The Yankees re-signed Aaron Judge, but they’re no better today than they were seven weeks ago when they were swept by the Astros.
The Yankees had to re-sign Aaron Judge. They had no choice. As an organization, they backed themselves into this position by not extending him between 2017 and 2021 and by not giving him what he was looking for prior to Opening Day 2022, which was certainly not a nine-year, $360 million deal. (Though their pre-Opening Day 2022 offer was extremely fair.) And then the perfect storm of events for Judge took place leading to him getting the highest average annual salary of any position player in history and a deal that makes him a Yankee through his age 39 season.
Judge had an all-time offensive season, carried the Yankees for six months, broke the American League home run record and won AL MVP. To support his free-agent case, the Yankees were embarrassed in the ALCS by the Astros and his hometown Giants followed up a 107-win season with 81 wins, losing the AL West by 30 games. Then within the last week, whatever backup plan the Yankees had if Judge left was ruined when Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander and Trea Turner all came off the board. Turner signing before Judge only helped Judge as the new Phillie’s 11-year deal meant the eight-year offer out to Judge wasn’t going to get it done. The elite free-agent options were disappearing, and the Yankees had only one choice: finally give Judge what he wants, which was way, way, way more than what he wanted in early April.
The Yankees’ nonsensical “no extension” policy cost them hundreds of millions of dollars with Judge. Not that I care. No Yankees fan should care. Why should anyone other than the Steinbrenners care about their finances? (Finances they inherited from their father from a franchise they inherited from their father, a franchise their father didn’t want them to run.) If Judge got 15 years and $1.5 billion from the Yankees, only two groups of people should care: the Judges and the Steinbrenners. In a salary cap-less league, the money doesn’t matter. The years don’t matter. Having the best possible roster in the given season it all that matters.
Somehow along the way, baseball owners fooled the public into thinking luxury-tax penalties would sink franchises. There’s no market smaller than San Diego and in the last four years, the Padres gave $340 million to Fernando Tatis, $300 million to Manny Machado, $100 million to Jose Musgrove, traded for Yu Darvish’s $21 million average annual salary, tried to give Turner $342 million this week, tried to give Judge $400 million this week and finally were able to sign Xander Bogaerts for $280 million. If the Padres of all teams can spend the way they do, it’s disturbing to think what the Yankees could truly afford to spend compared to what they actually spend.
The Steinbrenners knew they had to keep Judge, not because it would help them win a championship, but because it would help them financially. Since Game 4 of the ALCS, the Yankees have sent countless emails for 2023 ticket offers, using Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu as the images in these emails. I like Stanton and love LeMahieu, but those two aren’t “putting fannies in the seats” like George Steinbrenner used to say. Hal Steinbrenner can act like not winning the World Series for a 13th straight year bothers him and keeps him up at night, but it’s all for show. To Hal, the Yankees had a successful season. They made his family hundreds of millions of dollars, and reaching the postseason was just icing on the cake. Getting five home playoff games (and a sixth when they screwed over everyone for Game 5 of the ALDS) was the cherry on top.
Judge alone won’t help the Yankees overcome the Astros and win the World Series. Steinbrenner said he told Judge the Yankees would be able to re-sign him and more this offseason. So far the Yankees gave Anthony Rizzo a new contract and brought back Tommy Kahnle. The four-win ALCS gap hasn’t been closed. If it has moved, if anything, it’s moved more in the Astros’ favor.
It doesn’t matter that Verlander left the Astros for the Mets. The Astros still boast Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers Jr. and Christian Javier in their rotation, and were able to win the AL in 2021 without Verlander. The Astros can just plug his rotation spot with either Luis Garcia or Jose Urquidy, neither of which made the Astros’ postseason rotation. (Both made 28 starts in 2022 with Garcia pitching to a 3.72 ERA and Urquidy a 3.94 ERA.) The Astros are also returning their World Series-winning offense in addition to Jose Abreu (who they recently gave a three-year deal too).
It feels like the Yankees are going to re-sign Andrew Benintendi, which would be nice since it would put an end to any idea Aaron Hicks could be a Yankee in 2023, but all it does is bring back another piece from a Yankees team that wasn’t good enough. A piece that missed the final month of the season and the postseason due to a second hamate surgery, a surgery that is known to sap power for some time after.
The best thing the Yankees have going for them is that the rest of the AL seems to be content with doing nothing this offseason. The Red Sox let Bogaerts leave. The Rays gave Zach Eflin the biggest free-agent contract in franchise history. The Blue Jays traded away Teoscar Hernandez. The White Sox’ big splash has been signing Mike Clevinger. I guess the Rangers made a statement by signing deGrom, but they then canceled that out by signing Andrew Heaney. Turner stayed in the NL. Bogaerts went to the NL. Verlander went to the NL. Wilson Contreras stayed in the NL. Mitch Haniger went to the NL.
