Was Joe Girardi The Wrong Choice As Manager?

By DOUG RUSH

If you surveyed 100 Yankee fans and asked them if they would want to keep Joe Girardi as manager of the Yankees, you'd probably get a 50-50 response.

Some people like him, some people hate him.

There has also been the rumblings of a division between Girardi and "The Old Guard", which is Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte. If you want, you can also throw Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez in there as well since they've been on the team for a while and are also veterans.

Now, Girardi did win the 2006 Manager of the Year Award by almost taking the Florida Marlins to the playoffs and he also finished 89-73 in his first season with the Yankees, but he also failed to get the Yankees into the postseason for the first time in 13 years.

Granted, the Yankees had a ton of injuries last season to Posada, Matsui, Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain late in the season. Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson were not suitable replacements, Ivan Rodriguez was a complete bust and Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were injured or performed horribly. Despite it, the Yankees still won 89 games, but finished in 3rd. Most of us Yankee fans gave Girardi a pass on 2008.

2009 might not be a free pass. They bought in CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira for nearly $423 million dollars and have very high expectations. They also built a $1.5 billion dollar stadium that's being dubbed "Coors Field East" because of the insane number of home runs flying out, but home runs means excitement and that's what the fans want, home runs.

The Yankees let go of Joe Torre, passed on Don Mattingly and Tony Pena for the manager job. If the Yankees continue to struggle, Girardi may start to feel the hot seat. I doubt they would fire Girardi in the middle of the season, because that would be an even bigger mess to fix.

But at the end of the season, if the Yankees fail yet again to make the postseason, or, if they are eliminated early, I don't expect Girardi to be managing the Yankees too much longer.

Start winning games now Joe and get the team's trust 100%, or I'd start thinking of finding another job.