This is not quite the same thing as being fired, but it amounts to the same thing in practical terms.
Joe Girardi is no longer the Yankee manager. Now, we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy!
That is one of the two opinions that I have alluded to in the title of this post. I will do the second opinion last. Now, the five facts:
1. Clearly, as I had hoped it would be, the 2017 season was a referendum on Joe Girardi. He now goes down in history as a guy who had all the tools in the world, all the resources, and all the support from management, and still ended up winning just 1 Pennant in 10 seasons.
Whether that is success or failure is objective, and therefore an opinion. But the facts cannot be questioned, and the facts show that, with all of that available to him, Girardi won just the 1 Pennant.
2. Therefore, the 2018 season is going to be a referendum on Brian Cashman. This is, unquestionably, his team now. And he absolutely must get the next manager right.
It's his team. His manager (whoever that turns out to be), his players. Not Joe Girardi's, not Gene Michael's, not Joe Torre's and not George Steinbrenner's. Whatever happens, success or failure, will be on Cashman.
The 2018 season will decide his legacy, every bit as much as 2017 decided Girardi's.
3. Cashman's next hire will be somebody who does not have great name recognition. All 5 candidates put forward by the New York Daily News baseball staff fit this description.
This is because Cashman wants the focus to be on the team, not the manager. What this means is that it won't be either Don Mattingly, currently manager of the Miami Marlins, because he's a "Yankee Legend," and the attention would be on him; or Alex Rodriguez, one of the biggest names in the game, but a man whose coaching experience has been only unofficial, has no managing experience, and would be the center of controversy every time something goes even mildly wrong.
Think about it: If A-Rod where the Yankee manager, every single time it looks like the Yankees had won by means that were less than ethical, people would say, "Oh, there goes A-Rod and the Yankees, cheating again!" It would be all over talk radio, cable TV and social media. As Bob Dole would say, "I know it, you know it, and the American people know it." So, no go on A-Rod.
4. There is plenty of talent available, but that does not mean that Cashman will violate the idea laid down in the previous fact. Dusty Baker is available, and has a record of getting teams into the Playoffs, but he also has a record of failing when it counts the most, and so he won't be hired.
Willie Randolph has a record of getting a New York baseball team that had no business challenging for a Pennant to within 1 run of it. But, ultimately, he failed. Whether that was his fault or someone else's can be debated, but he will not be hired as the next Yankee manager.
Therefore, since this Yankee team is now, for the first time in a long time, largely a young team, Cashman will likely go for a younger manager. Girardi just turned 53, and was in Major League Baseball as a player in the 1980s, before a lot of these guys were even born. This is another reason why Cashman won't go for somebody like Randolph, or Baker, or old war horses like Jim Leyland or recently-fired Met manager Terry Collins.
He might keep Tony Peña and Rob Thomson, already on the coaching staff, around as institutional memory. But while either one of them would be qualified to become the new manager, and Peña has big-league managing experience (2002-05 in Kansas City), their ages (Peña is 60, Thomson is 54, both older than Girardi) make them unlikely to be considered as candidates for the top job.
This may also prevent former Yankee and current Met hitting instructor Kevin Long, 50, from being considered, and that's a good thing, because Long has proven that he can't teach hitters. I don't want him anywhere near this team. He'd turn Aaron Judge into the next Steve Balboni. And nobody wants that.
5. The final fact is that Cashman wants as little drama as possible. This is another reason why the new manager will not be Alex Rodriguez. Cashman wants somebody that he will be comfortable with, and that the players will be comfortable with.
This makes it increasingly likely that the next Yankee manager will be somebody who has already managed some of these players in the minor league system. Experience managing these players may actually be more important than experience managing at the major league level.
This makes it likely that it will be a manager or coach already in the Yankee minor league system: Al Pedrique (Triple-A Scranton), Bobby Mitchell (Double-A Trenton), Jay Bell (Class A Tampa), Pat Osborn (Class A Charleston), Josh Paul (Class A Staten Island), or Reggie Willits (roving hitting instructor).
In a subsequent post, I'll take a look at the candidates, and judge them on their merits.
The last time around, 2007, Cashman quickly let it be known that his choice had been narrowed down to 3 guys: Girardi, Peña and Mattingly. This time, he has several choices, and doesn't seem to have an obvious favorite.
So here's the second opinion I alluded to earlier: I hope he doesn't keep us in suspense for long.
One rumor currently going around is that he wouldn't have fired Girardi if he didn't already have his choice lined up. If so, that would be very responsible -- though out of character for Cashman.
Stay tuned.
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UPDATE, written after the 2018 season:
1st opinion: Maybe Girardi wasn't the problem, as I'll suggest in my update of the 1st fact. But I'm still glad he's no longer handling the Yankee pitching staff.
1st fact: Maybe Girardi didn't have "all the support from management." Maybe if Cashman had said, "To hell with the luxury tax threshold: I'm gonna spend what I gotta spend to give my guy the guys he needs to win," he would have. As in, if Cashman had given a damn about winning, he would have built a team that even Girardi and his binder couldn't have screwed up.
2nd fact: The 2018 season should have been a referendum on Cashman. It wasn't. He will still have his job going into 2019.
3rd fact: Bad prediction on my part. Aaron Boone has great name recognition with Yankee Fans, because of one swing of the bat in 2003.
4th fact: I was right about that: Boone was 44 when he was hired. But Cashman did not keep either Peña or Thomson.
5th fact: I was really wrong. Boone had never managed, or even coached, anywhere, at any level.
2nd opinion: I was right: Boone was hired just 39 days after I posted this.
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