New Joe

Well my dream of having Mr. Joe Torre back as the New York Yankees manager for the 2008 season will not come true, but another familiar Joe will take the reigns instead. I am of course talking about Joe Girardi. Girardi was the 2006 NL Manager of the year bringing the lowly Florida Marlins from the depths of the NL East to a couple victories away from the playoffs. This was a team that had a payroll of $17 million dollars.
To put that number into perspective, Arod makes 8 more million a year, Jeter 6, Giambi 3, Pettitte 1, and Abreu makes 1 million less than that a year. If you can bring a young inexperienced team like that to such a great season the skys the limit for this Yankee team under Girardi.
Girardi is no stranger to the pinstripes after playing under his predecessor, Torre, in the late 90s being apart of 3 World Series championship teams. He's obviously no stranger to winning and no stranger to what is expected out of you in New York and the Steinbrenner's.
The biggest thing Girardi must do is to talk to the free agents that are contemplating whether to come back or go to different teams. He has extremely good relationships with the big 3 free agents, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte. Rivera and Pettitte both pitched to Girardi who was a great catcher and passed the torch along to Posada once his career began to diminish.
Girardi's used to replacing fan favorites in New York as he took over the catching duties from power hitting Mike Stanley in '96 and he won over the Yankee faithful as his heroics along with the rest of the teams great play brought home the Yankees first title in 18 years. Joe made it clear that he wasnt trying to be the next Joe Torre, because everyones different and this was just the dream job and he knew when it was vacated by his former skipper he had to jump on it.
Even though its hard to watch Joe Torre put on the Dodger uniform and go manage somewhere else, it makes it much easier to swallow when a class act like Joe Girardi is going to be the new guy calling the shots in the dugout.