Giving Girardi credit
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Misc on Oct 14, 2011 
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After looking at some of Girardi’s questionable managerial choices yesterday, it seems only fair to spend some space looking at three of his decisions that paid off significantly. Agreeing is never quite as fun as debating, but here they are.
Derek Jeter as the leadoff hitter
The experiment of Brett Gardner at the top of the lineup and Jeter batting second didn’t even last through the entire first month. By the end of April, Gardner was back in the No. 9 hole, Jeter was at the top, and Curtis Granderson was thriving as the No. 2 hitter.
When Gardner went on one of his extended hot streaks, there were plenty of calls for Girardi to make another change. Jeter looked like a lost cause, Gardner was getting on base regularly, and it seemed time to give up the idea of The Captain playing up to his title.
Of course, Girardi stuck with Jeter, and Jeter made him look like a genius with a terrific second half, when he was clearly a better offensive player than Gardner.
Dave Robertson as the setup man
Initially, Girardi’s hand was forced. Rafael Soriano and Joba Chamberlain both landed on the disabled list, and clearly the Yankees best reliever – non-Mariano division – was the escape artist Robertson. Girardi moved Robertson from the sixth inning to the seventh inning to the eighth inning, and Robertson kept getting the job done.
The tough decision came when Soriano finally came off the disabled list. There seemed to be an expectation that Girardi would cave to Soriano’s contract and his status, but that was never the case. Girardi stuck with Robertson in the eighth inning, and Soriano became the best-paid, most-accomplished seventh-inning reliever in the game.
Of course, it seems like an obvious move now, but Girardi often takes heat for not being willing to make this sort of decision – he tends to favor a lengthy track record ahead of recent results – but he stuck with Robertson’s hot hand, and it paid off.
Jesus Montero being allowed to fail
Remember Jesus Montero’s first Major League at-bat? Bases loaded against Jon Lester, Montero somewhat notoriously swung through a fastball that was way up and out of the zone. It was not a particularly impressive first look, and Montero went hitless that day.
But Girardi kept giving the kid opportunities, and the kid came through with a strong month of September that would have won him a starting spot in the playoffs had the Yankees faced a left-handed starter. Girardi didn’t give up on Montero. If anything, he seemed fully committed to giving him more and more chances.
In a relate move: Girardi’s decision to put Jorge Posada back in the regular lineup for the division series also paid off. Posada was one of the few Yankees to actually hit with any sort of consistency that series.
Associated Press photos
Very nice post, especially since it’s his birthday.
the biggest surprise to me was keeping D-rob as the EIG…he certainly earned it, but I thought Sori would have his spot back when he returned from the DL
Still believe the correct move is/was to have Gardner lead off vs RHP while Jeter leads off vs LHP but pretty much don’t have the energy to care anymore.
The problem with his decision to put Jorge in the ALDS lineups is that it wasnt a decision. It was a predetermined move, based on the safety of his job. He’d rather lose with his vets than with his rooks, because you really cant be 2nd guessed for going with the proven champion.
Gotta love ESPN.
Gordon Eades of ESPN Boston has a column about fixing the Sox. One of the moves he proposes is:
John Lackey to the Padres for 3b/OF Chase Headley.
He bases this on a report that circulated last week that the Padres might have some interest in reuniting Lackey with Bud Black and seeing if that fixed him and also on the fact that the Padres were willing to give Jon Garland $5mil a year when no one was competing for him.
Ok – even if we assume for a minute that the report was accurate I’m sure the Padres were thinking more along the lines of “Sure we’ll take a chance on Lackey, but Boston would have to eat almost all the money and take back a bad contract – like Orlando Hudson – or a non-player.”
They were not thinking “Yes, please let us get Lackey and in exchange we’ll give you a 27-year old switch hitter who may not hit for power in our park but finally starts to be putting it together at the plate – would you like Cameron Maybin too?”
Eades’s other plans:
Sign a RH hitting RF
Trade Kalish or Reddick for front line starting pitching (because either of those guys should easily bring that back on their own?)
