Now hold it, hold it. We’re about to accuse Girardi, who only happens to be the thirty-second most important man in the Yankee organization, of conducting a conspiracy from inside the club house. It would be nice if we were right.
Was Alex Rodriguez in the Yankees’ original lineup for Game 4 of the ALCS?
It depends on who you talk to.
According to Tigers manager Jim Leyland, he received two different Yankee lineups in the late afternoon, the first one listing A-Rod hitting sixth and playing third base. But then, a courier from the Yankee clubhouse brought a second lineup to Leyland’s office – the one that was officially released which omitted both A-Rod and Curtis Granderson and had Eric Chavez at third base, hitting sixth, Brett Gardner in center field and Nick Swisher back in right field after being benched the night before.
“Is something else going on over there with A-Rod?” Leyland asked the Daily News before the game was postponed by rain Wednesday. “I got two lineups from them, one with him in it and the second one with him out.”
Joe Girardi explained the two-lineup mystery as a mistake on his part and not a last-minute decision to bench A-Rod again.
“We talked about some different lineups during the day,” Girardi said, “and when I handed the lineup to (third base coach Robbie Thompson), I didn’t realize which one it was. It was actually a mistake on my part. We had people in different spots. So I called over there (to Leyland) and told them we gave them the wrong one.”
Repoz
Posted: October 18, 2012 at 05:02 AM |
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1. Walks Clog Up the Bases Posted: October 18, 2012 at 06:09 AM (#4275068)As an aside, why isn't this getting more play:
So what, being down 3-0 in a lowly LCS isn't a desperate enough situation for you to try to win at all costs, while staying completely within the rules, written and unwritten? How about down by 3 runs with 2 out and none on in Game 7 of the World Series? Would that still be desperate? Is your pride more valuable than a World Series ring?
Schilling was on TV last night talking about how the Yankees didn't bunt on him as expected in the Bloody Sock Game (TM) in 2004. He said he thinks he could have handled it, but seemed still surprised that they didn't at least test him.
Disagree. He got to experience the highest highs the sport can offer (2x MVP in 05 and 07, an all-time kind of season in a major market in 07, wide acknowledgement for his role in "carrying" the Yankees in 09 to a WS, and a *new* biggest K in the history of the sport.) He's done everything he could possibly have come to do. He'll get his number retired, wear pinstripes on his HOF plaque, and probably be cheered wildly at some future Old Timers' Day.
A-Rod made the right move in going to NYC. It's just that the right move now is for him to leave NYC, preferably for a city that better suits his personality.
note: I think A-Rod had gone to the Mets in 2000, everything would have worked out better for him. Slightly less media pressure, same big city and bright lights, and a team that would have indisputably been his by 2003 or so. In the meantime, he's best off going somewhere where he can have fun at night and be an elder statesman in the clubhouse.
If this blows up like everyone thinks it will, and something happens in the off-season, I don't see how his number will be retired by the Yankees.
I agree with this 100%. I don't know if someone is advising him or what but he is striking the right balance of "I want to be in there" with "the manager is in charge."
No judgement here, I went over awhile ago.
However, when you shake things up, you give it a shake and set it back down. You don't keep shaking. Over time, A-Rod, even today, is probably a little better than the guys they're putting in in his place. And, certainly, there are many other examples of stink who aren't getting the same treatment (of course, you can't bench your entire team).
After days and days of this, it really does come off as if all of it is against A-Rod - whether to run him out of town or just at dislike/irritation of him and makes me think that first "smart" move of PHing Ibanez was a nut found by a blind, and annoyed, squirrel. Girardi seems to have learned the lesson "sitting A-Rod leads to victory" rather than, A-Rod is a good player but no longer a superstar and one I need to manage like the other players.
I heard this interview on the radio yesterday, and the one time Rodriguez was at his most animated was when they asked him if he wanted to stay with the Yankees. He said he loved the team and the organization and the city, and it was the most sincere-sounding part of the entire interview.
I don't think many people acknowledge this.
Of the ultra-megabuck contracts over the years how many do you think the player would have been happier staying with his existing team for a bit less money? We don't know how these guys think but I wonder about A-Rod as a Seattle lifer or Manny in Cleveland and wonder if they and a lot of others in similar circumstances would have been happier in the long run. I don't think A-Rod is necessarily unhappy in New York (or was in Texas for that matter) but you can't tell me he doesn't look fondly on being a 21 year old kid in Seattle and having the world by the tail and think "maybe I should've found a way to stay."
