Yankees – Keefe To The City

Jul 18, 2025

The “Second Half” Is Here

After four days off, the Yankees are back to begin the “second half” of the season in Atlanta.

The last five nights were enjoyable. They were relaxing. Because the Yankees didn’t play. There was nothing to be upset about all week. I now know what it feels like to be someone who doesn’t care about the Yankees or baseball or sports. It’s refreshing. Unfortunately, that’s not me. Unfortunately, I allow a group of 26 men I have no relation to determine my mood based on if they are able to throw and hit a five-ounce ball better than 29 other group of 26 men.

The “second half” is here and things haven’t been going well for my favorite group of 26 men. They have been a bad baseball team since the beginning of June. They can’t beat teams geographically closest to them. They can’t beat teams expected to be postseason contenders. They are two games behind a team they led by eight games in the standings. They are tied in wins with a team they once led by 12 games in the loss column.

I needed this break from watching the Yankees as much as the Yankees needed a break from playing. But the break is over. There are 66 games left and the Yankees are as close to having a wild-card bye as they are to missing the postseason completely. The relaxing is over. The next nine-and-a-half weeks are going to be physically, emotionally and mentally challenging. Anyone with a checkered medical history should locate the nearest exit and remove themselves from this stretch run.

With Yankees baseball back this weekend in Atlanta, let’s get to some questions from readers to welcome the “second half” of the season.

Will the Yankees ever get back that fire? – Don

I’m assuming you mean the fire and drive to win like the teams of the late-90s and early 2000s had. In order to get have that fire, you have to win, and no one on this current Yankees roster other than Max Fried and Cody Bellinger have won anything, including the manager. The team is full of career losers, managed by a career loser himself.

It’s tiring to hear about how the Yankees have screwed up the Aaron Judge era and his prime by surrounding him with inadequate rosters, as if Judge’s postseason OPS (.768) isn’t 259 points lower than his career regular season OPS (1.027). Judge is as big a reason as anyone for this Yankees era being championship-less, if not the biggest reason. That has to change if this group is ever going to win.

But again, the only way to get back that fire is to win first.

Is having Boone as a manager a liability when it comes to signing free agents? – John

Unfortunately, no. I wish it were. If it were, it would definitely make its way to players and up the chain to the front office. If a star player had an equal offer from the Yankees and another team and chose the other team because of Aaron Boone and told friends of his on the Yankees of his decision, I would like to think that would get to the higher-ups and a change would be made.

But then again, maybe not. The Yankees players know they have a good thing going with Boone. They have a boss who doesn’t hold them accountable publicly, and even if Boone holds them accountable privately, who cares? No player cares if the manager rips them in his office or behind closed doors, especially a veteran with guaranteed money to their name. Boone doesn’t hold his players accountable because Boone isn’t held accountable by Brian Cashman and Cashman isn’t held accountable by Hal Steinbrenner.

Whenever you hear Hal talk about winning and his desire to win, it’s all nonsense. When his father said it, it meant something. When Hal says it, it’s empty. We know this because Hal is one of the biggest advocates for the salary cap in baseball. He wants a salary cap so he has a limit to what he asked to spend. If the Yankees have a cap to what they can spend, they are no longer the Yankees. They have enough trouble constructing a complete roster with unlimited spending allowed. If they are capped, they will become just another team and over time they will be viewed as just another team. I mean the aura of “the Yankees” is already fading. There are kids in high school that have never seen them win a championship. Their are college graduates and working adults that weren’t even in elementary school the last time they won. The Yankees haven’t been the Yankees in a long time. With a salary cap, they would likely never be “the Yankees” again.

Do you think the laissez-faire attitude the team has that has been bred into them by Boone can be reversed by a new manager? – Paul

Of course. The Yankees went from a hard-ass manager, but a career winner in Joe Girardi to an inexperienced, buddy-type who cares more about being friends with his roster than winning with it. The next hire will be closer to Boone than it is to Girardi because front offices don’t want to deal with personalities they can’t run all over, but the new person will likely have managerial experience and been successful in the role. But the personality isn’t the reason why Boone needs to go. It’s part of the reason, but not the reason. The reason he needs to go is because of his in-game decisions.

I love when people ask who the Yankees would replace Boone with as if he’s Joe Torre or Casey Stengel. When the question used to be about who will the Yankees replace Girardi with, do you know how many people answered “Aaron Boone?” Zero. Because Boone had never managed before. Now he’s treated by the organization and media as if he’s some managerial savant rather than being equally at fault with the team’s lack of postseason hitting as to why have failed to win it all in seven seasons under him.

