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Mitchell said it in the comments the other day and Andy and I have talked about it a lot recently.  You never want to be the guy who who follows the guy- you want to be the guy who follows the guy who followed the guy.  To put that into English, you don't want to be the guy who follows Torre. 

That is a very important point as the Yankees start their managerial search.  This is not the time to turn to Don Mattingly.  Mattingly is a God in the Yankees' universe and putting him in as manager now will only end badly.  The expectations are too high and if Mattingly follows Joe, I think there is a very good chance that things end up with Mattingly turning his back on the Yankees after being fired.  And to me, that is too high a price to pay. If I am the Yankees, i send Mattingly to AAA to manage for a year and then bring him back as bench coach in 2009.  Some seasoning would not be a bad thing and I think Don would be more than happy to agree to that situation if there was a plan to eventually make him the manager. 

And that is the tricky dance the Yankees will have to negotiate in this search.  The ideal situation was to give Torre two more years with the understanding that he retire after 2009 to some other position in the organization.  Since that won't happen, who could fill that slot and basically keep the seat warm for Mattingly while also developing some of the younger talent?

Obviously, Joe Girardi is out of this discussion, he wants to be a long-term manager.  That doesn't bother me because as much as I like Joe and admire the job he did in Florida, I have a lot of concerns with how he used his young pitchers.  Maybe it was the situation he was in down there, but Girardi abused Dontrelle Willis and didn't handle some of the other young pitchers very well.  He is not the guy who I want deciding how to use Hughes, Joba and Kennedy next season.

Larry Bowa would be an intriguing candidate and if Mattingly got the job I would have wanted him as bench coach, but according to this, he is headed out of town.   (notice who the pitching coach is in that story too)  That is a big loss, because Bowa was a great third base coach and he did a wonderful job with Cano. 

Assuming he is gone, there is still another coach who could fit that caretaker role, Tony Pena.  Yes, things did not end well the last time Pena was a manager, but look at his record.  Pena is the only guy to get a winning season out of the Royals since 1993.  He did it with Darrell May as his ace (remember May in 2005?) and while he had Carlos Beltran, he didn't have much else.  I think the guy is a pretty good manager and he knows New York.  Best of all, and this will sound very crass, he is expendable. Firing Tony Pena will not upset the Yankees' universe the way that firing Don Mattingly would.  Pena can be the bridge between two iicons and there is a decent chance he will be successful in doing so. 

So, Pena is my guy, and the good news is that he is on the interview list.   I don't expect him to get the job since the pressure will be on the team to come up with a big name, but I think he is the right choice.

Then again, maybe Torre and the Yankees' management wake up Monday morning and realize the mistake they have made.   Sadly, I don't see that happening.