I dunno, Girardi has had ample success relative to resources in both Florida and New York, but he may be the kind of manager who overstays his welcome pretty quickly. If he does exit, I predict he'll get a job somewhere else pretty fast and be back in a position to mismanage a playoff series again soon.
What world do you live in where a $275,000,000.00 contract is the worst career move ever? Happiness isn't all about money, but that much cash certainly goes a long way.
I think A-Rod really, really likes being in NYC. Not sure I get WHY, but it sure seems like he does.
But so would the amount of cash he would have gotten had he never left Seattle. The fact that he was going to be a very rich dude for the rest of his life was already settled.
I'm not saying he should have taken less money, I just wonder if he would have been happier. That of course assumes he is not happy now which is not something I have any clue about. You may be right. All this ancillary BS may be just that. Maybe he's saying to himself "I sleep with famous and beautiful women and I have enough money to have anyone I dislike buried at sea." If I'm wrong it won't be the first time that's for damned sure.
I just don't know how you put a dollar value on being a Musial or a Gwynn or a Brooks Robinson but there has to be some value to be able to walk into a ballpark and just have people adore you.
My opinion of Girardi has long been that he is a manager who makes a good situation better and a bad situation worse. I'm sure there are examples to the contrary but that is my perception of him as a manager.
Almost all contracts for older players end in grief not because the contracts were bad for the player or team but because players' careers (except Chipper's!) end in grief.
He is a crazy rich good looking male, why wouldn't he want to live in NYC? If I had that much money NYC and/or San Francisco are the two cities I would want to live in (with a house in Hawaii or other warm weather spot).
Dude has all the money he could want and hot and cold running women and gets to live in one of the centers of the world. And yes I am sure he could be very happy in other major metropolitan areas (or anywhere I guess - money makes it easy to live well anywhere), but NYC appeals to him.
Something about really large contracts make external observers loose it - something I have witnessed first hand here in MN with the Mauer contract. Unless he is an MVP caliber player every year he is EVIL (according to many), like he held the Twin Cities hostage with a nuclear device to force ownership to give him his contract.
EDIT: My rant is not aimed at ASmitty or anyone in particular in this thread, just a random rant sparked by the thread. Carry on.
It may just be the press coverage, but it's like they're going out of their way to torment A-Rod.
If we are playing "what ifs", how about if the players union does not step in and he takes a bit less money to go the Red Sox? Does this end better for him there?
Oh I get wanting to LIVE in NYC. I'm just not sure I get wanting to play there. Though I suppose with the length of the baseball season and the fact that he probably wants to be someplace else during the winter, the live/play option may be best.
If they still win the 2004 series? I think he's a hero for life.
It seems strange to me, but nearly all the New York ballplayers don't live in the city. New York City is great in a lot of ways, but it's especially great if you're young and wealthy, so you'd think ballplayers would want to take advantage of that. When John Olerud was with the Mets, I read a story about how he lived in Manhattan - but he was the only Met who did so, and most of his teammates thought it was pretty weird that he'd live there.
If you're just going to live in the suburbs anyway, there's not a lot of difference between Islip and Overland Park and Plano and Whitefish Bay.
I don't know. Nomar was not at the peak of his popularity when A-Rod would have arrived so I think he would have been embraced a bit more. His arrival would have punted Manny which would have been generally popular with the fan base (Manny was definitely in one of his ebbs with the public at that point). Part of his "problem" in New York has been that he was compared to Jeter right from the get-go and a large number of fans and media were never going to let him win that one.
I think if the Sox win in '04 and '07 as they did I think he's probably incredibly popular along the lines of Schilling pre-Rhode Island tax mess. I don't think it's a certainty though. Part of the reason for A-Rod's lack of popularity he arrived on the heels of an amazingly successful time for the Yankees and despite being the highest paid and arguably the best player in the game at the time that has translated to just one WS title. I don't think any of us thought the A-Rod Yankees would have one World Series title from 2004-2011.
I think Baseball Prospectus actually calculated the odds and as of the 6th inning of Game Five in 2008 the odds were actually longer for the Sox than they were in the 9th inning of Game Four in 2004.
What does this have to do with the Edmund Fitzgerald?
