Starting off with managerial hijinks…

Joe Girardi is the first person to interview with the Yankees Re: Their vacant manager position. My own opinion for months now has been that the Yankees’ Help Wanted ad for this position has always read, “Seeking candidate whose name begins with G and ends with ‘irardi’,” but my Yankees contacts swear that’s not the case at all and that Don Mattingly is really the favorite, especially now that Tony La Russa isn’t going anywhere. Girardi comes with two serious question marks, to the minds of Yankees-oriented people: First, his track record of being very vocal when disagreeing with ownership, and second, the Josh Johnson fiasco. Some Yankees fans are afraid of Girardi and view him as a Dusty Baker pitcher-abuser type because of the Johnson incident and the fact that three of the 2006 Marlins starters have endured Tommy John surgery over the past year, and of course it’s well-placed apprehension, since no small part of the franchise’s future is staked on the arms of Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain.

It says here Girardi is indeed the next Yankees manager, and as a Yankees hater, I’m quite OK with that. Once again, this is a fine place to remind you that managers make very little difference in the standings.

One more tidbit from the linked article: Girardi says he turned down the Orioles’ post because his father was in ill health at the time, earlier this summer. No doubt that was a consideration, but come on; he turned it down because the Orioles’ front office is a disgusting mess.

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The Royals introduced Trey Hillman as their new manager. Hillman has been the manager (which in Japan is much more of a power position) of the terrifically named Nippon Ham Fighters the past few years.

I don’t know much about Hillman beyond what the articles any common Google search will give me, but here are some interesting quotes…

“I can give you my priorities,” he said. “Pitch it, catch it. We’ll figure out a way to score runs.”

Figuring out how to score runs is the general manager’s job, not the manager’s. Managers have extremely little impact on run scoring. The only significant way a manager can affect his team’s ability to score runs is by being stupid enough to call for lots of bunts and hit-and-runs and stolen base attempts. That costs your team a significant number of runs. So since he said “we’ll figure out a way to score runs” and not “we’ll figure out a way to score fewer runs,” surely Hillman won’t do that. …right?

“I like to bunt, I love to hit-and-run, I love to steal bases… I like to create movement on the bases, I think it creates pressure to the opposition.”

Whoops.

Many managers like this stuff so much for a simple reason: It’s the only way to make themselves look involved. Managers don’t do much; certainly they do far, far less during the games than the on-field manager (head coach) in any other sport. The whole bunting/hit-and-running/basestealing thing is about the manager saying “hey, look at me!” Personally, I’d rather win games than get attention, but that’s just my hyper-competitive streak, I guess.

This next quote I actually yanked out of the middle of the above one, because it’s so amusing on its own:

“I was educated in the Yankee system with their baserunning and base-stealing program.”

That’s interesting, Trey, because for many years now the Yankees have drifted down around the bottom of the league in stuff like, I don’t know, bunting, hit-and-running, basestealing, and all that. The Yankees score many runs the same way most successful offensive teams do: With guys on base and three-run home runs. So we’ve learned two things about Trey: One, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is just spouting impressive-sounding gibberish; two, he enjoys name-dropping the Yankees to make himself seem important. “Did I mention I was educated in the Yankee system?” The Yankees. The Yankee Way. Winning. Success. Trey Hillman.

I’ll leave it off there. Suffice to say that, were I a Royals fan, I wouldn’t be inclined to optimism. Then again, he is replacing Buddy Bell, so it would be very impressive indeed if Hillman could somehow manage the team worse.

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The Athletics ownership took time out of their busy schedules to remind us that their new ballpark, whenever it comes to pass, won’t be in Oakland, but rather in suburb Fremont. This isn’t really much of a story, but it does highlight the recent trend for sports teams to play their games in a city other than the one that bears their name. The Dallas Cowboys play in Irving, not Dallas; at least baseball’s Rangers, who play in Arlington, don’t call themselves the Dallas Rangers. The Angels, of course, play in Anaheim, not Los Angeles. The New York Giants and New York Jets have entirely the wrong state; they both play their home games in New Jersey. So the Oakland Athletics playing their home games in Fremont is just a continuation of the trend, certainly not a cause for public outcry that Oakland is losing its team.

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Here’s a very handy recap of the Rockies’ winning streak. Remarkably, espn.com gave us something useful, or at least interesting. That the Rockies are where they are is incredible, and much more notable than the Mets collapse/Phillies surge that got more press because, well, it was New York and Philadelphia involved, rather than Denver and San Diego. I’m jumping on board and picking the Rockies to win the World Series. A sweep would be incredible, and I think that’s what most of the world is rooting for, but more realistically, I’m looking for a six game series.

