Sunday, August 30, 2015

An Open Letter to Joe Girardi

Joe,

I hate to be the "I told you so" guy but I did kind of tell you so in a Twitter Poll and in a separate post that I thought the team should have placed Mark Teixeira on the 15 day disabled list the day he fouled that pitch off his leg and bruised his bone. I pointed out that the Yankees were in the middle of an American League East Division race and a race for one of the two available American League Wild Card spots and the team could not afford to give Teixeira "a day" once or twice a week because the leg was sore and not fully healed. I also mentioned that Teixeira was probably the most indispensable player on the entire team not only offensively but defensively and pleaded with you and the Yankees organization for a backdated DL stint, to no avail.

Someone, not saying you necessarily Mr. Girardi, decided in their infinite wisdom that Teixeira should start one of those games against the Houston Astros eliminating a week's worth of retroactive DL time. Teixeira was obviously uncomfortable at the plate and could not run the bases but the team decided his right-handed bat was needed against Houston's ace Dallas Keuchel despite the repercussions for the decision, those repercussions being that the Yankees played with a short bench in the American League parks and have played this weekend in Atlanta with just a two man bench.

Talent has bailed you out of a lot of your decisions in your Yankees tenure, not to say I think you have been a bad manager or that you should be perfect when nobody walking this Earth is, and it did again this weekend inside Turner Field. You could have a zero man bench when your team is leading by ten or more and it won't matter but that doesn't and shouldn't excuse you or the decision maker on their bad decision.

The decision to insert Teixeira's bat for that one game in Houston could have crippled this team and sent it into a whirlwind downward that could have spelled doom, or worse than that a missed playoff season in 2015. You're an extremely intelligent man Mr. Girardi but that decision, in my opinion, was stupid and uninformed.

Daniel Burch

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)