The Yankees easily found Boone because no one else was looking for him. They think he’s great even though he isn’t. So if they want to find someone just like him when he’s eventually replaced, it won’t be hard.

Why is the longest-tenured Yankees manager to never win a championship still employed? – Neil

The same reason the general manager who has never won a championship with a core he constructed is still employed: a lack of accountability and the fictitious idea the Yankees only care about winning championships.

Cashman may have been a Yankees employee when the Yankees drafted Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter and signed and developed Bernie Williams and Mariano Rivera, but he wasn’t the general manager. He wasn’t in charge. The Yankees won four times with those five and five teams with the Core Four. Since they have retired, the team hasn’t won. It’s not a coincidence.

Cashman’s first chance at his own core started to come together in 2015 when Luis Severino, Gary Sanchez Greg Bird were called up for the first time. More of his first personal core came up in 2016 with Aaron Judge’s debut, and that winter they traded for Gleyber Torres. That core made everyone think the future would be bright when they went from being expected to miss the postseason in 2017 to reaching Game 7 of the ALCS. But then they failed and failed miserably.

Bird got hurt and was out of the majors by 2020. Severino made 44 starts over five years between 2019 and 2023. Sanchez had an .846 OPS through 2019 and has a .701 OPS since and was off the Yankees after 2021. The Yankees let Torres walk after seven inconsistent, frustrating seasons. The only Yankee from the Baby Bombers and Cashman’s first core of his own to remain is Judge.

Not only did the Baby Bombers fail, but the pieces Cashman gave multi-year deals to and surrounded them with did as well. The Yankees went against their no-extension policy Aaron Hicks and it was a disaster. Chase Headley was awful. Jacoby Ellsbury was a joke. The starting pitching trades for Sonny Gray, J.A. Happy, Lance Lynn, James Paxton and Jameson Taillon all flopped.

Now Cashman is on to his second personal core of young talent. It was supposed to include Juan Soto, but it doesn’t. It’s supposed to be led by Anthony Volpe, but it’s not. Austin Wells hasn’t been inconsistent, Jasson Dominguez still isn’t used as an everyday player and neither is Ben Rice. Cody Bellinger will be 31 next season and Trent Grisham will be 29 and Paul Goldschmidt will be 38 before the end of this season and all three are impending free agents (Bellinger can opt out). Jazz Chisholm has been great since becoming a Yankee (.846 OPS in 111 games) and is under contract through next year, but unless the Yankees go against their no-extension policy like they did for Hicks (and Severino), he will probably leave as a free agent after 2026.

Because Soto is gone, some combination of the current young Yankees needs to work out, or the Yankees better be prepared to offer Kyle Tucker more money than any other team this winter. If they don’t and the Yankees go back to the dark days, Cashman will still be the general manager and Boone will still be the manager as long as the tickets continue to be sold and the merchandise and chicken buckets continue to be bought.

Will Cashman include Spencer Jones, George Lombard Jr. or Cam Schlittler in a deadline deal this year? – Donald

I hope not. The Yankees desperately need a third baseman, but the only one worth parting with pieces like that for is Jose Ramirez and there’s no way he’s available, and it would cost those three and more to get him.

Ryan McMahon leads the league in strikeouts and is nine percent worse than league average for his career despite having played half of his games at Coors Field. Eugenio Suarez is a high-power, high-strikeout right-handed bat and the Yankees already have several of those. I would only want either if the price is meaningless, which it should be.

The Yankees seem to love anchors that weight them down. They demonstrate a stubbornness when it comes to moving on. Why? – John

The Yankees think they are smarter than everyone and they want everyone to know it. They don’t want to give up on players they believed in when everyone said they shouldn’t because it makes them look bad and their owner doesn’t want to pay players to not play, whether they are producing or not.

How many times did the manager and general manager tell us Josh Donaldson would he his old self before he was eventually released? How about Hicks? How about LeMahieu? The same thing is going on with Volpe, who is treated differently than any prospect or player during Cashman’s 28-year tenure as general manger. Every other prospect and player has had to earn their playing time and keep on earning it. Not Volpe. He had a good spring training two-and-a-half years ago and that was enough to negate the entire 2023 and 2024 seasons and more than half of the 2025 season. The Yankees defend him to no end and get irritated and aggressive when they have to defend him. Michael Kay said last week Boone told Meredith Marakovits that Volpe “is fucking elite” when he got testy when she asked about Volpe’s performance. One day Volpe will be designated for assignment or traded or released and the Yankees will say it didn’t work out even though they spent years telling us it would.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jul 14, 2025

Yankees Thoughts: Another Series Loss to a Division Leader

The Yankees lost two of three at home to the Cubs. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees played a series against a contender, so you know can guess how it went: they lost two of three. To no surprise, the Yankees are 5-11 against the current division leaders this year. (They have yet to play Houston and Philadelphia.)

