Last October when the Yankees were booted out of the first round of the playoffs by the Cleveland Indians, it became pretty clear that the Joe Torre era was coming to an end. For weeks, the Yankees, and specifically the Steinbrenner family left Torre twisting in the wind, but the implication was clear — they wanted Torre out. Finally, they got their way when Torre rejected a contract extension offer that he later described as insulting. It was a move that pretty much everyone in the New York sports world recognized as low-class, even for the Steinbrenners, and it was fairly clear that the man behind it was Hank Steinbrenner, one of George’s sons. By the end of the month, the Yankees had hired Joe Girardi, a guy with only one year of managerial experience in the Major Leagues, and Torre had accepted a job with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Fast forward to September 2008, the last season the Yankees will play in the House That Ruth Built. Barring a miracle, there’s no chance that the Yankees will make the playoff’s this year; they’re ten games out of first place in the American League East and 9 1/2 games out in the AL Wild Card race.
So, does this mean that Joe Girardi, who had previously managed the Marlins to a losing season before joining the Yankees, should worry about his job ?
Not according to Little Stein:
ANAHEIM — The Yankees appear likely to miss the postseason for the first time in more than a decade, but the club plans to retain Joe Girardi as manager for the 2009 season.
Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner confirmed on Monday that Girardi — who is piloting the club in the first year of a three-year contract — will return next year.
“Joe will be back,” Steinbrenner told the Associated Press Monday at the club’s Spring Training complex. “He’s done everything he could. That’s the bottom line.”
True, the 2008 Yankees have been plauged by injuries to key players like Hideki Matsui, Joba Chamberlin, Chien-Ming Wang, and Jorge Posada, but Girardi has done little to distinguish himself as manager this year and there’s little evidence that he has the same ability to motivate players the way that Torre did.
The broader point, though, is that Girardi stands to have the worst record of any Yankee manager in 14 years and yet he is under no threat of replacement. Joe Torre takes his team to the playoffs for the 12th consecutive season and he gets fired.
I don’t get it.
