FUTURE TENSE
Girardi's status is Bomber's biggest offseason
Joe Girardi exited the Yankee Stadium parking garage and turned his SUV left onto River Avenue on Monday afternoon without stopping to talk about the hottest topic around the Yankees: his future.
Girardi’s situation dwarfs other offseason issues. Masahiro Tanaka can opt out of a contract that has three years and $67 million remaining. What will become of Jacoby Ellsbury after being replaced in center field by Aaron Hicks in the postseason? Is free agent CC Sabathia returning to The Bronx? Will two-way star Shohei Otani come from Japan?
Had Girardi stopped to talk to The Post, there was nothing to report about his future because Hal Steinbrenner told The Post’s Joel Sherman on Monday he is in the process of not only evaluating people on solely this season but “from the last two, three, four years It’s the same for all the employees.’’
Girardi isn’t the only person whose contract expires at the end of the month. General manager Brian Cashman doesn’t have a contract and none of the coaches are signed for next year.
Cashman, bench coach Rob Thomson, first base coach Tony Pena and bullpen coach Mike Harkey were spotted entering the Stadium on Monday, two days after the Yankees’ season ended with an ALCS Game 7 loss to the Astros in Houston.
But while all those contracts are set to expire, there is more to Girardi’s situation than simply negotiations.
Girardi included his family — daughters Lena and Serena, son Dante and wife, Kim — when deciding if he wanted to return after the 2013 season when the Yankees didn’t reach the postseason for the first time since 2008, Girardi’s initial season as manager. That was the Yankees’ first dark October since 1994 when the season was canceled in August due to a players’ strike and there was no postseason. The family voted for Girardi to remain with the Yankees, who signed him to a four-year, $16 million deal.
It is generally believed Cashman is a prohibitive favorite to return and it would be difficult for Steinbrenner to let Girardi go based on a run to Game 7 of the ALCS for a team that wasn’t predicted to do much in spring training by outsiders.
If Steinbrenner goes back two, three or four seasons to assess what Girardi has done, there are several ways he can look at his body of work.
This season was the first the Yankees participated in a postseason series since 2012, which means the previous years weren’t up to Yankees standards.
However, Cashman traded Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran from an under-performing team at the deadline in 2016 for prospects which made a run at the Red Sox for the AL East title impressive even if the Yankees didn’t reach the postseason. Starting in 2013 the Yankees never won less than 84 games and grabbed the AL wild card in 2015 when they lost to the Astros.
Even if Steinbrenner finds discomfort with Girardi not getting the Yankees to the postseason in 2013, 2014 and 2016, it is hard to overlook — even with the botched replay situation in the ALDS — this past year when the Yankees chased the Red Sox for first place in the AL East until the final weekend and came within nine innings of going to the World Series.