As currently constructed, the Yankees’ ceiling is likely enduring the same fate they did last year: losing in the World Series (hopefully without the humiliation). And to get there, as of now, they would have to win a best-of-3 against the Red Sox (a team that has won 10 straight and is 5-1 against the Yankees this year) then beat either the Astros or the Tigers in the ALDS, and then likely whichever one of the Astros or Tigers they didn’t face in the ALDS in the ALCS. The road to the 2025 World Series is going to be littered with obstacles. The path isn’t going to be the red carpet the Yankees received last year with Kansas City and Cleveland.

2. With the “first half” complete, the Yankees have the AL’s fourth-best record and the majors’ ninth-best. Despite this, their manager refers to them as the best team in the league. That opinion is shared by the players who talk about how good they are and how good they know they can be (like Will Warren did again on Sunday), but don’t play like it, having lost 18 of their last 29 games.

In that time the Yankees have watched their division lead vanish. Once eight games ahead of the Blue Jays, they are now two games behind them. Once 12 games ahead of the Red Sox in the loss column, that lead is now down to two and they are tied in wins.

3. After beating the Cubs 11-0 on Friday, the Yankees lost 5-2 on Saturday and 4-1 on Sunday. That’s their motto: Win blowouts and lose close games. The offense was no-hit until the eighth inning on Thursday, shut out until the ninth on Saturday and held to one run on Sunday in a game in which they sent the minimum amount of batters to the plate over the final seven innings.

A lot has been made about the Yankees scoring five-plus runs in the first 10 games of July, but they went 5-5 in those games. That’s because their pitching has been atrocious. Inconsistent starting pitching combined with a depleted bullpen and a manager who doesn’t have a clue about how to utilize the relievers he does have has led the Yankees to a 5-7 record this month despite scoring 6.3 runs per game.

4. Carlos Rodon completed eight scoreless innings on Friday with some magnificent help from Aaron Judge in right field. Max Fried left Saturday’s game with a blister on his left hand in what was his shortest and worst start of the season (and he has now been blah to bad in four of his last five starts). Warren put nine baserunners on in 5 1/3 innings on Sunday, but limited the damage to two runs. One good start, one bad start and one OK start. That’s the way it has been going for the Yankees for the last month. Mostly, when they hit, they don’t pitch, and when they pitch, they don’t hit. And when things are going well, their manager hinders their odds of winning, like on Sunday.

5. In the series finale, the game was tied with one out in the sixth. With a well-rested bullpen, 11 outs to get and four complete days off ahead, who do you think was the first reliever out of the bullpen? Ian Hamilton! Hamilton allowed a two-run home run to the first batter he faced, the Cubs took the lead and never looked back.

Paul O’Neill suggested on YES that Boone should have let Hamilton start the inning clean instead of having him come in with a runner in scoring position. Are you new around here, Paul? Stealing outs with the starting pitcher is Boone’s signature move. Whether it’s April or July or September or even the postseason, Boone will stop at nothing to try to get an extra out from a clearly labored and fatigued starter. It’s what he does best.

6. The trade deadline is 17 days away. I wouldn’t give up anything of value for the third base options that have been mentioned. Because the options aren’t worth giving up anything for. You’re either getting a good bat with no defense or good defense with no bat. This team also isn’t a third baseman away from wining a championship. They are a third baseman, a starting pitcher, at least two relievers, a shortstop and a manager away.

Even if the Yankees trade for a third baseman, get a starter and two relievers, Boone will still be in the dugout and Anthony Volpe will still be at shortstop. Brian Cashman likes to say the Yankees went to the World Series with Volpe at shortstop. But when he says that, he doesn’t mention that the Yankees lost the World Series. That they were thoroughly embarrassed in the World Series. He doesn’t mention that Volpe was part of the fifth-inning meltdown. He doesn’t talk about only needing to beat the Royals and Guardians to win the pennant.

7. It’s painful watching Volpe play. He can’t hit for average. He doesn’t have power. He’s a liability on balls hit to him. His arm is weak. His baserunning instincts are poor and his overall Baseball IQ is frightening. There’s not a single positive quality he brings on the field, and his media sessions are every bit as bad as his actual play.

After Sunday’s game, in which he posted his latest 0-for and screwed up two more plays in the field, the media huddled around Volpe to hear him say, “Everything’s in front of us.” I wonder where he learned that line from. From his manger, of course. The same manager who backed Volpe’s ridiculous inning-extending play on Sunday by blaming Jazz Chisholm.

