Grady not fit to be L.A.’s leading man

You don’t keep eating flank steak when filet mignon becomes available. You don’t keep spending $108 million unwisely on payroll and pray the guy in charge of managing it wakes up one day something he’s not. You don’t allow a good guy to survive at the possible expense of winning at a level you haven’t in decades.

You don’t worry about how this late a managerial move is going to play on the public relations meter, because that’s not how you begin mattering in the big picture again.

Hiring a Joe Torre is.

“(General manager) Ned (Colletti) and I have been in constant communication since the end of the season and decided mutually that this was the best move for the Dodgers organization to take,” Little said in a conference call to reporters Tuesday when announcing his decision to resign.

Translation: The minute Torre officially departed the Yankees, I was more toast than anything served at Denny’s.

“I wanted Grady Little back,” Colletti said. “I encouraged him to think it through.”

Translation: What I am not saying is that I wanted him back as Torre’s chauffeur.

Think of it this way: Little was capable enough to get Los Angeles to base camp of Mount Everest. He would never have been good enough to get the Dodgers to the summit.

That should be acceptable for the Devil Rays. Not so the Dodgers, despite their Sahara-like drought when it comes to playing in late October.

The Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since 1988 for far more reasons than who has made out a daily lineup card, the miserable finish to this season — 28-39 in the final 67 games — included. You can begin with their infuriatingly idiotic tendency to give aging arms and position players with no range inflated contracts and continue with the team chemistry of setting fire to a beaker of alcohol. Colletti deserves as much blame for the continued mediocre existence as anyone else.

But managers are like most of us. There is a ceiling to their ability, and Little has offered enough bizarre in-game decisions in four seasons directing the Red Sox and the Dodgers to believe his simply can’t reach to the place where rings are ordered and pennants are hung.

He just isn’t capable of managing a team to the championship.

His is by no means awful production on the surface. Little is 358-290 in those four seasons and has two playoff appearances, with the Dodgers as a wild card in 2006 and Boston in 2003, when air stopped reaching his brain for those fateful seconds in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series and he stuck with a tired Pedro Martinez.

But everything the Dodgers did right in making the playoffs last year they did wrong this one. There was no consistency to Little’s decisions. Injuries to what might have been a terrific pitching staff badly hurt the team’s pursuit of a playoff appearance, but so, too, did the manager’s uncanny selections of who to play on a given night. He stayed with Luis Gonzalez too long. Same with Nomar Garciaparra. His devotion to older players slowed the progress of younger ones. His philosophy about when to run and not seemingly changed by the pitch. There was no smoothness to anything he did.

In the end, Torre becoming obtainable just accelerated the inevitable conclusion to Little’s fate.

The Dodgers should give Torre the input on personnel moves he is reportedly trying to receive in contract negotiations. Maybe it results in Alex Rodriguez becoming the power bat L.A. needs to finally hit more home runs than Roosevelt High. Maybe another voice will keep Colletti from thinking before offering any more absurd contracts (see Juan Pierre).

The easy part is apparently done. You take Joe Torre over Grady Little like you take a DVR over a VCR. Managing a roster of countless egos and annually challenged by expectations that include only a World Series title is as difficult an assignment as there exists on the bench. To then succeed at the rate Torre did over 12 seasons in New York while restricting controversy within the team and always avoiding the kind of late-season breakdown that felled the Dodgers this year is ample proof of his skill.

Little was asked during the conference call whether rumors of Torre taking over influenced his decision. “None whatsoever,” he said. “I have my personal reasons.”

Translation: I’m Chris Klein and Leo wants the role. I was toast from the moment Torre turned in his pinstripes.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.