Move Youk to 3b and trade for David Wright
Make Bard a starter
Sign Jose Reyes
Bat Crawford 2nd
Actually these last two are in direct conflict since in the batting Crawford 2nd part he talks about a lineup of Ellsbury, Crawford, Pedroia, A-Gone – so where’s he planning to bat Reyes?
Why would the Padres have any desire for John Lackey, other than Jed Hoyer helping out his Red Sox again.
Based on that – his projected Red Sox would be:
Ellsbury
Crawford
Pedroia
A-Gone
Youk – DH
Wright – 3b
Reyes – SS
Cuddyer – RF
Salty – C
and a rotation of:
Beckett, Lester, Some tremendous pitcher brought in for a spare OF, Bucholtz, Bard
….unless as Chip said, he’s fully paid for
If you want a really good Michael Lewis story read about the Cuban baseball league. He traveled around Cuba enjoying the beisbol and wrote about it. Really good.
Move Youk to 3b and trade for David Wright
————————————-
Chip-What did you mean to say. Move Youkilis to DH?
Who’s their closer next year. Papelbon or Heath Bell?
Wonder who the Manager will be and if theyll be as easy going as Francona.
Chip, that’s the life of a Red Sox fan. A Red Sox fan knows that the Red Sox, and every one of their Boston teams, can get whatever they want from another team, for spare parts like the Reddicks of the world. They had Jed Hoyer place with the Padres for Adrian Gonzalez. Im sure they have Theo placed with the Cubs for something else of value.
One thing I admired through the season was Girardi’s willingness to use Colon and Garcia as much as he did. Those guys saved the Yankees from making a potentially disastrous deadline trade. Besides, Freddy and Bart provided me with a great deal of entertainment, at least until Bart went down with that hammy. I hope that one or both return next spring.
Yankee Trader October 14th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Move Youk to 3b and trade for David Wright
————————————-
Chip-What did you mean to say. Move Youkilis to DH?
Who’s their closer next year. Papelbon or Heath Bell?
Wonder who the Manager will be and if theyll be as easy going as Francona.
————-
Yes, sorry I meant move Youk to DH.
Probably Papelbon.
My guess is that the manager won’t be someone with any managerial experience. He guesses Dave Martinez. Since Luccino and not his puppet Cherington will be doing the hiring, I have no idea. For all I know they could offer the job to Varitek.
Teary Francona October 14th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Chip, that’s the life of a Red Sox fan. A Red Sox fan knows that the Red Sox, and every one of their Boston teams, can get whatever they want from another team, for spare parts like the Reddicks of the world. They had Jed Hoyer place with the Padres for Adrian Gonzalez. Im sure they have Theo placed with the Cubs for something else of value.
————-
My guess is that with all the acrimony around this one – the Red Sox won’t get any discounts on trades made with the Cubbies.
Jerkface-
List of Cuban players who played in majors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L....._from_Cuba
My favorite Yankee player from Cuba was El Duque.
TY,
My favorite Cuban player was Minnie Minoso, another one who messed up my batting stance. Ah, Youth!
That’s not to say that I think Eades is completely off base. I could see them signing Cuddyer, moving Youk to DH and maybe even signing Reyes or Rollins. But they don’t have the parts to trade for a guy like David Wright, nor do they have them to trade for a top of the rotation arm.
And unless Lackey is totally paid for no team is going to trade for him unless you’re talking about taking back another bad contract in return. Something like Lackey for Jason Bay.
Don’t even know what to say about this video
@RiverAveBlues: Fat Josh Beckett around the 0:37 mark wins this video. http://t.co/do1cX7SA
I cant wait until the Padres realize that Jed Hoyer was nothing more than a Red Sox plant in their organization and fire his ass. Im not sure how the Padres havent realized this yet. Do they think that Hoyer is trying to help the Padres succeed? Where would they get such an insane idea?
Look at how stellar their team did last year, and how stellar all those guys they received in the Gonzalez trade are. I dont hear Chip Kelly’s name anymore. Wait, is his name Chip Kelly, Don Kelly, or Casey Kelly? I dont even remember, Hoyer doesnt even care!