“As a shortstop, you gotta have the freedom to try and get yourself the best hop,” Boone said, “and then, Jazz probably has to turn into a first baseman there where we’re stretching.”

No, it can’t be the Golden Boy’s fault. It can’t be the fault of the shortstop who won’t charge a ball and doesn’t have the arm to make up for his hesitation.

“I feel like we have the makings of a good defensive club,” Boone said, as delusional as ever.

8. Volpe is down to .214/.287/.384 offensively. His .671 OPS is right in line with his .663 career OPS. He’s down to being 14 percent worse than league average with an 86 OPS+. Guess what his OPS+ was last year? 86. There has been no improvement even though Boone told everyone two weeks ago how much he has improved year over year and how “everybody is losing their mind” when it comes to criticizing the Golden Boy’s performance. Volpe is at best the same hitter he was in 2023 and 2024, and now he’s a worse defender and baserunner. But sure, keep telling everyone what they see every single day (since he gets to play every single day the way All-Stars Judge and Jazz Chisholm do) isn’t real and that it’s all an illusion. The Yankees’ internal metrics will tell you Volpe should have been elected an All-Star like Judge and Chisholm. The same metrics that Boone cited when talking about how great Isiah Kiner-Falefa was at shortstop in 2023, only to bench him in the postseason. The same metrics that Boone cited in talking about Gleyber Torres’ 2024 season when he was leading all second baseman in errors, and then when it came time to pay Torres they let him walk.

9. Volpe isn’t the answer at shortstop. He’s likely not an answer at any position, because after 414 games and 1,674 career plate appearances he’s closer to not being a major leaguer than he is to being part of the solution, like Cashman told us last week. He’s not part of the solution, he’s part of the problem. A big part of it.

George Lombard Jr. needs to be part of the solution. The most enjoyable moment of the weekend for the Yankees was happening 900 miles away with Lombard Jr. starring in the Futures Game. Lombard Jr. is the most important person in the organization not currently on the 26-man roster. He needs to work out. He has to work out because Volpe certainly isn’t.

10. I typically hate the All-Star break with no baseball for four days. Not this year. This year I’m welcoming the All-Star break and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The Yankees need a break and I need a break from the Yankees.

Maybe the four days off will reset them before the open the “second half” in Atlanta. Maybe it will cool off the Red Sox who haven’t lost in their last 10 games. Maybe it will serve as tailspin for the Blue Jays who erased an eight-game deficit between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Maybe it will be the end of the Yankees’ annual summer swoon and for the rest of July and August and September they will be the team they were in March, April and May.

Here’s to four, Yankees-less, relaxing days this week. I don’t think the next nine-plus weeks won’t be so relaxing.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jul 11, 2025

Yankees Thoughts: Sign Stealing Leads to Sweep

The Yankees won their first game of the season when trailing after eight innings to sweep the Mariners. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees have started to do what they spent nearly a month undoing. After losing 16 of 22, the Yankees have won four straight games. They salvaged the final game of the Citi Field portion of the Subway Series, chased the league leader in strikeout percentage, beat the crap out of a rookie starter and overcame a five-run deficit in a game they were no-hit into the eighth inning in to win four straight.

“It just shows the versatility that we have,” Austin Wells said. “We’ve shown that we can go big early in the games, and we can come back late.”

2. Prior to Thursdays game, I wrote: The best anyone can ask for from Stroman against a solid team like the Mariners is three earned runs over five innings and even that is likely asking for too much. Here’s to him surprising everyone and extending the winning streak to four straight.

Stroman did even better than I asked, allowing only two earned runs over five innings. If the Yankees were going to lose, it wasn’t going to be because of him. And for the majority of the game, it looked like the Yankees were going to lose. Bryan Woo was dominant for seven innings, no-hitting the Yankees until Jazz Chisholm led off the eighth with a single.

“It felt like we were getting dominated,” Boone said. Yeah, I would say getting no-hit into the eighth inning is getting dominated.

3. Boone decided a two-run deficit was too much to overcome, so he went to his last man in the bullpen for two innings with the Yankees trailing 2-0. The decision to go to Clayton Beeter was because of Boone’s decision-making the night before. After Wednesday’s game, I wrote about how unnecessarily using Jonathan Loaisiga and Luke Weaver for multiple innings in a game in which the Yankees had a comfortable lead and had Cam Schilittler pitching well with a low pitch count could come back to screw the Yankees in the series finale. It nearly did when Beeter let the Mariners’ lead go from 2-0 to 5-0.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run to make it a 5-3 game in the bottom of the eighth and Boone’s latest bullpen mismanagement looked like it would cost the Yankees a real opportunity to win the game. But in the ninth, the Yankees saved Boone from any hard postgame questions when they got to Andres Munoz for two runs to tie the game.

