Since he has the same cast that copped a World Series title and won a staggering 125 games, Joe Torre doesn’t know what the tone of his first spring training meeting with his players will be. What he does know is that he won’t be able to deliver the same keynote speech from a year ago because it will amount to twice-chewed cabbage.
However, Torre didn’t need to see David Wells to deliver a message to the veteran left-handed hurler. Yesterday at Yankee Stadium, the AL Manager of the Year started getting into Wells’ psyche 75 days before the opener on April 5.
“To me, the key to the pitching staff will be Boomer, no question,” Torre said. “We need the same type of year from him.”
Since Torre never sways from the belief that championships are won with sterling pitching and air-tight defense, asking Wells to duplicate a career year in which he was 18-4 with a 3.49 ERA, hurled a perfect game, was the AL All Star Game starter and finished third in the Cy Young voting, is a lot. Then again, name a team other than the Braves where the staff isn’t always the No. 1 concern.
While Torre would certainly embrace another 18-win season from Wells, who enters spring training as the favorite to grab the Opening Day assignment against the youthful A’s in Oakland, what Torre would love to see from Wells is the business-like approach Wells used last year when, for the most part, he concentrated on every pitch. Maybe Wells, who will be 36 in late May, has fully matured to the point where things won’t bother him on the mound anymore.
One look at the Yankee rotation and it’s easy to see why Torre understands The Bombers have to have Wells operating at peak efficiency.
“There are questions about David Cone, but there are always questions,” Torre said of the 36-year-old right-hander who went 20-7 last year after rebounding from shoulder surgery following the 1997 season and a very slow start. “Whatever he gives us is a positive. And we have the ability to skip him if we have to and go with (Ramiro) Mendoza.”
Beyond Wells and Cone are Andy Pettitte, Hideki Irabu and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez. Each one harbors question marks of varying degrees. Pettitte is coming off a mediocre season in which he was 16-11 with a pedestrian 4.24 ERA and a roller-coaster postseason. Irabu bounced back from a miserable 1997 by posting a 13-9 ledger but struggled mightily in the second half and didn’t work an inning in the postseason. As for “El Duque,” he has to prove that a 12-4 regular season mark as well as a splendid postseason in which he was 2-0 with a 0.64 ERA and saved the Yankees’ necks in the ALCS against the Indians wasn’t a fluke.
No wonder Torre started working on Wells’ mind yesterday.
As for everything else, Torre believes last year’s intoxicating success will serve two purposes. One, the bulls-eye that the Yankees always wear will be larger. Two, it will instill confidence that should carry the World Champions through the rough patches that are sure to surface.
“When you look back with all the people congratulating you, you accept that,” Torre said. “You don’t say we were lucky because we were good.”
Can they be that good again? Or can even the most professional clubhouse in sports allow complacency to drip into the room?
“I will say this, somebody will hit 75 homers before a team wins 126 games,” Torre said.
As for complacency, something that seems to follow title teams not named the Chicago Bulls around, Torre dismisses that as a worry.
“No,” Torre says. “We had every reason to coast last year with the big lead and I didn’t see it. With this group of guys, they are experienced to know enough.”
