Head Over Heart

The Yankees took care of business quickly and picked Joe Girardi
as their new manager. I was already sad to see Joe Torre go, but now it looks like Don Mattingly, who I thought to be the next Yankee manager, is going to go. Mattingly a fan favorite, and my favorite player of all time, certainly had expectations to be the heir after serving as bench coach for the past two years, but it looks like the Yankees made their decision with their heads and not their hearts. So now it will be sad to see Mattingly go and who knows if he'll ever wear the pinstripes again.




Looking at Girardi as the next manager is a solid move. The key points to picking him are as follows:

• Girardi knows the Yankees organization, its expectations, and how things are run from being a player from 1996-1999 and bench coach in 2005.


• Girardi has managerial experience as the Marlins manager in 2006 where he won NL Manager of the Year for putting a young, inexperienced, and low budget team on the field and doing much better than expected (they were in the playoff hunt if you remember).


• From his Florida experience, he knows how to work with young players which fits right into the who rebuilding strategy the Yankees have going.


• He has a strong reputation of being a no nonsense leader, strict but fair, wants to win, intelligent (he's a Northwestern grad), articulate, prepares well, pays attention to detail, and handles the media well.


• As a catcher he'll know how to work well with the Yankees young pitching staff, possibly use the run more, and be able to analyze other teams' pitchers as well.

Right now it's pure speculation how he'll fare as the manager in New York, we won't know until spring training starts. In the mean time, the Yankees have Rivera, Posada, and Abreu to think about as well as a hole a thirdbase, their starting rotation, bullpen--lots of decisions. But I think Girardi was the right way to start.