Girardi is not missed at all

Tonight, Joe Girardi will make his second return to South Florida as the Yankees manager after being unceremoniously fired by the Marlins in 2006, which was his first and last season. He made his first return last year in an exhibition game between the Yankees and the Marlins, which was a tuneup to Opening Day.

Naturally, there will be comparisons to him and Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez considering Girardi was fired after a successful season, and Gonzalez was hired to duplicate his predecessor's accomplishments. With that said, the Marlins did the right thing in firing the 2006 NL Manager of the Year.

This was not a marriage that would last forever considering former Marlins general manager and now team president Larry Beinfest and Girardi disliked each other from the start. Both are stubborn men in believing how to operate a baseball team, and when a manager acts like he knows more than a general manager, odds are he is not going to stay very long.

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria hired Girardi despite Beinfest's objections because Loria had an affinity towards Girardi, and he felt Girardi was the right man for the job. Whatever support Loria had for Girardi was done when the abrasive manager told his boss to go shut up during the game against the Dodgers that took place on August 6th of the 2006 season.

Girardi may have been right about Loria's behavior towards umpire Larry Vanover, but it does not give him the right to go tell his boss to go shut up especially when the owner was his only backer in the organization. Could anyone envision someone tell their boss to shut up at their job? That person would ne fired if he or she did that so Girardi should be no different, which is why he got what he deserved.

Girardi is known to be intense, and in the heat of the matter, he said something that should have not been said, but he has to be smart enough to realize what to say especially in front of his boss. He should have had a different tact in approaching the owner.

Girardi's ego was too much for everyone involved. He gave input on how to run this organization, never mind that's the general manager's job. Girardi's job is to follow orders from his boss, and make sure his players are ready to play.

When Girardi spoke out about how he thought he was going to have a good team after Josh Beckett and several others were traded in a fire sale, it was a sign that this was not going to end well.

He kept going on and on in undermining management the entire season such as overusing his starters when he was told not to make them pitch too many innings. Anibal Sanchez and Ricky Nolasco suffered from dead arms as a result of being overused.

Even if Girardi managed to get along with Beinfest and Loria, odds are he would have been interested in managing the Yankees or the Cubs once he felt he proved himself, which is the only reason he took the Marlins job in the first place. His ego was not going to be satisfied in managing a small-market team.

Girardi received too much credit for the job he did in Miami in his one year there, and he let everyone know that he was the reason why the Marlins had success, which did not sit well with Beinfest. He did a fine job, but it helped he had players that played well, and that's a credit to the job Beinfest has done as the general manager of the team.

The fact Gonzalez has done a solid job with the team just proves Girardi wasn't exactly a genius that he thought he was. Sure, Girardi has a better record this season with his team than Gonzalez's team, but with the payroll that Girardi's team have, the Yankees better be one of the top teams in baseball, Girardi's success in NY should not impress people. Especially when the Yankees did not made the playoffs last year.

It's hard to call out Gonzalez especially since he is a managing a team full of young players, who are still learning how to play the game. It's hard to win when a team has  a small payroll so Gonzalez should be commended for doing the best of what he has to work with.

If anyone thought Girardi would have done much better, think again. With the starting rotation being a mess and the team still not playing defense, Girardi would not fare any differently. He probably would have the same result as his successor.

It's imperative that the front office and the manager agree on many baseball issues concerning the team, and that's where Gonzalez does well with by not acting like he knows everything about the game. This was something Girardi refuse to accept.

That itself is why the Marlins made the right choice in letting Girardi walk.