Season of Judgement for Girardi

This is Joe Girardi’s time to shine if he wants to be a true Yankee. This upcoming baseball season is not only a crucial one for the New York Yankees franchise, who are coming off a disappointing season, but it is also an even more crucial one for manager Joe Girardi. Girardi’s Yankee and possibly baseball future lies on what he accomplishes in the 2009 season.

2008 proved to be a very poor year for Girardi. Coming into the season I was very optimistic and excited about Girardi, however after 1 month into the season I began to question Girardi’s leadership. I soon discovered that he wasn’t the manager I thought he would be. I started to question his lineups, his timing of when to play small ball, and his answers in postgame interviews. Towards the middle of the season I was furious with Girardi and wanted him out. I was more angry about the fact that I felt like I was the only one who was questioning and criticizing him. I was angry that the press wasn’t pounding him the way they have no problem doing with A-Rod. Perhaps the only one who stood out in my mind who was man enough to criticize Joe was Michael Kay, (the play by play announcer for the Yankees on the YES Network). A couple of examples where Michael Kay necessarily questions Girardi’s decision making would be on July 1st ’08 after a game against Texas. The Yankees were down by one run in the 9th inning with a runner on first and no outs. Melky Cabrera was coming up to bat. He was holding a .241 average and was 0 for 18 in his last 18 at bats. And rather than opting to pinch hit Melky (with Jeter available on the bench) or do the obvious of bunting him to move the runner over into scoring position with the top of the order coming up, he chose to let him swing away, and the unsurprisingly expected happened. He hit into a double play and the Yankees ended up losing by one run. More questions were raised about Girardi’s leadership specifically a few games earlier against the Mets when Girardi created a lineup without a healthy Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreau. Instead he chose to start Justin Christain and Brett Gardner with the reason that they were righties and would therefore perform better against a lefty Oliver Perez. It turns out that the plan backfired and they went a combined 0 for 8 and the Yankees went on to lose the game. Another head scratching Girardi decision was on August 11th against Minnesota when he decided to sit Johnny Damon while he was in the middle of a hitting streak. He was hitting .406 on the road trip, had five straight multi-hit games and was leading the American League with a .322 average. These are just a few of the countless head scratching decisions that Girardi made, which I believe caused the Yankees to miss the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. And to all those who blame injuries for the cause of the Yankees not making the playoffs, let me tell you this. Most of the significant injuries were pitching injuries with the exception of Posada and Matsui, and pitching was not last year’s problem, if anything the pitching surpassed expectations. The problem for last year was hitting with runners in scoring position. The Yanks ranked 10th in the American league in hitting with runners in scoring position, with a .261 average. Therefore you cannot point to injuries if you want to talk about last year’s failure. The problem was scoring runs. I blame the manager if there’s a runner in scoring position with no outs and they are unable to bring him in. each player (including A-rod and Texiera) must know how to execute a bunt. And the manager must make wise decisions as to when he should call for them. About 4 years ago I had the privilege of hearing Joe Torre speak at the learning Annex in Manhattan. He was speaking about the horrific 2004 collapse against the Red Sox, when someone raised an interesting question. Torre was asked why he didn’t bunt against Curt Schilling in game 6 of the ALCS. Schilling had a makeshift surgery on his ankle the day before the game, his sock was bleeding (which is now famously known as the bloody sock) and he was walking gingerly on it. He was clearly in a vulnerable state. Therefore bunting against him would seem to be the obvious thing to do because it would have to make him run off the mound, which he was clearly unable to do and would eventually knock him out of the game. Torre responded to that question with an answer that left me very puzzled and disturbed. He said that he can’t take a bat away from one of his players. To me that was another way of saying ’I care more about personal stats then I do about winning the ballgame’. My philosophy is; to do whatever you have to do to put runs on the board. Play for the run, even if it means bunting A-rod. If the situation calls for it, do it. Play conservatively when the game is close. Don’t just rely on the home run ball. If I were a manager I would start off spring training with bunting drills before any batting practice. Every player must know how to bunt.

I never understood last year’s strategy. Girardi would play conservatively when it came to making up the lineup card everyday by obsessing over the lefty righty business and over resting players. But when it came time during the game, he didn’t. He didn’t bunt and play for the run when situations called for it. Girardi must also stick with a consistent lineup, and not change it around every other night.

Other questions, which can be raised about Girardi would have to be his handling of his pitching staff. By that I mean pitching inexperienced rookies in crucial situations. But one that really made me scratch my head was the way he handled the whole Joba situation. He slowly turned him into a starter by getting most of his pitches in, in unimportant game situations while reducing his number of pitches when the game was on the line.

Girardi’s 2008 season is one, which can be summed up with over managing and obsessing about this lefty righty business. He acted as an actuary and not a coach. You don’t need a coach to make decisions based purely on numbers and statistics. You can save yourself a lot of money and just have a computer make those decisions for you. A coach is supposed to make decisions based not only on statistics but also with what he sees on the field as well as his gut feeling. This upcoming season is filled with optimism as well as skepticism, and its up to Girardi to utilize the tools that he’s been stocked with over the offseason with the acquisitions of Texiera, Sabathia, and Burnett. It’s up to Girardi to prove that he’s able of holding one of the greatest jobs in the world. Managing a team filled with superstars in New York is not an easy thing to do. However it is up to Girardi to prove whether or not he’s worthy of steering the $223 million dollar ship called the New York Yankees.