Joe Girardi wanted an extra year on his contract, four guaranteed rather than three. He wanted a seven-figure raise and for his bonus provisions to be spruced up.
And the Yankees weren’t about to haggle. Even if they believed Girardi preferred to stay and was using the real possibilities of the Cubs and the Nationals managerial openings and Tim McCarver’s vacated seat in the national Fox broadcast booth as leverage, so be it. Girardi had leverage. The Yankees knew that. More important, they knew they had none.
Sure, the Yankees could talk tough about lines in the sand. They could voice that it is a plum job anyone would want. But who was that someone? This wasn’t just about filling any old job. But believing in a new leader at a moment when the franchise is undergoing such a tectonic transformation.
This was not a time to guess whether Don Mattingly would ever become free or Tony Pena could sit in the big chair or that the front office’s appreciation for Pete Mackanin was worth elevating him from anonymity to insta-fame and pressure. This wasn’t a time for guesswork, for hope that a head-hunting firm or word of mouth or divine inspiration would offer up an individual capable of excelling in the job.
The Yankees needed a sturdy bridge. And Girardi is that.
The payroll is about to be slashed. The roster is about to be purged of historically great players — and maybe Robinson Cano, too. The division is more competitive than ever. The AL East is home to PhD-level managing with Buck Showalter, John Farrell and Joe Maddon — a point reinforced during the just-concluded division series as Farrell and Maddon played baseball chess over four games. The rules now forbid wanton spending in the draft and amateur international market. The sport is flushed with money and many organizations can spend in a way once the exclusive realm of Boss Steinbrenner.
This is a new world for the Yankees — not Hal Stienbrenner’s father’s world any longer. One the organization did not want to navigate with a question mark in the dugout. So the Yankees moved Girardi from a three-year, $9 million yesterday to a four-year, $16 million present and upped those bonuses and assured continuity in the manager’s office when continuity is going to be so valuable.
“From what I know of the franchise since coming in 1996, it is a little different right now, just because of the uncertainty of what the club is going to be like next year,” Girardi said.
Girardi again expressed he never wanted to leave. I believe him. Chicago has historic meaning to him from his youth and early career. But when Girardi looks in the mirror now, he sees a Yankee and a New Yorker, he sees a man whose family has set down deep roots in Westchester. He didn’t mind the stalking horse of the Cubs out there — moving the Yankees to financial action. Ask anyone behind the scenes and they will tell you Girardi and his agent bargain hard. Nothing wrong with that, especially when you have the leverage.
But Girardi loves being a Yankee. He adores that his kids have turned Yankee Stadium into a giant rec room. He appreciates just how strong his bond is with Hal Steinbrenner. He is enough of both a family man and a baseball historian to understand what it means to potentially — if he fulfills all four years on this new pact — to manage in one place for a decade. And not just any place. This place.
The call of the Cubs, in part, is about trying to be the first man to manage that hexed franchise to a title in more than a century. But Girardi wears 28 on his uniform because he knows reaching that number of all-time Yankee titles will be as precious, at least to him, as anything he would accomplish on the north side of Chicago. Particularly now, if he can skipper the Yankees from the Jeter-Rivera era to a new period of triumph. Be that bridge.
He sees the obstacles, saw in a powerful way the club’s farm system is not ready to give him difference makers. But you sense he does trust Hal Steinbrenner, has faith even if the franchise sinks below $189 million in payroll in 2014 that will be just a pit stop.
“I don’t manage to just work,” Girardi said. “I manage to win championships. I think the club is going to do the best they can to accomplish that.”
This is Girardi’s confidence and optimism, qualities the Yankees don’t have to wonder about in others. No guesswork. They know Girardi could handle this. That was worth an extra year and an extra million annually at a time when so much else is uncertain in the life of this franchise.