's bat is good that year. In the second half, he plays to win the division.
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The thing that bugs me to no end from the anti-Torre crowd is that they criticize him but they can't point to a really good alternative for manager. I think that some people like to feel as if they have all the "answers" because they understand every SABR stat, from front to back, they are three time champions of their fantasy league, so they feel that makes them smarter than the manager of the [plug your favorite team name here].

Up until October of this year, Tony LaRussa was the definition of a micromanager and he was on the hot-seat to lose his job but then he did the unthinkable and won the serious with a staff of Weaver, Marquis, Carpenter.

Stengal and McCarthy had some of the best players ever. I am not discrediting them, but I think because of the time we live in that Torre would have done just a good a job back then as he has done now. As for Stengal, I don't think it translates all that well that he could have been able to function in today's game.

We spend so much time harping on all the things Torre does so bad that we forget everything he does well, a lot of Yankee fans also fail to look at the tremendous body of work he has done after 2000. The Yankees haven't lost the world series because of Torre, quite simply his magic touch has run out. However, he's still able to win regular season games in the triple digits during the regular season. The playoffs unfortunately is where a lot of the good fortunes of Yankee teams since '01 run out.

I am still one of the people that praises Torre for having the balls to bring in Weaver. I've recounted the Weaver (good) inning before, and the pitch that A-Gon had hooked and barely stayed fair.
If Weaver gets out of that inning and the Yankees score the next inning, then Mo comes in and shuts the door down then we are all praising Torre for having balls of steel. Unfortunately that didn't happen. It's so easy to blame Torre than to blame David Wells for game 5, than to blame the entire Yankee team for hitting nubbers against a 3 day rested Beckett.

Torre committed the biggest err of his Yankee tenure when he batted ARod 8th and not having the foresight to understand the avalanche he was creating for himself. That was a surprise to me and everyone, but even in doing what he what he does best - handling controversy - nobody can bat 1.000.