4. Trent Grisham led off the ninth with a single. Aaron Judge flew out for the first out, but Cody Bellinger singled to put two on with one out. Chisholm just missed a walk-off home run on a hanging slider, and instead, flew out for the second out. Down to their last out and eventually their last strike as Ben Rice fell behind 0-2, Rice battled back to draw a walk to load the bases. Wells followed with a two-run single to right to tie the game.

5. When Bellinger was on second base in the ninth, I noticed he was waving his arms wildly and visibly. Then I noticed each time he did it Munoz would throw a slider. Then I went back and saw Grisham was doing the same thing when he was on second, just not as noticeably as Bellinger. It was clear the Yankees had something on Munoz, whether it was a tell with his glove position or the runner on second being able to see his grip as he began his delivery because the arm waving would start as soon as Munoz began his motion. Whatever it was it worked and led to the two-run, ninth-inning comeback against a closer that entered the game having allowed 15 hits in 34 innings.

6. Devin Williams did his job in the 10th, stranding the automatic runner. I still don’t trust Williams. I don’t know that I ever will. But with the state of the bullpen he may very well be the most trustworthy at the moment given the home run issue with Luke Weaver recently. Williams has allowed 12 hits and five earned runs in 22 2/3 innings with 31 strikeouts and 1.99 ERA since May 7. He’s been awesome I just can’t erase the first month of the season from my memory.

7. With Volpe serving as the automatic runner in the bottom of the 10th, I was waiting for him to try to steal third with no outs in extras like he unsuccessfully did against the Red Sox last month. Thankfully, he didn’t. Oswald Peraza was asked to bunt Volpe over to third and took a first-pitch fastball at the bottom of the strike zone and then tried to bunt a a elevated second pitch and popped it up to third for the first out. With a lefty on the mound, Boone removed Jasson Dominguez from the game for Paul Goldschmidt and the Mariners immediately walked Goldschmidt. If you’re wondering why the Yankees are so bad in extra innings, the lack of fundamentals and situational hitting coupled with Boone’s brain demonstrated in the first two batters of Thursday’s 10th inning is why.

8. Grisham drew a walk to load the bases to bring up Judge who never gets to hit in extra innings. Judge hit a medium-depth fly ball to center field that Julio Rodriguez made a perfect throw home on, but Volpe made a nifty move to slide around the tag and win the game. Volpe finished the game with another 0-for-4 and his OPS+ is down 88 on the season (it was 81 in 2023 and 86 in 2024, but his slide helped win the game as he would have been out with any other slide. The Yankees wouldn’t have won on the play if anyone other than Volpe, Dominguez or Chisholm had been on third. It was the Yankees’ first win when trailing after eight innings this season.

9. The Yankees’ four-game winning streak will be put to a real test this weekend in the Cubs. The Cubs lead the majors in runs scored per game and the Yankees will try to combat that with Carlos Rodon on Friday, Max Fried on Saturday and Will Warren on Sunday.

With three games to go until the All-Star break, the season will be 59 percent over when the break hits. The Yankees head into the weekend trailing the Blue Jays by two games in the East, trailing the Astros by three games for a bye and have a four-game lead on a wild-card berth. They are in an OK spot. They were in a much better spot a month ago, but they are in a much better spot than they were on Saturday afternoon in Queens.

10. If a midsummer swoon under Boone is tradition then a disastrous weekend heading into the All-Star break under Boone is one as well. In 2021, they led the Astros 7-2 in the ninth, but gave up six runs, including a three-run, walk-off home run to Jose Altuve to lose 8-7. In 2023, they held a 4-1 lead over the Cubs in the seventh, but allowed six runs over the final three innings to lose. Last year, the Yankees had the humiliating loss in Baltimore to end the first “half” when Volpe and Alex Verdugo misplayed balls that would have ended the game. Let’s not do that again. How about a nice series win to go into the break? How about a sweep to keep the winning streak going? Let’s do that.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jul 10, 2025

Yankees Thoughts: Hello, Cam Schlittler and Goodbye, DJ LeMahieu

The Yankees designated DJ LeMahieu for assignment and then beat the Mariners behind rookie Cam Schlittler. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Goodbye to DJ LeMahieu. I always liked LeMahieu and was an advocate for him to be re-signed during the 2020-21 offseason. Did I think giving him a six-year deal to spread out the $90 million the Yankees gave him was the right decision? No. But when you’re worried about the luxury tax that’s what you do and Hal Steinbrenner is worried about the luxury tax more than you’re worried about anything in your life.

