In much expected news, both general manager Brian Cashman and field manager Joe Girardi will be retained by the Yankees for at least the next season. Hal Steinbrenner had previously stated that neither man’s job was on the line over the final month of the season, and yesterday team president Randy Levine both reiterated his bosses’ stance and praised the job both men did in 2012. “They did good getting us to the ALCS,’’ Levine told reporters. “There was one reason we didn’t win and that’s we didn’t hit.”
I’m not the biggest fan of either Cashman or Girardi, feeling that both are average to above average in their job at best, but it’s pretty hard to argue with the logic at work here. The disappointing way in which they ended their season notwithstanding, the Yankees did have the league’s best record over the regular season and beat Baltimore in the ALDS. That’s a pretty successful year in any season, and it’s an even better accomplishment in a year in which they had to deal with as many significant injuries to key players as they did in 2012. To fire either Cashman or Girardi for a lack of results at this point would simply not make any sense.
The thing is, they *should* be back, Cashman continues to rub be the wrong way (no doubt he parachuted in and encouraged Girardi not to play Arod, and was also instrumental and making the jeter and posada situations worse than they needed to be)… but I can't objectively say he should be fired
There's been a line tossed around by a lot of fans lately… (the yankees have gone from over-accountability to no accountability).. it's a full blown corporation run by a self proclaimed finance nerd who not only cares more about money than people… he's happy to tell u so.. and then there's hank
/it is what it is
While I'm not a total fan of Girardi's, I think he did an excellent job with the roster he was given.
The problem, I think, it the 2nd part of the sentence: the roster.
Starting the season with a decent bench is not a Brian Cashman specialty, but in the past, he typically improved it with versatile role players like Jose Vizcaino and Jerry Hairston, as examples. This year, not so much.
I also take issue with his description of the "Gene Michael Model". Those Yankees were not particularly power laden like the teams since 2002. Look at the 1996-2000 lineups,and you just didn't see all-or-nothing HR lineups like this one. Bernie Williams, to me, was the signature player on those teams, more so than Jeter. Yes, he had power, but he did so much more.
It's not happening, but I think this is where the "blame" lies. Not to mention the unnecessary press he generated last winter, which I'm not convinced didn't distract him.
This is further proof that the Yankees are doomed to repeat their decline from the 60s. The ingredients are the same, ownership that sees them as cash flow, aging stars past their prime, a puppet manager that cannot tell his gm what he needs and no youth.
Their record is deceiving they feasted on a ridiculous interleage schedule and caught some teams just right. Remove the interleage and Baltimore has the same record and wins the division due to division record.
Do not be fooled this will not get better with cashman making baseball decisions he has given away the farm for has beens and never was players. So next year an older more pathetic version will play and i see 3rd place as a fair result. Sad to see none of the kids care about winning, just money.
cashman worked his way up through the org, the owners only hire yes people that don't want complete control, the fo signs free agents without telling cashman, get an independent gm that demands full control then maybe things might get better.
girardi, acceptable i guess, but has he asked cano to run full to first yet, if he has cano doesn't listen if he hasn't girardi has no power or doesn't care, both bad.
Jeez. Can we all stop with the overwhelming negativity? We Yankee fans are so damn spoiled. Whenever we don't win a World Series it's like someone's kid died. Let's appreciate the fact that we have a shot at a title every year. The Yankees have been in the playoffs 17 out of the last 18 years. They've been as far as the ALCS in 10 of those years. Been to the WS 7 times and won the WS 5 times. That's a pretty darn good record if you ask me. Yet, since the Yankees haven't made it in the last 3 years we are all here spreading doom and gloom. Do you know how many of the other 29 teams would kill to have the playoff record our team has? I'll give you a hint. It's a number between 28 and 30.
So how about we sit back and appreciate the success of this season? The fact that three of our major players went down within the first month of the season (Rivera, Pineda, Gardner). Three others missed major time with injuries (Pettite, ARod, Tex). CC missed some time with elbow soreness. Our RISP was abysmal. Our pitching was very shaky at times. And our overall batting in the playoffs was the worst in history. Yet, despite all that the Yankees were still only 4 wins away from the WS. Yeah it is disappointing we didn't see our team go all the way, but at least we had a legitimate shot and will probably have another shot next year and many in the foreseeable future. There are fans of teams out there who haven't seen their team even sniff a WS in decades. Fans who may only see their team play in the playoffs a few times in their lifetime. So let's start appreciating what we have with this team, and stop complaining so much when they don't always live up to our outrageous expectations.
This!
Indeed – this.
Ordinarily I'm not big on firing this guy or the other for a failure in the playoffs – small sample size, etc.. However I believe when a team quits on a manager, either blow up the team, change managers or both. Boston was right to get rid of Francona, they're mistake was in trying to keep that club together at all. As much as I love Willie Randolph the Mets were right to get rid of him, again they should have also blown up the team much sooner as well. The Yankee failure was not as pronounced or prolonged as the other 2 but the team quit, they were never remotely competitive after game 1 and they totally layed down by game 4, and they know Girardi couldn't stop it from happening. I'm not saying it was his fault but I am saying that once something like that happens you can never go back. Nobody wants to loose, but winning is hard, and in a tight spot the players are gonna know that they can loose without repercussions. It would be a tough decision, and it would be a lot easier if there were someone available that I wanted for this team, but if your gonna try and keep the nucleus together I would replace Joe.