It’s Girardi
On balance, I think this is bad news for the Yankee-hater. As a correspondent noted, Mattingly’s candidacy can be summed up in two words: Alan Trammell. Hiring a guy whose primary credential is being a beloved star pretty much never works. He could have won anyway — Torre had pretty poor credentials when he took over too, so you never know — but it would have said something bad about the organization. (Reading/listening to Mattingly’s media defenders in print and radio, what was striking was that nobody was making the case that he was the best man to manage the Yankees so much as that the Yankees couldn’t afford to lose Beloved If Very Overrated Star Don Mattingly. Hiring managers on that basis would be egregiously stupid; it’s a bad sign that the Yankees have proven that non-stupid people are in charge.)
The ray of light is that while Girardi shows every sign of being a very talented manager, I would look at what happened to the Marlins’ pitching staff after he left, as well as the fact that he got fired after a surprisingly successful season because he couldn’t get along with anybody. I can live with the Yankees winning 100 games next year if it means plenty of 120+ pitch games and post-hour-long-rain-delay comebacks for Hughes and Joba, and an organization in chaos in 3 years. It also makes Slappy less likely to re-sign; he hated Showalter and Girardi is a similar hardass. If the Yankees can stop his Dallas Green-esque handling of the pitching staff, though, I’m afraid that he’ll be an excellent manager.
