Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas – USA Today
Current New York Yankees‘ manager Joe Girardi is in the third and final year of the $9 million extension he signed back in 2010. With this year’s Yankee team playing well even though it has had so many major early injuries, it would seem that Girardi would most likely be offered a new deal from the franchise this off-season, especially because he won the World Series in only his second year as the Bombers’ manager. However, when you are the manager of the Yankees winning one championship in five seasons of work actually is not a sign of success. Instead, it shows that he has failed four out of the five times he has attempted to lead the Yanks to the Promised Land. He also happens to be getting paid $3 million a year to do so.
For these reasons, it is not hard to see why the Yankees may be looking for a new manager even if Girardi manages to guide the Yankees to the playoffs. It becomes even more conceivable when you take into account that on the other side of the country former Yankee captain and 1985 AL MVP Don Mattingly is also in the last year of his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. A team, which is star studded, owns the second highest payroll in baseball and has a new ownership group that definitely wants to see if Mattingly can succeed with the assembled roster.
The 52 year-old skipper is beloved by Yankees fans for both his performance and class when he was with the team, even though he never won a title as a player. Mattingly wanted the opportunity to be the Yankees’ manager back when they were searching for the successor to Joe Torre following the 2007 season.
Mattingly would be walking into an interesting situation as well because the Yankees are going to be entering a new era in their history in the near future as they are expected to infuse new young talent into the team by the start of the 2015 season. This could set Mattingly up for a long Joe Torre/Casey Stangel type run with team.
The interest in Mattingly succeeding Girardi as the man leading the Yankees would obviously be mutual. The only potential speed bump in this process would be if either Girardi or Mattingly were to do something with their teams this season that would then warrant a contract extension from their respective clubs.
Chris Ronca is a New York Yankees writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter; @ChrisRonca.
