Hiring Torre would be all right, but way they’re treating Little is all wrong

The move makes sense.

But the machinations make me sick.

If the Dodgers have an opportunity to hire future Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre, as several sources indicated Monday, they must do it.

But why couldn’t they have done it 13 days ago when Torre initially walked away from the New York Yankees?

Why did they allow nearly two weeks of silence to twist a knife so deep into the credibility of Grady Little that there is probably no way he can ever manage this team again anyway?

There soon could be good news coming from Chavez Ravine, but, typical of the Frank McCourt era, you don’t know how far you can trust it.

Of course they should hire Torre, who won four World Series championships and reached the playoffs 12 straight years while managing in the toughest environment in sports.

Their bruised image needs a solid public presence. No single uniformed person in baseball carries more weight.

Their weak voice needs a strong tenor. Nobody’s in baseball resonates louder.

If you are a Los Angeles sports owner, he is the star you hire to win back your fans.

If you a Dodgers owner, he is the chops you hire to counter the Angels’ Mike Scioscia.

Jerry Buss would do this. Heck, Jerry Buss has done this. He hired a Joe Torre by the name of Phil Jackson. Twice.

McCourt should take some of the money he’s pocketed from increased ticket and parking prices and use it to give Torre $4 million a year for three years, which would be a nice beginning on making the Dodgers relevant again.

But McCourt should have done it yesterday.

If he was waiting for the Yankees to make a decision on Joe Girardi, well, shame on him.

Girardi, who was offered the Yankees job Monday, was available all season, yet McCourt chases him only after publicly endorsing Little?

If McCourt was using the time to negotiate, shame on him again.

When you think you have a chance to hire someone like Torre, yet you still have a manager under contract, you have to do it immediately, or not at all.

Maybe hiding out for two weeks works in the governmental world from which McCourt’s top advisors hail. But in the more transparent world of sports, silence cracks foundations and creates doubt.

For two weeks, General Manager Ned Colletti has been telephoned with questions about the Dodgers’ managerial situation. For two weeks, he has refused to even return the calls, effectively ending Little’s career here while once again exposing his club’s philosophies as so much hot air.

During the lockdown, one recalled a recent interview with McCourt in which he talked about the Dodgers foundation.

“It’s built on hard work, trust, integrity, respect, and it’s built on unselfishness, teamwork and so forth,” he said.

By my calculations, in their treatment of Little, their values batting average is .167.

They have whiffed on trust, integrity, respect, unselfishness and teamwork.

They have connected on hard work, but only because it surely must be hard work, secretly expressing interest in other managers while you still have one under contract.

McCourt and Colletti have handled this like such rookies, you sometimes wonder why a veteran like Joe Torre would agree to work for them in the first place.

Little is a good man who deserves better. He quietly took plenty of bullets this season for a team that, let’s face it, Colletti pieced together as if blindfolded.

It’s understandable that the Dodgers would endorse Little, then, two weeks later, change their tune when Torre is available.

But it’s unconscionable to then allow the process to drag out so long that if Little does return to the Dodgers’ clubhouse next spring, his authority there will be as stained and eroded as Eric Gagne’s old cap.

Knowing that management doesn’t unconditionally believe in Little, why should the players? No doubt some players today might even think Little has already been fired.

He has not. He still has one year remaining on a contract worth about $650,000 annually. The moment they decided they would no longer endorse him publicly, the Dodgers should have paid him off immediately and allowed him to seek work elsewhere.

This is why it’s hard to believe that they’d do the right thing with Torre.

Because hiring Torre cannot be the last step, it must be the first step. You don’t waste his talent with players who can’t win. He’s not coming here to rebuild.

If you hire Torre, then you keep the wallet and mind open to give him a team that can win now. You find a third baseman, a starting pitcher, maybe a center fielder to replace Juan Pierre, who could move to left field or be completely moved out.

Torre will be a great team builder in a clubhouse with diverse ages and personalities. But don’t saddle him with selfish jerks or foolish kids.

He knows all about managing young homegrown players, the Derek Jeters and Jorge Posadas. But he also knows that you can’t win without smart veterans, the Paul O’Neills and the Tino Martinezes.

Hiring Torre and then not changing the soul of this team would be like what has happened to the Lakers and Jackson. They brought him back with an average team, and he has achieved average results, a Hall of Famer who can’t get out of the first round of the playoffs.

The hiring of Torre, then, would place the pressure squarely on the shoulders of Colletti.

McCourt will probably give the general manager one more season to make him forget the huge money given to Jason Schmidt and Pierre, forget the fights with Scott Boras that may have cost the Dodgers Greg Maddux, forget that James Loney spent the early part of this season at Las Vegas.

With Torre as the boss, Colletti will have to produce like Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, or risk being replaced by, well, Cashman.

If that happens, Colletti should only hope he won’t twist in the wind as Grady Little twists in front of him now.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.