Edes is a moron. Prob plays fantasy baseball. The talent wasn’t the problem with the Red Sox. It was health, and underperforming stars. The beer and chicken thing wouldn’t even be a story if the September collapse hadn’t happened. Sadly, we can probably expect the Red Sox to bounce back next year – unless they continue to have issues staying healthy.
In related news….Boston sucks
Sorry, “YT”
The Red Sox crisis is around having no pitching.
LGY
I hope Trisha gets to see that clip
Chip
The RS have 38.5M off the books if they don’t sign FA’s Papelbon, Ortiz, Drew.
Some 15.5 M will be used to pay for Gonzalez who’s salary is now 21M.
It’s fun for the media to propose FA signings, but with all the negative press about the clubhouse dealings and disgruntled players the RS will probably be paying top dollar for FA’s.
J. Alfred Prufrock October 14th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
The Red Sox crisis is around having no pitching.
————
Boston has pitching. In fact, they have better pitching right now than the Yankees do heading into next season and that is assuming CC is back with the club.
Beckett, Lester, Bucholtz are a better troika than CC, Nova and Hughes.
Boston had some key injuries…including A-Gone’s shoulder which I gather was more of a problem than he let on. Their pen and catchers faded down the stretch and Carl Crawford just had an awful year.
My guess is that with Gonzalez healthy, if they get a bounce back year from Crawford and improve their depth at catcher (either with Lavanerway or someone else taking over for Varitek) they’ll be just as much of a force as they were this past year – probably even more.
Keep in mind, the Sox had two bad stretches – opening the season and closing it – but in the middle there wasn’t a more dominant team in baseball.
and now I want to throw up.
What nobody mentions is that Girardi has kept an even strain with his clubhouse. You can see he gets uptight with various flareups in the overlarge New York nitpick spotlight but takes a deep breath and ratchets down.
I was impressed by how he handled the Posada histrionics. Even Cashman was willing to challenge the Posada tantrum but Joe stood firm in toning the whole situation down and keeping Jorge’s pride intact. It became a non issue due to his handling of the situation.
The other was keeping Soriano on an even keel into the seventh inning relief without showing him up. The Teix move was handled without any hoo hah, etc. I’m sure there were meetings/ discussions with the players prior to the moves. But the end result was that there were no team issues played out in the press.
Then there is the Girardi mantra – Back your players, discussions are in house. “Nothing to see here”.
Tom-
Luis Tiant was another favorite Cuban born player who I liked.
Tiant is one of five pitchers to have pitched four or more consecutive shutouts in the 50-year expansion era, with Don Drysdale (six, 1968), Bob Gibson (five, 1968), Orel Hershiser (five, 1988) and Gaylord Perry (four, 1970) being the others.
He’s so cute.
fran_cervelli Who’s ready for the weekend? I just learned what #FF means – I feel like I’m learning another language! Add me to your #FF tweets.
fran_cervelli FF some of my @Yankees teammates: @CC_Sabathia @cgrand14 @RobinsonCano @MarianoRivera @NickSwisher @DRob30 @PhilHughes65 @RussellMartin55
I agree with Bo’s comments.
Torre was credited with being great at managing the egos in his clubhouse. Girardi might not be as good as Torre was at that, but unlike Torre, Girardi keeps everything in house. He never says anything that could be considered a shot at a player, certainly not to the degree Torre did with guys like Alex.
Sure you’ll see a guy like Posada or Burnett flare up – but when asked Girardi will say everything’s fine.
The only thing I’d like to see Girardi do besides tinker with the lineup when needed, is LOOSEN UP!
And get tossed from a game once in a while!!
The difference for the Sox though is:
Their bullpen is terrible and they have to sign Papelbon or someone else.
They still have Lackey and no fifth starter. They will have to pay for a starter.
They will lose A Gone’s portection in the lineup if Ortiz bails. If they resign him pay money.
They have to play someone in RF. They can go with the guys they did this year, but a hole.
Varitek is older once again, is Salty the long term solution there?