The Yankees signed LeMahieu as a free agent prior to 2019 despite coming off back-to-back below-league-average seasons in 2017 (93 OPS+) and 2018 (88 OPS+) while playing half of his games at Coors Field. If you remember, LeMahieu wasn’t even part of the Yankees’ expected everyday lineup in 2019 and didn’t even play on Opening Day. He quickly forced himself into the lineup and hit .327/.375/.518 with a career-high 26 home runs and 102 RBIs. (Let’s forget about the juiced ball that season that saw Brett Gardner hit 28 home runs and Gleyber Torres 34.)

LeMahieu was every bit as good in the postseason that year as well, posting a .976 OPS in the three-game sweep over the Twins and a 1.029 OPS in the ALCS loss to the Astros. He was the Yankees’ best hitter in the six games against the Astros and his ninth-inning home run to tie Game 6 would have been an all-time moment in the team’s history if they had gone on to win the game and the series. Instead, it will be mostly forgotten like Alfonso Soriano’s go-ahead home run in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

After finishing second for the batting title in 2019, LeMahieu won it with a .364 average in the shortened 2020 season. He hit .364/.421/.590 and led the league in WAR despite missing 17 percent of the 60-game season. He also led the league in on-base percentage, OPS and OPS+.

The Yankees had to sign LeMahieu after 2020. He had become the second-most important piece of their offense and on defense he was a versatile Gold Glove winner. At the time, no one knew Torres would play his way off of shortstop and force LeMahieu to play third and first. No one knew LeMahieu was about to break down.

2. The Yankees spread out the $90 million over 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, hoping the first half of the six years would be the same old LeMahieu and they would deal with the second half of the six years. But after being designated for assignment on Wednesday, LeMahieu only lasted for four-and-a-half years of the deal, and for those four-and-a-half years, he wasn’t himself, plagued by a multitude of injuries, which turned him into a seeing-eye-singles hitter at the plate and an immobile defender in the field.

LeMahieu played in 150 games in the first year of the deal in 2021 (and was two percent worse than league average), but was shut down prior to the postseason — a postseason that lasted only one game for the Yankees.

He began to return to form in 2022, posting a 118 OPS+, but again missed time and was shut down for the postseason.

His 2023 season looked a lot like his 2021 season and he managed to play in 84 percent of the team’s games, but was four percent worse than league average in those games.

His 2024 season was the worst of his career as he hit .204/.269/.259 in 67 games and was on the injured list to end the season for the third time in four years.

He got hurt again in spring training in 2025 and missed the beginning of the year. When he returned, I wrote: LeMahieu has become the Yankees’ family dog who wanders around aimlessly and goes to the bathroom all over the place and lies around and sleeps all day. You try to pretend like the end isn’t near and you try to remember the good times to get through the bad times. Once in a while the dog will do something to remind you of what it used to be, but it’s just a momentary tease. The moments were too far and few between at the plate, and in the field, he was a liability at second base, unable to get to balls within reach. And so on Wednesday he became a former Yankee.

3. It was the right move, though at the wrong time. It was a move that should have been made either during last season or prior to this season. Aaron Boone spent the winter telling everyone how LeMahieu would return to his old self in 2025, the same way he told everyone they were crazy to not believe in Josh Donaldson in 2023 before his eventual release. The same way he tells everyone how good Anthony Volpe is despite every stat and metric suggesting he’s not and anyone with eyesight knowing he’s not.

4. It happened quickly for LeMahieu. He went from starting on Sunday to being told he was going to be a bench player on Tuesday to being designated for assignment on Wednesday. He was a good Yankee and I’m sure some other team will sign him even though he seems as washed as it gets. The Yankees gave late-career Kendrys Morales and Jay Bruce a chance. The Brewers signed Donaldson after he left the Yankees. The Orioles and Angels gave Aaron Hicks a chance. Some team is always willing to give some washed-up player a chance. I know how these things work out and I can already see LeMahieu coming to the plate with runners on second and third and two outs against Jonathan Loaisiga in the playoffs and LeMahieu hitting a 37-hopper up the middle to score two.

5. After the news of LeMahieu’s designation tapered off, the Yankees won their first game since Game 2 of the 2018 ALDS without LeMahieu in the organization. For the second straight night they beat the crap out of a Mariners starter and this time it was Logan Evans allowing 11 baserunners and six earned runs in 4 2/3 innings to the Yankees. The offense has come alive in July with at least five runs in all eight games this month.

