Not An Ideal Offseason for Joe Girardi
It's been a long fall from the top for Joe Girardi this offseason. He has the distinction of being the only rookie skipper to be fired despite being a contender for Manager of the Year and inexpicably bringing a supposedly-doomed franchise to playoff contention. You'd think that someone would want to hire a guy like him, and you'd be right. But it's not a baseball team.
Girardi, like highly-succesful manager Dusty Baker (um), is stepping out of the dugout and into the television booth. He's going back to the YES Network.
I guess it makes sense. If I were Girardi, and had to answer to that bean-counter Jeffrey Loria everyday, it would probably scare me from ever entering a working relationship with another GM or owner. Still, what about the A Bronx Tale school of thought? Namely that, as was prominently featured in my old college buddy Mike Palughi's AIM profile, "Nothing's sadder than wasted talent." You know what I say to that piece of wisdom? Bullshit. Nothing's sadder than someone who hates his job.
Girardi used his one great season as a manager to gain the leverage necessary to be able to choose the exact job he wants. Unless that job is the Yankees'. Because that appears to be Mattingly's bag. If I were Girardi, I'd wait until an NL East job opens up (besides, obviously, the Nationals) and then make it a point to sign away every young, emerging, big-ticket free agent the Marlins have (which, seeing the young talent pool on the team, is a lot) and go to war with his former employer. The Phillies have to have an opening coming up soon. They fire coaches, like, every three months. Right? Or am I confusing that with just sucking? Either way, revenge is the way to go. And I say that because I'm a resentful, miserable person who feels he has to make everyone else as miserable as me.
