Thursday, March 10, 2011

New Nickname Possibilities For Joe

It should be common knowledge to anyone familiar with the Yankees that Joe Girardi isn't exactly Chris Berman when it comes to nicknames for his guys.  Basically he just takes a shortened version of either the player's first or last name and adds a "y"  or "ie" to it.  Robinson Cano is "Robby," Jorge Posada is "Jorgie," Brett Gardner is "Gardy," you get the picture.

And while not all the new guys in camp this year, old or young, are going to end up sticking with the team, they at least present Joe with some better options that are more fitting to his nickname style than the current crop of returning players.  For instance, Dellin Betances could be "Delly" or "Betty."  Andrew Brackman could become "Bracky."  Eric Chavez becomes "Chavy."

But those aren't even the good ones.  Imagine Joe sitting down for a post game press conference, talking about Ronnie Belliard's key stop at 3rd late in the game to start an inning-ending double play and preserve the lead.  How great would it be to hear him say "Yeah, Belly made a great play for us there."  Or imagine him commenting on Austin Romine's solid work behind the plate by saying "Romey was big for us today."

My personal favorite would be what he SHOULD be calling Jesus Montero instead of "Monty."  Wrong name, Joe.  Use the first name, shorten that up, throw a little street flava into it and call him "Jeezy."  You can't tell me that's not brilliant.  Joe drops that a few times in interviews, suddenly it catches on in The Stadium, and Jesus is walking out for every at-bat to this:



That's hot right there.  That would actually be the first stupid Joe nickname to become cool.  And it gives Montero a stage name if he ever decides to try his hand in the hip hop industry.  2 birds, meet 1 stone.

And I didn't even need to create a sabermetric stat to prove that!