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Getting killed by the Colts is hardly surprising–Peyton Manning is going to be in Full Fury Mode the rest of the year to keep up with Tom Brady–but the Jaguars also lost David Garrard for probably two weeks. This is bad news for the Jaguars, because backup Quinn Gray hopelessly sucks and the Jaguars are going to lose whatever games he starts. I never thought I’d be saying this, but David Garrard is crucial to the Jaguars success. He’s been smart with the ball all year, never turning it over, and has generally done a good job of making high-percentage plays. It could be a Kordell Stewart 2001 fluke year, but Garrard is young enough that maybe there’s hope. Either way, Jaguars fans want no part of the Quinn Gray experience. And Vinny freaking Testaverde is already spoken for.

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In more bad news, Tarvaris Jackson’s broken finger will apparently not prevent him from taking the field to embarrass himself and his teammates once again this week against the Eagles.

Still, coach Brad Childress said Jackson remains the starter despite that ugly performance if he’s deemed able to play this week against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Apparently Brad Childress is determined to entertain dancing visions of Tarvaris Jackson being Donovan McNabb until the very day it gets him fired. Truthfully, if the Vikings had a front office that knew what it was doing, Jackson would have been cut a month ago, because he is completely overmatched in the NFL, and obviously so. He hasn’t even hit the Game Film Wall yet.

Out of the 41 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 40 passes this year, Tarvaris Jackson ranks 37th in DPAR (Defense-Adjusted Points Above Replacement), ahead of the following luminaries: Sexy Rexy, Gus Frerotte, Josh McCown, and Ryan Leaf Award frontrunner Trent Dilfer. Jackson sits at 8.7 points below replacement level, meaning the Vikings have scored about 9 fewer points this year than they would have with J. Random Backup. (In this case, J. Random Backup’s actual name is Kelly Holcomb.)

But wait, you say: That’s only passing value. Jackson’s a good scrambler, so he makes up some of the ground there, right? You’re exactly right, except… not. Jackson has only 0.8 rushing DPAR, which ranks 13th, behind such fleet-footed maniacs as Matt Leinart, Trent Green, Derek Anderson, Tony Romo and Ben Roethlisberger.

Tarvaris Jackson is clearly, obviously, indisputably not an NFL quarterback. Whoever is insisting on playing him–we can’t be certain whether it’s Childress, or whether Childress is being forced to play him by someone above–richly deserves to be fired.

* * *

Here’s an update on an ongoing spat between Frank Gore and Gary Nolan. Frank thinks the first-year offensive coordinator (Jim Hostler) is to blame for the fact their offense is comically bad. (In reality, their mangled, smoking train wreck of an offensive line is to blame for this, plus their comically inept quarterbacks.)

This happens pretty often, especially with running backs, and it makes me ponder the nature of the running back position. In high school ball, running back is the glamour position on the field, in many cases even more so than quarterback. Generally speaking, a high school team’s biggest star plays running back. Many of the guys playing wide receiver or linebacker or safety or defensive end on the big-time college teams played running back in high school.

In college, the effect is a little less, but not a lot; the quarterback probably becomes more of a focal position in college, but running back is still a very visible position, and the better running backs in college football are generally stars of the first magnitude.

But the higher up the ladder you climb, the less important, the less visible, the RB position becomes. In the NFL, running back is really not a glamour position; quarterback blows away every other position in visibility, and wide receivers are also generally better known than running backs.

And where Frank Gore now finds himself is in a situation heretofore unknown to him–he’s fighting his own irrelevance. Nobody’s talking about him, because he isn’t performing at an extremely high level, as he has the past two years, and his team is awful. Star running backs are used to consistent success and to getting credit for that success; when they find themselves on a failing team, as Gore currently does, I imagine it comes quite easily to them to lash out and look for somebody to blame.

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Good news, Dolphins fans: Ronnie Brown’s season is over, meaning Jason Taylor is now the last above-average player left on the entire roster and you’re guaranteed, at worst, the #2 pick in next year’s draft (overcoming the Rams for #1 is going to be tough for anybody). Brown blew his ACL, which, in the bad news department, means he may make it back in time for the 2008 season, but he won’t be back to full speed until 2009. But don’t worry: You can definitely trust Randy Mueller, the man who brought you the Ted Ginn Experience, to not use the #2 pick on an overrated running back or something. Except, you can’t.

Welcome to hell, Dolphins fans.

In a related development, the Miami Dolphins have for many, many years held the distinction of being the winningest franchise in the NFL since the 1970 merger; but given the relative strength of the franchises, it’s likely that sometime next year they will be overtaken for that distinction by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The two teams play each other later this year: You really, really want to win that game, Dolphins! Don Shula is counting on you!

Justin Zeth is Editor-in-Chief of SportingGurus.com. He may be contacted at zeth@sportinggurus.com.