Joe Girardi: Mastering Decision-Making in Sports | Leadership, Analytics & Family | EP 3

Um, hey, I wanna-- uh, let's start with this.

Um, you and I probably have some, some things in common having, uh, been the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, the manager of the New York Yankees, two marquee franchises all over the world, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of scrutiny that goes with it.

And, um, you have to be bold in making decisions.

And one, one decision that I always admired that you made was the, the 2012 division series against Baltimore.

I think the series was one-one, and A-Rod was struggling a little bit, and you chose to pinch-hit Ibañez in the ninth.

[laughs]

And, uh, obviously A-Rod's one of the best players that's ever walked.

That's a hard decision to make anywhere, particularly in New York.

What was the thought process?

Well, it was the toughest decision I ever had to make in a game.

And Alex had hurt his thumb in the month of September and had missed some time and, and was, was coming back.

And in game one we faced Jim Johnson, who we got to and scored some wo- runs and won that game late off of their closer.

And Alex did not have a good at bat, and I looked at the numbers of Alex off of Jim Johnson in his career, and it just wasn't a great matchup for Alex.

But it-- to me, it had more to do with health for Alex.

But-

Yeah

...

I started thinking about it in the fifth inning, 'cause I was-- you know, we played Baltimore 19 times.

I was familiar with how Buck used his bullpen and what he would do, and I was looking at the score and seeing that it was tied and it, it-- and if they were a, they were ahead, um, as we went, like, into the fifth inning.

And I started thinking about, "Man, if this goes the way that Buck wants to, Jim Johnson's gonna face Alex in the ninth."

[laughs]

And I always thought ahead because that's what I did as a catcher.

I always counted backwards.

And I, I knew Raul Ibañez was a good low ball hitter, but for whatever reason in BP, I was watching him hit balls, like, like ankle high into the right field bleachers, and I'm thinking, "God, is he a great low ball hitter." And at some point I might need to pinch hit him off of Jim Johnson, because Jim Johnson had that hard sinker that went down, and it's tough on right-handed hitters.

So in the fifth inning, I kinda nudged my bench coach-