Yankees hire Joe Girardi as Manager
Of course, I am happy about this. A small sampling of my past opinions on the matter:
October 9, 2007: Who is it? I think the Yanks need to take a cue from Florida: it’s Joe Girardi.
October 3, 2006: I would have no problem if Joe Girardi ended up as Manager of the Yankees.
May 24, 2006: I think the Yankees would be better off with Larry Bowa managing. Or Joe Girardi.
I’ve wanted this for a long time.
Hattip to Moishe for the exuberant title.
The Noy G Show 
Nice predicting and congrats on the new Joe. Any thoughts on the Yankees dissing “Donnie Baseball?” My brother (Yanks fan) is thrilled that the yanks have gotten rid of the Mattingly curse…
I never understood the fascination with Mattingly as the next manager.
I mean, I can’t be the only one to notice that catchers make the best managers, right?
Not only that, if the Yankees hire beloved Mattingly, they are stuck, and they can’t fire him without another public outcry. Better off.
Anyone that gets so full of himself that he can’t accept a job on the staff if he isn’t the manager (but is willing to be the bench coach somewhere else) isn’t someone I like. The opposite of Tony Pena, who has said that he loves the team and organization, and that if he isn’t offered the manager job, he’d still love to be on the staff. That’s someone you want around.
Mattingly wants to manage. Not be a bench coach. There’s no future for him in NY if Girardi is the manager. So he’ll follow Torre to the Dodgers and he’ll have to wait a few more years there. But at least he has a chance.
That logic doesn’t follow. Assuming Torre last as long in LA as Girardi does in NY, there’s no future for him in LA either. And if he’s going to use this as a springboard for another job, what difference does it make if he’s in LA or NY?
Tony Pena wants to manage also, but you don’t see him being all huffy about it.
I agree. You can’t fault Mattingly for not wanting to be a coach under Girardi, a guy who’s younger and not much more experienced than he is. They didn’t pick Mattingly (a good move I agree) but don’t expect him to stay under Girardi.
I don’t get why Yankee fans think it’s such an amazing privilege to be a Yankee (not saying Noyam said this just a feeling amongst Yankee fans/management generally). Agreed they are an amazing franchise with possibly the best history in sports but let’s not pretend like they are the be all and end all of baseball to the point where Mattingly is a bad guy b/c he chose a better career move over staying with the Yankees. Why does his leaving make him a bad guy? It just makes him opportunistic just like the Yanks who went with the best manager.
I can’t believe Tony Pena didn’t get the job!
Noyam, I don’t agree w/ your assumtion. Girardi (age 43) could manage the Yankees for the next 15+ years. Torre (age 67) will likely retire in the next three years. Also, Mattingly should be able to choose under whose tutalage he wants to learn the art of managing a baseball team. Being close to Torre (and having been passed over by the Yanks for the manager spot), he chose to stay with Torre. Why does that make Mattingly full of himself?
If you’re a senior associate in a law firm whose up for partner and they tell you that you will not make partner this year – perhaps down the road. The partner whose work you service extensively gets an offer from another firm and asks you to come with him with the assumtion being that when he retires you will get his institutional clients or at least the contacts that you have been working with for years – of course you go with the partner to the new firm.
That’s not exactly how it went down. He came out and said that if he doesn’t get the job, he won’t accept a position on the staff. In your analogy, that’s quitting when you don’t make partner, and then a bit later, getting lucky to get hired when the guy your work for gets a job somewhere else.
Noam, what mattingly did is par for the course. Any person in baseball would similarly have left the team that passed him over for manager.
Mattingly said that b/c he knew the alternative was Girardi. If the Yankees said to Mattingly, we’re bringing in a more experienced guy for 2-3 years b/c we think you’re not 100% ready but the job is yours in the near future he probably would have stayed or at least I could see why you would be upset that he left. Instead they (rightfully) brought in a guy younger than Mattingly who could be there for the next decade or so. I see no reason for Matttingly to stay if he didn’t want to.
Look, I am not faulting him for leaving, I just don’t like the way he handled it. It seemed to me that he was basically saying “I want to manage, not be a bench coach.” If that’s true, then he’s being untruthful, going to be Torre’s bench coach. If that’s not true, then just keep your mouth shut, and move on when you don’t get the job. I just think his commentary was unnecessary.
I think what Mattingly was saying was I want to manage in the near future and being bench coach to Joe Girardi is not a step in that direction while sticking with Torre in L.A. is. The proof of this is that he wanted Torre to stay in NY. He was happy to be bench coach in NY as long as he was set to be manager in the near future. IMO, by going w/ Girardi the Yankees were saying “if all goes well you will not be manager any time soon” so he had to go.
What’s up with the yanks and joe’s? BUCKY DENT! BUCKY DENT! WooHoo!