Joe Girardi's team meeting on Thursday was ill-timed and pointless.
In case you missed it, Joe Girardi apparently held a team meeting on Thursday afternoon to address his frustrations with the team and the season. Although Girardi spoke out today and said the meeting was about expressing disappointment and laying out expectations for next year, numerous Yankees spoke anonymously to the press. They claimed that part of the meeting involved him chastising some players for being overweight and others for not being "hungry" enough. The whole thing sounds ridiculous for multiple reasons.
First of all, the timing was poor. The meeting took place the day after the Yankees were officially eliminated from playoff contention. Granted that he was talking about their chances up until the very last day, Girardi couldn't possibly have thought that this team was going to make the playoffs. He could not have been surprised that they were eliminated. The stars would have had to align for the Yankees to somehow get the second wild card. If he was going to have a meeting, it should have been held several weeks ago when the team possibly could have made some changes. Also, why do it on Derek Jeter's last day playing at Yankee Stadium? Not to mention that several of the players in attendance would have been prospects who have only been up since the roster expanded, and didn't contribute to the season.
I find it hard to believe that Girardi would call players out for being overweight. Especially because it's not like anyone pulled a Jesus Montero and showed up to spring training totally out of shape. Of course there are a few players who are carrying a bit extra, but is there anyone you can think of who realistically had a down year because they were overweight? If Girardi wanted to, he could have had private conversations with players to discuss those kinds of concerns. No need to very obviously call anyone out in front of their teammates when it was too late for the players to do anything about conditioning.
Finally, the argument that anyone on the team was not "hungry" enough is absurd. Mark Teixeira may not have played well or stayed healthy, but you can't say that he didn't want to win, or wasn't trying hard (aside from the refusing to try to beat the shift thing). The man got a THIRD cortisone shot in his wrist just to play the remaining five games of the season. Carlos Beltran got four cortisone shots to try and postpone elbow surgery for as long as possible so that he could keep playing. Were these the best decisions? Probably not. You could argue that the team might have been better with these guys not attempting to play injured, but you can't say they weren't doing everything possible to play. There were also players like Brian McCann, who publicly acknowledged that they were struggling and their frustration with themselves. Who on the team wasn't playing hard? Who didn't want to win?
The Yankees didn't make the playoffs because the offense was atrocious. Several players had the worst seasons of their careers. The lineup featured a lot of old guys, who just aren't capable of putting up the same numbers that they used to. There were quite a few injuries. The Yankees didn't miss the playoffs because Stephen Drew lacked the motivation to hit the ball, or because Beltran would have chased down more balls in right field had he been five pounds lighter, or because Shawn Kelley didn't care about winning a World Series ring.