Former Florida Marlins manager Joe Girardi was recently named the 2006 National League Manager of the Year. Does that statement sound weird to anyone else?
Imagine your peers considering your work to be among the best in the nation in your field, and your boss just fires you.
This exact situation is what Girardi has faced in the last few months. Two days after the conclusion of the ’06 season, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria fired Girardi. Six weeks later, Girardi was awarded with the top prize a Major League Baseball manager can receive.
Throughout the season, expert baseball analysts raved about the job Girardi did for the Marlins. Playing 22 rookies, Girardi guided the Marlins to a 78-84 finish and had them in the playoff race until a late-September fade — a surprisingly competitive performance from a team that was expected by many to lose at least 100 games.
In addition to winning more games than cynics foresaw, Florida became the first team to have four rookie pitchers win at least 10 games each, and three rookies hit at least 20 home runs each.
Were he not the man who cuts the paychecks of the Florida Marlins, Jeffrey Loria would be nothing more than another lunatic yelling at umpires from an expensive box seat.
With about five weeks remaining in the season, Loria allegedly fired Girardi mid-game when Girardi took offense to Loria’s zealous complaints about balls and strikes.
That seems like a great reason for a manager to be fired. Girardi asked him to show some restraint, and Loria just had to put his foot down. Who does Joe Girardi think he is? Apparently you don’t do that to Mr. Loria.
Loria hasn’t exactly done much right since he arrived in Florida. Following a World Series win, he chopped the team’s payroll and turned a great team into a mediocre team in a hurry.
He has allowed such players as Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, Josh Beckett, Juan Pierre, Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota to walk during his tenure.
Girardi did everything he could and more for the Marlins to be successful.
This past season 12 individual players made more money than the entire Florida Marlins team, yet Girardi helped three players finish in the top four in Rookie of the Year voting. Shortstop Hanley Ramirez won the award, while second baseman Dan Uggla and pitcher Josh Johnson finished second and fourth, respectively.
Going a step further, six of the 12 rookies who received votes were Marlins, marking the first time in league history one team has had that many contenders.
How do you fire a manager that helped make a young team so good? Girardi should have gotten a contract extension, not a boot out the door.
The lead of this story should have read Florida Marlins manager Joe Girardi wins the NL Manager of the Year award and signs a five-year contract extension. Now, that to me wouldn’t have been so weird, but sometimes reality really is more creative than fiction.