6. But the story wasn’t the bats it was Cam Schlittler making his major-league debut. Schlittler looked great in his 5 1/3 innings of work, frequently throwing 100-mph fastballs by Mariners hitters. It was refreshing to see a Yankees pitcher not trying to fool everyone and just throwing the ball right by them instead.

7. Schlittler’s final line of three earned runs in 5 1/3 innings may not look great, but I blame the solo home run on Austin Wells for calling for back-to-back breaking balls to Jorge Polanco, and when they both missed and the count was 2-0, Polanco knew the rookie would come with a fastball and he destroyed it.

I blame the third earned run on Boone. Schlittler allowed a leadoff bloop double to begin the sixth to Julio Rodriguez. He then got to face Cal Raleigh a third time and blew Raleigh away with a high fastball at 98 mph. Schlittlter was only at 75 pitches after striking out Raleigh, but Boone went to Loaisiga, who has been dreadful, to face Randy Arozarena. Arozarena promptly hit a two-run home run to right field and Schlittler was charged with an earned run.

8. There is a lot behind this horrible decision. Schlittler was allowed to face the major-league leader in home runs a third time, but not Arozarena? With Marcus Stroman starting on Thursday, the most innings the Yankees could expect is five, which means the bullpen would be leaned on for four innings. Knowing that, why would you remove a starter pitching well with a four-run lead at 75 pitches?

For all of the talk recently about how Boone shouldn’t be Yankees manager because he won’t tell it like it is, no, that decision right there summarizes why Boone shouldn’t be the manager. He has no idea what he’s doing in terms of in-game management in Year 8 in the position. He had Loaisiga pitched multiple innings and Luke Weaver pitch multiple innings when he didn’t need to. So now both will be unavailable on Thursday when they are more likely to be needed. Boone’s decision-making on Wednesday nearly blew the game before the offense tacked on additional runs and those decisions could lead to a loss on Thursday. Boone, himself, is a bigger problem than the Yankees’ pitching staff depth or their lack of a third baseman.

9. Jasson Dominguez was back in the leadoff spot where he went 3-for-4 with a walk. I’m sure he will either be moved down on Thursday or benched so Trent Grisham can play. Aaron Judge went 1-for-3 with two walks, Cody Bellinger went 2-for-4, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt picked up singles, Jazz Chisholm homered twice and Austin Wells had a pair of hits. Volpe hit a ball off the right-field wall and was thrown out trying to stretch his hit into a double. Oswald Peraza went 0-for-4, but his four balls were hit 99, 109, 99 and 92 mph, which was a welcome sight. Maybe with consistent playing time he will prove he can hit in the majors.

10. Unfortunately, the three-game winning streak and the mood around the team that seems to be changing for the better is likely to come to an end on Thursday with Stroman pitching. I can’t envision him pitching well or giving the Yankees enough innings to not ask what is a shaky-at-best bullpen to get at least 12 outs. The best anyone can ask for from Stroman against a solid team like the Mariners is three earned runs over five innings and even that is likely asking for too much. Here’s to him surprising everyone and extending the winning streak to four straight.

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Jul 9, 2025

Yankees Thoughts: Back-to-Back Wins?!

The Yankees beat the Mariners 10-3 to win consecutive games for the second time in two weeks. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees won on Sunday. They had Monday off. They won on Tuesday. That means the Yankees won two games in a row. It was the first time since June 25 and June 27 they had won back-to-back games and just the third time since June 12. For a team whose manager calls them “the best in baseball” despite having the ninth-best record and despite having lost 11 1/2 games of ground to the Blue Jays, you would think the “best team in baseball” would win back-to-back games more than three times in a month.

2. If you were wondering how long the Yankees would be comfortable with Jazz Chisholm playing a shaky third base and DJ LeMahieu being unable to get to balls within reach of him at second base, well, we received out answer on Tuesday. The answer is going from an eight-game lead over the Blue Jays to trailing the Blue Jays by 3 1/2 games.

The best part of the Yankees staying with Chisholm at third as long as the Yankees did is that he was given the day off on Sunday because of a shoulder issue that was affecting his throwing. Aaron Boone said it had been going on a for a while. So for a while, Boone knowingly was starting Chisholm at third base every day even though he had an issue throwing. Chisholm said he didn’t want to use it as an excuse for his poor throws across the diamond (of which there was at least one a game for an extended period), but by saying he didn’t want to use it as an excuse, he was using it as an excuse.

3. I don’t fault Chisholm for playing a bad third base, considering he has never been a third baseman in his career outside of his time with the Yankees — the only team in the majors that takes pride in playing multiple players out of position on a daily basis. But with Oswald Peraza at third base on Tuesday, you could see the glaring difference between having an elite left-side infielder on the field compared to a player being asked to do something he wasn’t asked to do with his previous organization and to do something he wasn’t even told to prepare for in spring training. Peraza made roughly four plays on Tuesday that Chisholm wouldn’t have made.

