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The Yankees manager search is going to turn into a reality TV show

Mike Oz
Yankees GM Brian Cashman says team will let the media interview all of its manager candidates. What would go wrong? (AP)
Yankees GM Brian Cashman says team will let the media interview all of its manager candidates. What would go wrong? (AP)

The New York Yankees opened the first full week of Major League Baseball’s offseason by inviting chaos upon themselves.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman hosted a customary November press conference to talk about the team’s offseason plans and whatnot. In the Bronx, the first order of business is finding a new manager after the team, in a surprise move two weeks ago, chose not to give longtime skipper Joe Girardi a new contract.

It doesn’t sound like the Yankees are rushing to hire someone tomorrow. Rather, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, Cashman said the team has “a healthy process in place with every decision we make.” And it’s 2017, so we know how important it is to Trust the Process.

Perhaps the most interesting thing Cashman said was this: All the Yankees managerial candidates will meet with the New York media after their interviews. Holy Reality Show, Cashman — what a development that’s going to be.

As Joel Sherman of the New York Post says, there’s some good logic to this on the Yankees’ side. They’ll get to see how the managers handle the media, because let’s be real, handing the New York media isn’t like handling the media that surrounds 29 other MLB teams.

All that makes sense, but in 2017, in the age of social media and media stunts, is there any part of you thinking this won’t turn into a circus? Of course it will. And not because of the Yankees, necessarily, but because of the way media functions in modern times and the ways fans eat it up.

It’ll be like an episode of “The Bachelor” as potential managers try to present their best side while answering questions about a team they aren’t yet in charge of and being asked to second-guess the last guy who had the job.

“So would *YOU* have challenged that foul-ball call against the Indians?”

“Would *YOU* call out Gary Sanchez publicly for his defense?”

“Do *YOU* think is a hot dog in a sandwich?”

Then all of us can watch and try to decide whether such-and-such Yankees job candidate deserves a rose — errr, second interview. Fans will bicker afterward about what they like or don’t like about each candidate. We’ll have Team Ibanez, Team Ausmus, Team Thomson or various others. (Cashman said Monday he doesn’t have a list of candidates at the ready, so he wasn’t naming names).

This isn’t completely new territory. It’s happened in the past. The Mets let writers interview candidates back in 2010 when they hired Terry Collins. But that seems like a whole ‘nother lifetime ago — were people even posting GIFs on Twitter back then?!?

Speaking of the rose-ceremony nature of a very public manager search, there’s one name we haven’t mentioned yet. You know who — A-Rod. Cashman didn’t address him specifically, but talk about a reality-show-type swerve. Interview A-Rod and it’ll be Ringling Bros.

If this were really a reality TV show, you know a producer somewhere would be working behind-the-scenes to get A-Rod a rose right this second.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!