This Week in Yankees Baseball: Is It Time For Joe To Go?

Welcome to This Week In Yankees Baseball!

From a tactical standpoint, supporting Joe Girardi as Yankees manager has always been easy. He makes many of the right decisions, and it is admirable the way he always has his players backs. And he comes from the Joe Torre tree, which is a great one. But his recent comments in the New York Daily News are troubling.

"“I think a lot of those questions we had going into spring training were answered and I think we saw improvement out of players during the course of the season,” Girardi said, according to The Daily News. “I expect us to be better.”"

Well, sorry Joe, but improvement isn’t good enough. And better isn’t quite good enough either. It isn’t a matter of whether the Yankees will be better, it’s a matter of whether they will be the best. [related category]

Merely getting better would not have been acceptable to Torre or Billy Martin. The Yankees don’t need an overhaul, but they do need some significant changes. A championship is attainable with Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann. Brett Gardner is in the same mold, just not at the top of the lineup against premier pitching. Didi Gregorius is on the rise and big things can be expected from him next year.

Beyond that, changes need to be made. Carlos Beltran and Jacoby Ellsbury can not be depended on over 162 games. Chase Headley has not returned to the form he showed earlier in his career. And the time has come to part ways with Stephen Drew.

"¨If you look at our club, if guys would have had some of the offensive numbers that they had in the first four months in the last two months, I think we substantially would have had more wins,” Girardi said, also according to The Daily News . “I think it’s possible we would have won our division.¨"

That is true, Joe. But Torre and Martin didn’t talk about the possibility of winning the division. They found a way to do it. There were no ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’s when it came to New York Yankees of recent past.

You have shown remarkable ability to keep the ship afloat through rough seas. You make game decisions with the best of them. Those things  have had some calling for you to be the manager of the year the last couple of years. But we don’t need explanations. We need results.

Sure, some player changes need to be made. And the contract situations don’t make it any easier. But the Yankees also need a manager who doesn’t seem so quick to accept not finishing first. It all starts with that.