Brian Cashman speaks about the Yankees’ managerial search

The rumor mill in New York has been moving steady since the Yankees announced that Joe Girardi wouldn’t return as Yankees manager in 2018. We’re still waiting to have a lot of questions answered, but the Yankee GM spoke to the media today about what went wrong with Girardi and his vision for the next manager.

Connection with the players seems to have been Girardi’s downfall. Cashman noted that Girardi struggled to communicate, engage, and connect with his players. Girardi, of course, disagreed with that assessment. A popular refrain has been that Girardi simply wasn’t the right manager to lead the Yankees going forward, and Cashman seems to have agreed with that.

As for the next manager, Cashman says his list for potential replacements is a diverse one. He does mention that it would be nice to bring someone in who has a prior relationship with the organization, but notes that it is not a prerequisite. Cashman said that it would be a very easy decision to just plug an existing managerial candidate in that vacancy and call it a day, but he has never just gone for the safe choice.

The Yankees’ managerial search will be public, with each candidate being made available to the media following their interview with the team. It sounds like they are in no real hurry to name a new manager, instead preferring to spend time making sure they make the right choice.

It will be really interesting to see who the choices end up being following their interviews. It seems like a safe bet that internal options like Rob Thomson and Al Pedrique will get interviews, but who else the team brings in should be telling for the direction they intend to go in.