With Monday’s win over the Rays, New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi has accomplished a feat that not every manager can say they have.
If you’re a Joe Girardi hater, just log out of this article right now because the reality of how groundless the hate for the New York Yankees manager is might be too much to handle.
With Monday’s 8-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, Girardi now has 900 career wins as a major league manager, making him the 11th active manager to reach the 900 win plateau.
Bruce Bochy (1,791), Dusty Baker (1,769), Mike Scioscia (1,495), Buck Showalter (1,433), Terry Francona (1,384), Clint Hurdle (1,046), Ned Yost (1,008), Joe Maddon (985), Bob Melvin (958) and Terry Collins (928) are the other skippers with that many wins.
What’s the difference between Girardi and those names? Girardi owns the highest winning percentage of the group and is the only manager in the sport to guide his team to winning seasons in each of the past nine full seasons, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Last season, with a selling team that also had a -22 run differential and finished second-to-last in batting average with runners in scoring position, Girardi managed to win 84-78.
According to Bill James’ Pythagorean win/loss formula, the 2016 New York Yankees should have finished with a 78-84 record. Hate the binder all you want, but since 2008, Girardi has done the most important thing that unreasonably goes neglected among the #FIREGIRARDI crowd: win.