I don't get why people think/thought Girardi is a good manager, but "good manager" is such a vague and hard-to-measure concept that perhaps I'm wrong. He sucks tactically, and whenever I make that general argument about a manager, people tell me that much of a manager's job is to manage the clubhouse, etc.
Well, if that's the case I don't see how Girardi hasn't failed in a major way here. It took him a span of just 8 games and 25 PA to banish and humiliate an important player. Of those 8 games, ARod played in just 6, and of those 6, he was left alone, unmolested, in just 2. By the third game Girardi was pinch hitting for him, and by the 5th game Girardi was benching him. In a span of 8 team games, Girardi benched ARod twice, pinch hit for him three times, and batted him sixth two times. It took Girardi not two weeks to marginalize ARod to the point where people are legitimately wondering whether ARod's future Yankees career has been destroyed.
This has been some of the worst managing I've ever witnessed. The 9th inning of Game 3 of the ALCS was, in my view, worse than the game in which Grady Little left Pedro in too long, which has basically served as the textbook for bad managing over this past decade. At least that was just one decision by Little in the abstract, basically to stick with Pedro come hell or high water. Girardi had a series of discrete decisions to make in the 9th re his pinch hitters, but he failed at every opportunity.
Banishing ARod, even against lefties, even as a pinch hitter, based on 6 games and 25 PAs in the postseason. Leading off with a batter (Gardner) who hasn't hit since April and couldn't get the ball out of the infield, three times not getting it past the pitcher. Going down in flames in the 9th with Ichiro and Ibanez against the lefty Phil Coke, without bringing in Swisher or ARod to pinch hit. Letting Gardner hit in the 9th, letting Eduardo Nunez hit in the 9th against Justin Verlander instead of pinch hitting for him - and I know he hit a homer, but this was a player who they thought so little of that he wasn't even on the roster to start the ALCS.
And at that, Girardi may have lost the clubhouse with his treatment of ARod and Swisher, and his willingness to flip the starters for their backups based on 20 or 25 bad PAs. (I note that ARod has been robbed at least a couple times, so his performance has been a little better than his record.) I'd perhaps conclude that Girardi just lost his mind over the issue of ARod trying to get girls' numbers in the stands, but Girardi started this nonsense - including the benching - before that incident happened.
If this isn't a bad performance by a bad manager, then basically nothing is. He is letting his ship go down with backups instead of regulars. And now Granderson will be benched.
These are great buildings. I live there!
Seriously, it's wonderful. Kind of secluded by the water, a new street/area, away from the subway and Broadway... it's great.
Cashman is entirely on-board with A-Rod's benching and says so in today's papers. He also indicates meeting and discussing the matter with Girardi.
As noted in the thread yesterday, managers tend not to free-lance on big decisions like this and not to make them in the face of material blow-back.
And at that, Girardi may have lost the clubhouse with his treatment of ARod and Swisher,
There's no indication this is the case, as there was no such indication in 2006 with Torre. I'm also hard-pressed to understand the invocation of "losing the clubhouse," when you've railed against "silly" psychological things like that for years. What actual on-field impact would "losing the clubhouse" have? None, right?
There's also the very real likelihood that the clubhouse supports the benching of A-Rod and Swisher -- in fact, that's far more likely than them not.
He has had an incredible run of building great bullpens.
His offensive tactics are lacking, but he handles the pitching staff very, very well, which I have always thought is the most important managerial skill. Way more important than "managing egos".
Pssh. RSN pisses on Schilling's name, Beckett and Youk (relating to 2007) are afterthoughts now... they were ready to run Papi out of town over steroids and when they thought he was done a couple of years back. It's only Papi's comeback that has solidified him forever as an icon. If he really had been done a couple of years back, he'd be 'that surly guy that tainted our rings with steroids'.
None, but its relevance is - as I said at the start of my comment - that people have told me that intangibles are a huge part of managing. If that is the case, then Girardi has sucked at that aspect as well. That's my point.
That's a joke, right? Let's list all the great players whose tenure in Boston has ended well over the last few decades...
1. Yastrzemski
2. ???????
Tough for you maybe, not tough at all for me or most baseball fans that I know.
Ray, you mean "NOT FAR away," right? Or are you saying you like being far from the subway?
The tenures of Evans and Rice didn't end badly, so much as the Red Sox simply weren't interested in continuing with them. Same, really, for Boggs. And Schilling. And Pedro too, no?
