Why Donnie Baseball Could Be Back in Bronx

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly is final year of his contract. With all the new star studded acquisitions over the past half year, Mattingly is going to put under tremendous pressure to win the division. A feat easier to say than to do, with the World Champion San Francisco Giants being the class of the NL West. So what this brings us to is, the possibility of a return to the Bronx for Mattingly. How? You my ask, well, with experts predicting the Yankees to have a sub par year losing some key players from last years division winning team, this could be the end for Joe Girardi. They have a lot more competition in the east this year, with the new look Blue Jays and the Orioles, Rays, and Red Sox all expected to compete as well. Now as far as Toronto goes, who knows how well they will actually play. As the Lakers have shown us, All-Star teams can fail when they do not mesh. So let's say that the Blue Jays become the class of the AL East with the Orioles, Yankees and Rays not far behind. The Steinbrenner family is not one that likes to lose. And we all know that fans somewhat do not agree with some of Girardi's methods. i.e. "The Binder"

Enter Don Mattingly, considering that much like the Steinbrenner's, the Dodgers ownership group including Stan Kasten and Magic Johnsonm have shown they are willing to do whatever it is to win. Now unfortunately, although it is not fair to him, Mattingly would be the one to take the fall if they do not produce as expected. So if the stars align correctly, their could be a new manager in New York next season. If they both become unemployed I believe the Yankees should pounce on Donnie Baseball. He is the perfect type of manager, learning underneath the great Joe Torre. He is a bit more of small ball manager than Girardi, and there's nothing wrong with that. The Yankees lost in the ALCS last year for many reasons but, one of the biggest reasons was, they had a lot of power hitters who could hit mistakes. Meaning they could hit the long home runs against mediocre pitching but, when it came down to the great pitchers of Tigers their bats went cold. See a trend? A lot of their players are not great hitters, they live and die by the home run. They are starting to get away from that, resigning Ichiro and getting Gardener back. Look at how San Francisco was constructed, their biggest off season acquisition last year was Ryan Theriot. It's not about big stars as much as guys who can get the bat on the ball.

Which makes me think, that Mattingly would be a good fit with this type of team. But of course, everything would have to happen right for this to occur. I don't think the Yankees will end up in 3rd place, I think they will win the division because, they are battle tested and who knows how the Blue Jays will mesh together. Also the same goes for the Dodgers only they have had at least a full season to get to know each other and start to work as a unit.

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