Well, let’s see. The Dodgers open the regular season on Monday …

So I give the Joe Torre Honeymoon … about a week. Ten days on the outside.

Or as soon as the Dodgers lose three straight. Which should be in about 7-10 days because they look like a bad baseball team.

Most serious ballclubs attempt to improve and, thus, better-position themselves with their fans (and sell more tickets), by bringing in playing talent.

The Dodgers attempted to improve themselves by bringing in managing talent.

That is, Joe Torre, who was basically invited not to stay in New York by the Yankees, who quite conspicuously (in the Bronx) have not won a World Series since 2000. Despite having the biggest payroll in baseball.

As it turns out, managers don’t win World Series. Players do. I am convinced that the best managers ever, the craftiest guys, the guys who somehow coax the best performances out of their players are worth maybe (maybe) a few victories a year. At any rate, it is a thoroughly inexact science. What did Manager A do here that Manager B did not, and how did it lead to victory instead of defeat? Who knows?

A truly wretched manager (the guys who burn out their pitchers or fail on a really basic level by not using their best players) can cost you games. Yeah. But I am convinced that the average manager is just about every manager, and his “intelligence” will rise and fall according to how much talent is in his dugout.

Thus, the Joe Torre Honeymoon is doomed.

Sure, he brings a certain gravitas to the situation. He is dignified. He is calm. And he can yak pleasantly for hours (or maybe his rambling remarks just make it seem like hours) about this or that topic. Sports journalists generally like those guys, the managers who don’t go nuts on them and see second-guessing behind every question.

But Joe Torre isn’t going to hit, pitch or play defense, and the Dodgers don’t have enough players who adequately can do any of those things.

The idea that a manager, especially an old manager, can make them better is laughable. If not insulting, in the sense that ownership believes it can fool its fans into thinking Joe Torre will Make a Difference.

Instead of spending $15 million (over three years) for a guy who sits in the dugout (that would be Joe) … they could have bought a real player or two with that money and kept Grady Little.

Dodgers fans will soon figure this out. They are not as dim as Frank McCourt apparently believes they are.

So, when the Dodgers have their first three-game losing streak, which should begin not long after the Giants leave town … that’s when fans will realize the Dodgers did nothing (OK, aside from signing potential star but potential bust, too, Andruw Jones) in the offseason to make themselves better.

That’s when Joe Torre will become Grady Little/Jim Tracy/Davey Johnson. Just the latest guy in the Dodgers dugout trying to explain away why his team is so mediocre.

Dodgers fans probably never will revile Joe Torre. He doesn’t bring out that kind of loathing. But he will become a tottering symbol of management’s failure to put a team on the field worthy of some of the most avid fans in baseball.