Youkilis is hurt two years in a row and may be a shadow of himself going forward.
Injuries have happened to them the past two years? So it isn’t an abirition that it happens. Yankees have been without key guys the past few years and somehow make it thru to the playoffs. Maybe this says a lot about the other talent you have ?
Their minor leagues are now empty, so no trades, no callups, nothing will make much of an impact for them.
Shelled out some big dollar deals and years last season, may be trigger shy this year again.
They have plenty of issues.
Bo Knows-great post
Boston has pitching. In fact, they have better pitching right now than the Yankees do heading into next season and that is assuming CC is back with the club.
Beckett, Lester, Bucholtz are a better troika than CC, Nova and Hughes.
———————–
Falling into that trap again??
A starting staff is not 2-3 deep. But really more like 7-8.
Pitching depth is the name of the game.
Girardi is a great guy to have manage a full season, his results of getting teams there and keeping guys on the field is pretty good. His managing of the bullpen is great as well, guys arms aren’t blown out by season’s end.
Post Season he doesn’t make the transition well to a short series though. Not willing to change the lineup around etc. He still plays too far ahead in the playoffs.
Batting Jeter first didn’t do much for the postseason run. He had one big double, but otherwise left the most runners on base for the full series and had many time to come up big. His time as a leadoff hitter is done, especially as he has lost the ability to steal at least 20 bags. Your leadoff hitter should not lead the league in groundballs, strike out 100 times a year and not draw a ton of walks. 6 homers on the season, 24 doubles. Not exactly kick starting the first inning. Regardless of how long Gardner was left in their, small sample size, Jeter was bad for half the season and refused to pull him out of the spot.
And one of those three Boston pitchers has a history of injuries now and weighs 100 pounds. Assuming a full season out of him is poor planning now.
Girardi has the rep of being tightly wound. I don’t think you would want to see Girardi blow. Even when he challenges umps it seems to be orchestrated.
Oh, and good one on Burnett. The latter made a point of bringing up the topic that Girardi had his back many times during the season.
Then, with Girardi it’s almost always the long term view. He’s willing to lose a game rather than risk a pitcher’s health. It’s paid dividends in the years he’s he’s been here. Totally anti Torre there.
I’m looking on COT’s at the Blue Jays payroll. I believe if they can improve their team in certain areas they might very well contend in the East improving on their 81-81 season.
They have to decide on offering arbitration to Brandon Morrow, who had a very uneven season.
If he is let loose, any interest in him as a FA?
LGY October 14th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Boston has pitching. In fact, they have better pitching right now than the Yankees do heading into next season and that is assuming CC is back with the club.
Beckett, Lester, Bucholtz are a better troika than CC, Nova and Hughes.
———————–
Falling into that trap again??
A starting staff is not 2-3 deep. But really more like 7-8.
Pitching depth is the name of the game.
——————-
Well okay, I still think they might even be deeper than the Yankee staff is.
Lackey and AJ are a wash. Fifth starters are both complete unknown quantities right now but let’s assume for the sake of making assumptions that the Yankees bring back Garcia and the Sox bring back Bedard – another wash.
So then you get into prospects and minor league free agents – the Yankees might have the edge in prospects, but we won’t know that until we see how they perform at this level. Could Warren, Phelps, Mitchell be better than Dubront, Weiland, and Andrew Miller (assuming he returns) sure I guess – but having not seen any of those three Yankees pitch a major league inning, I can’t tell you that for sure.
So that leaves us with essentially a push on starters 4 – 8 and the Sox with a clear advantage on 1 – 3.
So that leaves us with essentially a push on starters 4 – 8 and the Sox with a clear advantage on 1 – 3.
———————-
Oh, Chip. Don’t fall for the Red Sox propaganda again.
The Sox system is barren of upper level pitching talent. Weiland, Miller? Come on.
I think Girardi is a great regular season manager and I think this year was probably his best work as a Yankee……..but he still has a bit to learn about the postseason sprint….he’s still learning.