4. It turns out when you play a clean game defensively it makes it easier to win. It also helps when you get a strong starting effort like the Yankees got from Will Warren (5.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K) and when you hit with runners in scoring position, which the Yankees did going 5-for-7 (I don’t think they had five hits with runners in scoring position over the last five weeks). The Yankees got to Logan Gilbert — the league leader in strikeout percentage — for five runs in 5 1/3 innings and then torched Casey Legumina for five runs in an inning of work. The 10-3 rout was a big win for the “Lookout the Yankees’ run differential!” crowd.

5. I like LeMahieu. I was all for re-signing him after 2020 before he started to break down. He should be happy every day he wakes up and is still in the majors at this point. Boone said LeMahieu took the news of going to the bench, “Not great, necessarily.” LeMahieu can’t be even a little upset he’s not going to be anything more than a bench player for the time being. He should be grateful he’s still on the team.

6. Aside from Chisholm back at second, Peraza at third and LeMahieu on the bench, Jasson Dominguez was batting leadoff. Dominguez had a big game out of the leadoff spot on Saturday and then was batting sixth on Sunday. He should be the leadoff hitter moving forward, though, unfortunately, because Boone is trying to overcorrect for not playing Trent Grisham over Alex Verdugo last year, and in doing so is doing everything he can to stunt Dominguez’s development by playing Grisham as much as possible. I’m sure Dominguez will sit on Wednesday so Grisham can play.

7. Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton and Scott Effross combined to throw three scoreless innings of relief and Geoff Hartlieb gave up three runs while recording just one out. Hartlieb couldn’t have done less with his two appearances this season (1.1 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 1 HR).

8. Aaron Judge went 2-for-5 with a solo home run with the Yankees up 6-0 in the seventh. Cody Bellinger went 3-for-4, Giancarlo Stanton hit the game-opening three-run home run, Jazz Chisholm had a double, Paul Goldschmidt had three hits, Austin Wells homered and Peraza singled in the first run of the game. Anthony Volpe — as expected — went 0-for-4. The “really good” and “productive” offensive player Boone spoke about last week is down to .217/.293/.393 on the season. The “above league average” offensive player Boone talked about is now nine percent worse than league average.

9. Because the Yankees blew a sizable division lead and because they have lost 16 of their last 24 game, there has been the annual midsummer call for Boone to be fired. (It’s as expected each summer as the Fourth of July is at this point.) As a leader of the movement in recent years, I wish I could take part in this year’s edition, but it’s a waste of energy. Boone survived finishing third in the division and fifth in the AL in 2021 when his team was the favorite to win the AL. He survived missing the postseason completely in 2023 when 40 percent of the league gets in. There is nothing he could do to get fired this season, especially off a World Series appearance, even if that appearance was embarrassing, humiliating and disturbing.

Because of the annual midsummer call for Boone to lose his job, there has been this narrative — led by Michael Kay — that Boone shouldn’t be fired because he doesn’t tell it like it is. That’s not the reason Boone should be removed. It’s one of the reasons, but it’s second at best to his in-game strategy and decision-making. Boone shouldn’t be the manager of the Yankees because he routinely fails to put his players in the best possible position to succeed (like playing Chisholm at third base every day or having Jayvien Sandridge make his major-league debut against Juan Soto and Pete Alonso) and because he’s incapable of making consistent logical in-game decisions. His lack of urgency, misevaluation of performance, defense of underperformance and telling everyone how good the Yankees are when they aren’t is second to all of that.

One day Boone will no longer be the Yankees’ manager. That day is not any time soon. He will never be fired. Hal Steinbrenner would rather have the team finish in last place for a decade than pay two people at the same time for one job. One day Boone’s contract will end and the Yankees won’t offer him a new one. That’s the only way he will no longer be the Yankees’ manger. (This doesn’t mean I won’t take every opportunity I get to criticize him. I just know it won’t lead to anything until his contract expires.)

10. Cam Schlittler gets the ball on Wednesday in his major-league debut. With Luis Gil and Ryan Yarbrough on the injured list and Clarke Schmidt out for this season and next, Schlittler has an opportunity to be a part of the rotation for the long haul if he pitches well. Right now, the Yankees’ No. 3 starter is Warren and the No. 4 is Marcus Stroman, so yeah, Schlittler has an amazing opportunity here and the bar is just be better than Stroman.

Can the Yankees win a third straight game on Wednesday? If they do, it will be the first time since June 10-12.