Hey Buck Showalter! Look Over Here!

Look who has more rings as a member of the Yankees than you. You mad?

What Did the Braves Expect?

I know this is a Yankees blog but I tend to talk about general MLB stuff sometimes and I’m also living in Atlanta, Georgia so the Braves at least somewhat interest me. I have been watching them as much as I could, as long as it didn’t conflict with any Yankees games of course, and to say the team has been terrible may be the understatement of the century. For that reason the manager Fredi Gonzalez was fired this week with Brian Snitker replacing him but that left me with this very important question/rant. What did the Braves expect?

The Braves have traded everything that wasn’t tied down or on the operating table at the time with the exception of Freddy Freeman so no wonder the team had a 9-28 record at the time of the dismissal. Did they expect to win after trading away Shelby Miller, Andrelton Simmons, Craig Kimbrel and others? Sure the team has the best farm system and easily the best future but what about the now? The now seems more important to me with a new stadium looming, a tax-payer funded stadium mind you that I will have to pay for personally, to play for 2017 than 2018 and maybe beyond.

Fredi got a raw deal. Where many have confronted Joe Torre for being in the right place at the right time with the Dynasty Yankees you can say the exact opposite for Gonzalez and the Braves. He stuck around after managing this team well for so many years and got the axe because the GM and management cut off his hands at every turn.

If the Yankees need another great baseball mind in the organization they absolutely need to bring in Fredi Gonzalez. Make him a consultant to Brian Cashman, something. He is far too knowledgeable to be sitting out on the free agent market because he got a raw deal. Gonzalez was good enough to replace the legendary Bobby Cox in 2011 and he’s good enough to be a Yankee. Come on down Gonzalez. Cashman needs to make this happen. 

Joe Girardi & His Hypothetical Leash

In the immortal words of George Steinbrenner, before presidential nominee Donald Trump made them cool, the words “you’re fired” came out far more times than the Yankees would like to admit in the 70’s, 80’s and into the 90’s. Steinbrenner was a passionate fan and the Yankees were his passion and his hobby, he had made his money before buying the team and regularly operated in the red due to payroll, and when a manager wasn’t cutting it then he got cut. Simple as that. The only constant was change but ever since the Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman regime took over in the Bronx right around the 2008/2009 timeframe there has been one man at the helm and in the dugout for New York but on a long enough timeline everyone moves on or gets fired so after this putrid start in 2016 you have to wonder how long Joe Girardi’s leash is with the club.  

Obviously this is all pure speculation as I am not an insider, contrary to popular belief Hal does not have me on speed dial and I know no more than you. Again, I like to use common sense, history and a little bit of speculation and predictions in posts like this. The Yankees are a well-oiled business marketing machine that makes the Steinbrenner family an absolute ton of money but if history has told us one thing about this team it’s this, they don’t make as much money when they are losing as they do when they are winning. When a team is losing and when the management wants to shake things up the first person to go is usually the manager and you have to wonder how much patience the AL Wild Card Round trip to the postseason last season bought Girardi from the Steinbrenners. 

I know I sound like a spoiled brat right now but this is the worst start and possibly the worst team I have ever seen in my lifetime. I started watching religiously in 1994 at just eight years old, I would later turn nine after the World Series, and I’ve been spoiled and come to expect the best out of this team. I was crushed when Girardi took over and the Yankees missed the postseason in the final year of Yankee Stadium and I am even more crushed thus far this season because this team is so loaded down with talent. What frustrates me is that the team had obvious needs this winter, the middle of the lineup and the starting rotation specifically, and the GM did nothing to address either. That’s not as much Girardi’s doing and fault as it is Cashman’s but we all know how this works. The manager goes first and so does his coaching staff before the organization realizes it was the GM’s fault all along so if Girardi wants to remain in pinstripes he needs to turn things around quickly, preferably now, or he may be headed to the free agent market. My opinion only. 

Listen I like Joe Girardi. Sure he frustrates the hell out of me with his constant veteran over prospects decisions, see Stephen Drew and Andruw Jones as recent examples of this, and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t want to take his binder (which is now an iPad) and light the thing on fire before breaking it into a million pieces. I do. The thing is though he has shown an uncanny ability to work with a bullpen and piece together a game for a victory that the Yankees had no business winning. He took the same exact bullpen that fell apart time after time in 2007 for Joe Torre and turned them into a powerhouse in 2008 and has in every single season since and that I will miss. I have to say though, there isn’t a whole lot more that I would miss. Especially when Girardi gives me a day when I’m ready to pump out another two or three articles. 

Curt Schilling Fired by ESPN

I’m not saying I want to see anyone lose their jobs but it’s hard to feel sorry for people when they do it to themselves, you know? And leaving any fandom or loyalties at the door Curt Schilling did it to himself. I don’t dislike Schilling personally, I don’t know the guy, and while I didn’t like him as a player, he killed us as an Arizona Diamondbacks player in that 2001 World Series and again as a Red Sox player during his tenure there, I have no real beef with him since his playing career ended. I think he runs off at the mouth sometimes and I think his skills as a broadcast announcer need some work and fine tuning but that’s not for me to decide. It seems as though I’m not alone though as ESPN decided to relieve Schilling of his duties this week firing the former pitcher.

Schilling has had more than his fair share of hiccups and instances that could have and maybe even should have got him fired during his tenure with the Worldwide Leader in Sports. At the end of the 2015 season Schilling was quoted on Twitter comparing “Muslim extremists” to the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. Also earlier this season Schilling was quoted as saying that Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton should be “buried under a jail somewhere” ruffling a few feathers with her fans and supporters. The final straw may have been though when Schilling went on a Facebook tirade this week against access to public facilities and bathrooms for transgender people.

Schilling went too far whether you agree with the whole thing or not. Schilling posted a pretty crazy photo that I won’t share here, it’s not too hard to find with the world of Google, and went after people who were angry with him. Schilling justified his actions and his feelings in his own mind and he’s more than able and welcome to express those behind the first amendment of this country but what a lot of people forget is that for every reaction and use of that amendment there can and usually will be some sort of punishment and lash back.

That punishment is that Schilling is no longer employed by ESPN and honestly, he shouldn’t be. The network doesn’t need people like him giving them a bad image or a bad name and they don’t need him pushing away potential viewership in a business that is reliant on it. Schilling I hold no ill will towards you but you dug your own hole, you covered yourself up and you’re probably still talking as you buried yourself. I wish you well and hope you find work and happiness elsewhere but I can’t lie and say I’m not happy that it won’t be with ESPN anymore.

Schilling, get out of your own way pal.