Nobody is taking Lackeys contract unless they eat a ton of the balance of it……he’s less tradeable than AJ is…..he’s owed more money, he’s a worse pitcher, and he’s a jerk.
Montero got a chance to fail? Not behind the plate he didn’t…..they were too afraid he’d cost them a meaningless September game to try it.
Hear “small sample size” applied as an excuse for short-term pitching woes, but almost never to explain pitching success, or a successful comeback. Wilson in the postseason is one example. The Red Sox collapse in the last month is another. Chip seems to believe the latter is an aberration. I’m not so sure it is, and I’ll take our staff over theirs.
YankeesWFAN Granderson and Cano headline MLB roster for Nov 1-6 tour of Taiwan. Also former NYY P Veras and Melancon and NYM P Gee.
Erin -
What is #FF?
And, Mariano is on Twitter?????
If the Sox let Ortiz walk their offense is going to suffer a significant blow.
“If the Sox let Ortiz walk their offense is going to suffer a significant blow.”
Yea it really will…..his resurrection and Elsburys career year really was much bigger to their offense than adding Gonzalez was.
I agree with the first two points of this post, but the third one is a stretch. Montero was going to have many at-bats even if he struggled heavily. It was surprising that when he started to get hot, Girardi still wouldn’t play Montero regularly. Most importantly, when it became evident Cervelli wasn’t coming back and it looked like Montero was a serious candidate for backup catcher, Girardi failed to play him at catcher, even after clinching. He trusted Romine, who wasn’t brought to the postseason.
This proved a mistake since he never dared to pinch-hit Montero for Martin as catcher in big at-bats where Martin failed misserably. Had he trusted Montero or brought in Romine, we could still be playing right now.
So no kudos for anything related to Montero.
Falling into that trap again??
A starting staff is not 2-3 deep. But really more like 7-8.
Pitching depth is the name of the game.
This is where Cashman totally blew Theo out of the water. The Yankees staff was 8/9 deep to the point where his backups were better than the pitching available at the deadline.
And I might be the lonely little voice here, but the Manager’s responsibility is to put a player in a position to succeed – putting in Montero to PH in the seventh is putting him in a position to fail.
High risk gamble with a kid’s career that is vital to the Yankees’ interests in the years to come.
Villa Nova- FF is Follow Friday
And yes, Mo is on Twitter. He’s been on for a few weeks now. I about fell over when I saw it.
Yeah, seriously what is Chad talking about with Montero?
It’s not like Montero went through rough times and Girardi stuck with him. The kid mashed his way through September and didn’t get enough PT if anything.
If anything they were extremely conservative with Montero …….they didn’t let him catch…..and for the most last they didn’t let him hit against RHP for the most part……
Erin -
What is the significance of Follow Friday? Just a day to find new people to follow? Or everyone follows everyone only on Friday?
I may have to Follow Mariano, because “ya gotta go to Mo!”
Actually they took more or a “see he can’t catch ” approach after letting him catch after seeing him once and put Jorge Posada behind the plate instead of him …..yea really no kudos for the handling of him.
Girardi should be praised for sparingly playing Montero after he had a hitless debut against one of the toughest pitchers in the AL?
I mean, what was he supposed to do? Glue their best hitting prospect in who knows how long to the bench because he didn’t get a hit in his first game in the major leagues?
Chad has been saying some strange stuff about Montero lately. I wonder if there’s some sort of agenda at play…
bw51official Rhythms of the Game featured in the Jazz Times!… http://fb.me/1giA5XPnU
Beckett, Lackey, Bucholtz, Lester
Three little words: “I like beer.”
Three little words that mean: (1) poor conditioning, (2) poor attitude; and (3) poor character. Makeup means a lot. Especially when asked to pitch over 200 innings each and stay in shape. Why did they suck at the beginning of April? Conditioning? Why did they suck at the end of September? Conditioning?
How about a bet: next year the Red Sox rotation is 0.5 worse than the Yankees?
Villa Nova-Ya October 14th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Erin -
What is the significance of Follow Friday? Just a day to find new people to follow? Or everyone follows everyone only on Friday?
