Mattingly to Bryce: Mind ‘your own business’
JUPITER, Fla. — A former Yankee took a future Yankee to task on Tuesday, here where the team is run by another former Yankee. OK, maybe Bryce Harper won’t wind up signing with the Yankees next offseason, what with the outfield logjam in The Bronx. If he does, however, don’t expect Harper and Don Mattingly to yuk it up at Yankees Old-Timers’ Day in, say, 2035. Mattingly, the Marlins man- ager and beloved Yankees icon, scolded the Nationals’ Harper in the wake of the impending free agent’s criticisms of the Marlins’ dramatic rebuild.
“It’s not really his place to comment on us,” Mattingly said at the Marlins’ spring training complex. “He doesn’t really know what goes on over here. He may think he does, but he doesn’t know what’s going on over here, what the discussions are. He doesn’t know our players that we know.
“You respect that every- body gets an opinion on stuff, but there are certain things with me, take care of your own business, we’ll take care of ours.”
On Monday, upon arriving at camp, Harper said: “I was very shocked that [the Marlins] were going to let go of [Christian] Yelich, [Marcell] Ozuna and [Giancarlo] Stanton because they were one of the best outfields in the game, very shocked about that. You can’t say enough about what Stanton did last year, what Ozuna did last year and what Yelich has done the last couple of years. I thought they were a team that just had to add a couple more pitchers and they would have been pretty damn good.’’
The man who steered the Marlins in a teardown direction, new CEO Derek Jeter, was not at camp Tuesday to offer his thoughts on Harper’s thoughts. The beloved Yankees icon has repeatedly stated that the Marlins, their farm system barren and the team’s finances a wreck, needed to start fresh.