On the other hand, there's:
Manny
Clemens
Nomar
Beckett and Gonzalez are lesser players, but that didn't end well.
Yeah, I don't hate ARod, but I don't feel sorry for him.
I'm pretty mad at ARod, Cano, Swisher and Granderson for their choke-tastic performances. At least ARod's old and hurt, the other don't have that excuse.
It's a 6 minute walk to the subway from where I am, which in Manhattan terms is basically like Chevy Chase going through the dessert.
I like being that far away from the subway, yes.
I don't recall the Evans departure, but there was plenty of bad blood with Boggs.
Because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. In a fair world Girardi would be fired for the incompetence he displayed in the 9th inning of Game 3 alone, to say nothing of his performance over this postseason. He has over-reacted to a small subset of PAs, and is now going to war with his practice squad. That is utterly absurd.
Yes, it does. The comparison is ludicrous. If Girardi announced that his starting rotation for the rest of the series would be Eppley, Rapada, Garcia, and Nova, would he not deserve to be fired before game time tonight? That is essentially what he's done with his lineup. He is fielding a B Team lineup of the type that you see in spring training. And why? Because he doesn't understand how the game of baseball works, despite spending his entire life in it.
He is the on-field head of a billion dollar business. Tens of millions of dollars are riding on the decisions he makes, and he is utterly in over his head.
It seems you are unwilling to call any manager a bad one, Tom. You're unwilling to say that any manager deserves to be fired. At least, I've never seen you do anything but provide cover for any manager. That is odd.
I face east.
He's put on a few pounds as he's gotten older, but I didn't think he was that big an eater.
If Big George was still alive and running the ship, you could guarantee that Giradi and Cashman would be gone before Halloween.
DB
Exactly. Luck and the other team have little bearing on whether or not Girardi's decisions are reasonable. The approach is just wrong. If a batter went up and swung and missed at the first three pitches he saw in 25 consecutive ABs, I don't think Ray would be claiming his .000 average was an illusion of small sample szie.
Was that with the fans, or just the front office.
I think there are two ways to look at it: how the fans perceive him and how the front office perceives him. Currently, it looks (to me as an outsider) like both can't stand ARod. Assuming in our time machine that the Red Sox still win in 04 and 07 (and add 09 because ARod killed it that year), do the fans turn on him if he is declining like he has the last couple of years?My guess is that they might have given him a bit more time, but who knows. The FO would be upset over the rest of the contract regardless.
I try very hard never to say that a manager is good, either (although I may have done so somewhere). I prefer to see managers as a collection of different skills, which may be variable over time. We were talking about Jim Leyland the other day, and someone called him "dumb" because of a single move he made, and MCoA responded that everyone, even the smartest people, does dumb stuff sometimes. I subscribe to that view. It doesn't make Jim Leyland a bad manager, or even a dumb one.
And I would never, ever fire a manager over one mistake, or even a series of mistakes. The time to fire a manager is when the team has a reasonable expectation that they could bring in someone else to do a better job, and not a moment before.
In the specific case of Girardi, he's done a poor job in this series (although I think his handling of the pitching staff has been fine). At the same time, I thought he did a very good job in the 20009 postseason. Does that not still count? Or do you think his skills have changed over time? Could he possibly go back to being that manager again, especially if he is chastened by his poor performance this year? I don't know the answers to all those questions, but I think they're worth asking.
Boggs hit free agency off of his first sub-.300 year, and fans were, by and large, indifferent about seeing him go. There was a perception that Scott Cooper was as good. One of the local talk radio shows did a daily comparison of Cooper's and Boggs's batting average during 1993, called "Wade Watch." Boggs of course won the contest.
So when is the next Primate meet up?!
It is tonight at 8pm at Flashdancers.
I vehemently disagree. It's quite easy not to feel sorry for him. Watch me.
Just nitpicking, but at the end, Schilling was "That guy who just ripped off the Sox for 8 million". Now this may have something to do with his mouth.*
*Of which, I feel the animus is right up there with the insane hate Youk gets from non-Sox fans.
They got off cheap compared to Rhode Island.
I'm a lifelong Yankees fan, have rooted for A-Rod from day one, and I don't feel sorry for him. I am perplexed by the way he's been singled out when Chavez hit .000 and the heart of the order was punchless. But no, I don't feel sorry for him.
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