The New York Yankees are out of the 2006 MLB Playoffs.  Even a $250 million dollar payroll, the highest in baseball, was not enough to purchase a championship for the almight pinstripes.  The Yankees lost the best of five first round series to the Detroit Tigers three games to one.

The most over-priced of the New York bunch, Alex Rodriguez, finally agreed with the rest of us that he sucks.

“You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit,” Rodriguez said in a somber Yankees clubhouse. “At some point, you just have to look in the mirror and say, ‘I sucked.’”

Just how bad was A-Rod?

Rodriguez, baseball’s $252 million man, was dropped to eighth in the batting order for the first time in a decade for Saturday’s 8-3 season-ending loss.

He was hitless in his final 12 at-bats, dropping to 4-for-41 (.098) with no RBIs in his last 12 postseason games. He made 24 errors during the regular season, tops among AL third baseman, and his third-inning error on Magglio Ordonez’s routine grounder Saturday allowed the Tigers to add another run to what already was a 3-0 lead.

The loss could be Joe Torre’s last game as Yankees manager.  Torre likely won’t survive the Yankees collapse.

According to the New York Daily News, however, the popular Yankees manager will be fired unless he decides to resign first to save face. Sources told the newspaper that former Yankees player and manager Lou Piniella will be owner George Steinbrenner’s choice to replace Torre.

Piniella has been rumored to be in contention for the open positions with the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs. He last managed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to a fifth-place finish in 2005. Piniella began his managerial career with the Yankees in 1986. That team finished second in the AL East, the best result of his three seasons in the Bronx.