***********************
Villa Nova, the former. Basically, it’s people recommending their favorite Twitter accounts.
I meant 0.5 ERA points worse.
In a relate move: Girardi’s decision to put Jorge Posada back in the regular lineup for the division series also paid off. Posada was one of the few Yankees to actually hit with any sort of consistency that series.
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So? How do we know what Montero would have done. Not that Jorge won a game for us.
Joe stuck to the course but was far from proactive and that’s what got the other mgr fired.
LGY – i think you are grossly misreading the Montero section.
Girardi gets a nod for resting players all year, something Joe Torre just never even considered. That’s terribly important to keep a finger on that, since we not only have older players, but KEY older players we rely on in the postseason (nothing to be done about Alex’s incredibly unlucky string of injuries).
As much as he was alert with the bullpen in Game 5, dealing with a ‘no tomorrow’ mindset, he was equally hyperopic in his paralytic refusal to use his bench to try and save Game 5.
No kudos at all for Montero, or Posada.
Posada was an obvious call, been saying all year he is a professional hitter who knows what to do with postseason ABs. How does this guy get credit for this?? They had a plan to phase him out & suddenly he’s viable again because of an AB to clinch the division? Sorry, I’m not biting on that BS. They suddenly were cramming ABs for him because of their capricious lack of understanding of what he could do; who was surprised that he came through? Really??
Montero? He used him in a blowout, never to be summoned again – and I had completely forgotten until someone here reminded me that Cervelli had actually gone down, that Montero wasn’t necessarily even going to make the roster had the former been healthy.
Wonder if they had to get a spade to unglue his butt from the bench once it was over.
Remember in ST when Beckett and Lackey were in the “best shape of their lives ” and the Sox once again had 4 aces…….that was fun
How do ya like it, how da ya like it, Mo Mo Mo!!
I’m weary of talking about the Red Sox, but it was obvious from GO that they would have pitching problems somewhere along the line.
The vaudevillian pratfall was somewhat surprising, but who actually thought Beckett would get away with an entire healthy season? His demise just came later than I expected, but it came with a vengeance. Lester’s downfall was surprising, Lackey’s awfulness was as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise, Buccholz got hurt, but I’m not sure why this guy was some sort of lock any way, & Dice-K is awful.
The point some of us got was that they had no margin for error, should things go south. I wrote as much here very early, as did others who saw it coming. They have no arms in their system, and they don’t have any for 2012, either. So this idea that they’re going to have a great year again requires that everything turns idyllic for them. For it was predicted here that if things went even slightly awry, choas would ensue.
And guess what? That is EXACTLY what happened.
JAP is right. This horse is very dead.
Joel Sherman
Hal Steinbrenner/Cashman are scheduled to meet next week, and all parties expect a new GM contract to be done without much rancor #Yankees
The thing that gripes me most is that boy genius gets the golden parachute for messing up big time. All these flashy transactions that went sideways as in Lackey, Crawford, Gonzales. Cashman has put the team first every time and gets bupkus.
So Sherman is saying there will be SOME rancor? Sometimes people use words without really thinking about what it is they are saying.
Thanks, Erin.
Yogi – Seriously, it’s very unlikely that Cashman is a Jedi… he would get squished.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho.....d-dog.html
Jeter: Luck. Same logic that had him keep Teixeira at #3 vs rhp hitting .220 until the last week of the season.
Robertson: Obvious move, if you think your second best reliever should always pitch the eigth inning, which is conventional “wisdom” and required little thought. I’d argue about using your best reliever in the highest leverage situations, but like LGY I’m tired of arguing that.
Montero: What? Lol. Oooh, Girardi stuck with Montero for more than one ab, brilliant! Montero forced what little he got by quick performance. Girardi still gave up on him quickly vs rhp.
Girardi would make a much better Drill Sergeant than MLB manager.
…..there are some individuals that are sicker than me. Wow. What a bunch of sick freaks. Id like to chop off their manhood and feed it to trash compactors.
New Post: Wilson ignoring Yankees focus… for now