Yesterday was an exceptionally bad day for the Yankees.

The city woke up to morning papers headlined with the embarrassing details of the reconciliation between manager Joe Torre and crazed owner George Steinbrenner, in which Torre, in his inimitable fashion, made plain that he had to be sweet talked into saying. This made Steinbrenner look – as if this was possible – even more devilish than usual.

What should have been a nonstory – “Hall of Fame Manager With Two Years, $13 Million Left on Contract to Manage Next Year” – not only became a story, but one betraying chaos and disorder in the Bronx.

Then, early in the day, news broke that talks had broken down with Atlanta’s Leo Mazzone, arguably the best pitching coach in baseball history, and certainly the best in baseball today. Following on that, in the middle of the day, news broke that Yankees bench coach Joe Girardi had been hired to manage the Florida Marlins. Late in the day, news broke that the AL East rival Orioles were in talks to hire Mazzone. All of this is, again, bad.

In the long term, the Girardi departure may prove to be the most damaging bit of news of all. One thing the Yankees don’t have is an obvious heir to Torre. Willie Randolph could, and perhaps should, have been reserved for that role, but he had been a coach for too long, and was ready to manage. The Mets were able to snatch him up, and he looks to be a fixture in Queens for years to come.

Girardi was the closest thing to a replacement the Yankees had at hand. Universally regarded during his career as a future manager, Girardi was the starting catcher for a Yankees team that won three World Series, and seemed a natural fit as a future long-term manager, someone who understands both the game and Yankee tradition, as such.

Perhaps he will be that manager in the future; perhaps hitting coach Don Mattingly will grow into the role. For right now, it seems likely that Torre’s eventual replacement will be a retread with no pedigree in the Yankee way of doing things, which is just what the organization least needs right now.

In the short term, the Mazzone news should be gravely disappointing to Yankees fans. He would not have been a mere trophy, another head mounted on Steinbrenner’s wall; the particular merits of his program would have been perfect for the Yankees.

Mazzone’s specialties are in keeping pitchers healthy, getting top results out of flawed starters, and turning any random collection of dreck into a top-flight bullpen. The main problems the Yankees have with their pitching staff are several injury-prone starters, that most of their starters have one or two crippling flaws (like an inability to throw strikes consistently or keep the ball down),and that they’ve been unable to find quality middle relievers for several years now. Mazzone would have been the perfect fit of solution to problem.

Moreover, Mazzone seems on his way to an Orioles team that remains, despite its second-half collapse, a viable threat to win the division next year. Its core of up-the-middle talent is as strong as any in the game, and the team needs only a few solid bats for the corner positions to assemble a tremendous offense.

Baltimore’s pitching staff, meanwhile, is exceptionally talented, with hurlers like Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera, Rodrigo Lopez, and prospect Hayden Penn potentially forming the core of a White Sox-like staff. With Mazzone and his special program of “throwing more and pitching less” to keep them healthy and mechanically sound, the Orioles would seem to have a much brighter future than they did two days ago.

While all of this goes on, of course, it’s still unclear who will be the Yankees’ general manager this winter. Does incumbent Brian Cashman want to stay? Does the team want him? Would the team be better off without him, or is he uniquely qualified to hold things together while dealing with the press, Steinbrenner, Steinbrenner’s flunkies, and (disconcertingly humble though his exclusive interviews with the tabloids may be) a high-profile manager with an ego and needs of his own?

If there is a single theme to which you have to return again and again with the Yankees, it’s that there is no plan. The team doesn’t know what it wants, doesn’t know how to get it, and thus finds itself flailing when it needs a future manager to groom, a GM, and a pitching coach all at once.

Things may work out well; money and the lure of Broadway are powerful incentives to smart baseball people. But insofar as the brain trust that runs a team affects what they do on the field, the Yankees are looking a lot worse right now than they did on Monday.

tmarchman@nysun.com