Don Zimmer said it best, “Joe got there at the wrong time.” I think he was prepared for everything but third place.
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To be fair, I don’t think anyone saw the regression of Jeter, Cano & Melky. No one thought that Posada would spend so much time on the shelf. Rodriguez & Posada were supposed to decline, but bounce back years from Giambi, Damon and Co were supposed to pick up the slack.

As for the pitching, at the start of the season, I would’ve been thrilled with Wang, Pettitte, Moose, and Hughes and Kennedy rounding out the rotation. Moose wasn’t expected to last the season, and Chamberlain would’ve taken his spot (or moved into the rotation as one of Hughes or Kennedy reached their innings cap).

Point being, I don’t think anyone saw this team at the beginning of the season and saw a 3rd place team.

“Let’s give Joe Girardi five decent starting pitchers and some hitters up the middle of the diamond and then let’s see if his style works, or not, in the Bronx.”

Don Zimmer said it best, “Joe got there at the wrong time.” I think he was prepared for everything but third place.

Girardi had a worse team than Torre did AND the offense fell asleep. Girardi is a smart guy and has to make adjustments, he doesn’t have to become Joe Torre Jr but correct some mistakes. All I hear in the pres is that memebers of the clubhouse were not happy with Girardi this year. Joe should talk to Damon before benching him instead of what happened. Also, Joe can chill when Kim Jones asks him a question. Girardi is very bright and has been part of the press and he should be cognizant of the various criticisms. In essence, some changes should be made because General Joe is managing a lot of veterans and not a young Marlins team.

Get him better starting pitching and 89 wins turns into 99 wins.
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No guarantees; Moose’s renaissance would’ve been nice accompanied by a full season of Wang, and Chamberlain’s transition to the rotation.

Having said that, I don’t know; there are certainly a lot of variables involved. As it looks, the Yanks had offensive and defensive troubles (Defensive Efficiency 11th out of 14 teams, and we all know the offense underperformed this year), so they may want to try to tighten those two areas up.

Totally agree.

Get him better starting pitching and 89 wins turns into 99 wins.

Even with a diminished offense they win 10 more games with better SP.

The only reason Molina got so much playing time was because Posada was injured.

Who knows what happened with Cano & Cabrera. Jeter too.

But I will agree that a perfect storm of injuries & ineffectiveness hurt the offense. Even though scoring was down in the league, the Yanks scored far less than they were projected. And that’s why they’re on the outside looking in. The pitching, despite the injuries did what it was supposed to do. The offense, however, didn’t.

Personally, I think Girardi deserves a mulligan on the season, but this year shows that there’s a lot that can happen with a team that isn’t necessarily the manager’s fault.

~~The other guy seemed to do fine with the same team~~

The other guy never had to play a catcher as bad as Molina for a whole season…

The other guy never had a 2B and a CF both bat as poorly, as Cano & Cabrera did, for a full season, at the same time…

The other guy never had to deal with a strong Tampa Bay team in the same season as a winning Boston team…

The other guy had more than a few seasons where his team was the only strong one in the division…

Of course, I think the Sherman piece is bunk, but I expect to see a lot more of these OMG WTF Yanks pieces during the offseason.

Know what? Let’s give Joe Girardi five decent starting pitchers and some hitters up the middle of the diamond and then let’s see if his style works, or not, in the Bronx.
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The other guy seemed to do fine with the same team…