The Yankees have competition for Joe Girardi.
The Cubs, seen as the biggest potential challenger for Girardi’s services, created a managerial opening Monday when they fired Dale Sveum. The Cubs finished 66-96 this season and went 127-197 in Sveum’s two seasons at the helm.
Girardi’s Yankees contract officially expires Nov. 1. He hails from Peoria and attended college at Northwestern, prompting speculation about the Cubs as a landing spot.
But Girardi downplayed those Illinois ties — and did not address the Cubs job while Sveum still held the position — when he talked at length following Sunday’s season finale about the possibility of returning to the Yankees.
“Our home has been here,” Girardi said.
“My kids are engrossed in schools here. … We haven’t lived there since 2006, so the only person that was really there — I have a brother still there, a couple brothers there, actually — but my father’s gone, my mother’s gone, so there’s not as much there as there used to be.”
Cubs president Theo Epstein told reporters in Chicago the team would begin seeking permission to talk to candidates on Tuesday.
The Yankees are facing a murky future after the aging roster suffered through an injury-filled 2012 and the team is determined to get under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold. Girardi is not the only free agent the team is worried about with star second baseman Robinson Cano the most attractive player on the market.
“There’s no challenge that really scares me, that I would ever shy away from,” Girardi said. “So that has very little impact on [my decision] whatsoever.”
The Yankees have indicated they want Girardi back, though he wouldn’t get into specifics.
“We’ve talked about it,” Girardi said, adding that other teams are not yet permitted to contact him. “We’ll sit down and actually have a real powwow around the dinner table, probably, is what we’ll do and then we’ll go from there.”
Yankees starter Ivan Nova, for one, is hopeful Girardi returns.
“He’s a good manager,” Nova said. “There’s no doubt about it. I’m hoping he comes back. That’s what we want. He’s a great person.”
Whatever Girardi’s future holds, he hopes to have it decided soon.
“It’ll probably happen fairly quickly,” Girardi said Saturday. “I don’t like things to drag out, I can tell you that.”
— Additional reporting by Howie Kussoy