With each passing day, you knew the likelihood of the Mets getting Joe Girardi was only decreasing.
Sure enough, those chances completely evaporated on Thursday morning when the Mets’ National League East rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, announced the hiring of Girardi.
So not only did the Mets lose out on one of their top candidates, but he’ll be standing directly in their way of contention for years to come.
The Phillies will be a force moving forward once their bullpen and starting rotation is sorted out. Unlike the Mets, though, they will actually spend the money needed to make those upgrades.
The news of Philadelphia’s acquisition of Girardi sparked the New York sports market to implode as fans went after the Wilpon family and general manager Brodie Van Wagenen for “being cheap” and not getting the best candidate available.
There is no doubt in my mind that Girardi was the man for the Mets’ job. He knows what it takes to win a World Series title in New York and deal with the suffocatingly-high expectations that come with it.
It very well could be that the Mets didn’t want to pay Girardi a lot to get back into the dugout after two seasons away from the game. But another aspect that needs to be looked at is how he would have worked with Van Wagenen.
The agent-turned-general manager wants to make his imprint and make a splash with this team. That’s why he went out and traded for Edwin Diaz, Robinson Cano and later, Marcus Stroman.
Girardi doesn’t necessarily share those “big-move” or “splash-making” values.
This is as close to a throwback manager as you’ll find in today’s game. Although he is well-versed in analytics, which was seen in his handling of the Yankees’ bullpen for a decade.
He’s a stern, intense voice in the dugout who is devoted to his players and keeps his clubhouse under lock and key in the process — even from upper management. The 55-year-old skipper fills out his lineup card with no input from the general manager and he doesn’t care about the feelings of his boss or ownership.
That sounds like exactly what the Mets need, right?
After all, the Mets are a young team that needs an experienced, guiding voice to mold them from a nice little roster to a legitimate contender.
But from the outside, Girardi’s style probably would have been too much for Van Wagenen to handle — especially if he wants to be the man pulling the strings in Queens.
How ridiculous.
The fact of the matter is the Mets just passed up a World Series-winning manager to continue a convoluted managerial search that will be nothing more than a lateral move from Mickey Callaway.
Unless Van Wagenen can magically pry AJ Hinch away from the Astros (an unlikely scenario), the Mets are going back to another first-time manager and hope the results are different.
How tediously dull.
This is a decision that will likely haunt this team for years to come. Hopefully, for them, it wasn’t made solely based on egos.