It’s helpful nearly all of the free-agent talent has gone to the NL over the AL, but it doesn’t make me feel better about the Yankees’ offseason, which is shaping up to be returning nearly the same exact roster and core that for a fifth straight season just proved to not be good enough.
I’m not excited the Yankees re-signed Judge. I’m relieved. No one should be celebrating the team that makes more money than any other team being able to retain their own homegrown free agent. Eating money to move Aaron Hicks or Josh Donaldson would get me excited. Moving on from Isiah Kiner-Falefa? Signing Carlos Rodon? Trading for Bryan Reynolds? Giving an everyday spot to Anthony Volpe or Oswald Peraza out of spring training? Now we’re talking. That would get me excited. Those are moves that would begin to close the gap that has grown progressively wider since the 2017 ALCS.
The Winter Meetings are over, but the offseason has really just begun. There’s just over two months until pitchers and catchers report for the the Steinbrenners to make good on their promise to Judge that they could sign him and more this offseason. Having two months to make good on that promise doesn’t mean I think it will actually happen, just that they have two months to make it happen. Right now, they’re the same old Yankees: good enough to make the postseason, but not good enough to win it. For Yankees fans, it’s not good enough. It’s about time it isn’t for the Steinbrenners either.
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
When the Yankees lost Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, I was exhausted. The Yankees had consumed every waking hour of my life for the past 23 days, and with late start times, long games
When the Yankees lost Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, I was exhausted. The Yankees had consumed every waking hour of my life for the past 23 days, and with late start times, long games and crowded train rides home, nearly every hour of those 23 days was a waking hour.
In that ALCS, the Yankees had an opportunity to win one of two games in Houston to advance to the World Series, and they didn’t. Five seasons and five calendar years later, that’s the closest these Yankees have come to getting the franchise back to the World Series, let alone winning the World Series. Or so I thought.
A week before Opening Day 2022, Brian Cashman spoke with The Athletic at spring training as part of a disturbing interview that was his lowest moment as Yankees general manager.
“The only thing that stopped [us] was something that was so illegal and horrific,” Cashman told The Athletic. “So I get offended when I start hearing we haven’t been to the World Series since ’09. Because I’m like, ‘Well, I think we actually did it the right way.’ Pulled it down, brought it back up. Drafted well, traded well, developed well, signed well. The only thing that derailed us was a cheating circumstance that threw us off.”
Spoken like a true loser, Cashman tried to make claim to the 2017 championship, as if the Yankees scoring three runs total in the four games in Houston in the ALCS had nothing to do with it, acting as if his Yankees would have just walked all over the Dodgers in the World Series.
“It does bother me when people say we haven’t been to the World Series since ’09,” Cashman said. “We did it all right, by building it to a certain level that could have gotten us to a World Series — if not for something else. But hey! We’re back at it. Every year, we’re still back at it. We’ve been qualifying for the postseason, and we’re going to take this team as far as we can get it, and hopefully we can push through.”
How dare anyone criticize the Yankees’ lack of championships since 2000! They have qualified for the postseason! They’re taking this team as a far it can go (which is a humiliating ALDS loss to the Red Sox, a second ALCS loss to the Astros, an ALDS loss to the 28th-highest payroll Rays, a degrading wild-card game loss to the Red Sox and now a third ALCS loss and sweep at the hands of the Astros, who thoroughly and utterly embarrassed the Yankees last month)! But hey! They’re back at it. Every year, they’re still back at it!
And “it” is the postseason. In a time when 40 percent of the league reaches the postseason and teams hovering around .500 are involved in the postseason race until the final weeks of the season, reaching the playoffs is considered championship-like for the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees.
“People are like ‘Oh, we haven’t been to a World Series … and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I don’t think that’s as true a statement as it could be,’” Cashman said. “We had a World Series team. And either you get it done or you don’t. People don’t want to hear that. I get it. But that’s real to me. I think it’s real to all of us.”
If “having a World Series team” is good enough for Cashman and not actually needing to win the World Series then it explains the team’s decisions post-2017. Since losing Games 6 and 7 in Houston and coming within one win of the World Series with a young, inexpensive core, the Yankees moved on from Joe Girardi for the inexperienced and idiotic Aaron Boone, cut payroll by more than $30 million for the following season, and for the last five offseasons have passed on every single star position player available on the free-agent market. All while boasting nearly the same payroll over the last 17 years, despite exponential growth in revenues during that 17-year period.
“The fans, they’re fanatics for a reason,” Cashman said. “They don’t really care about how it all adds up. They just want to be the last team standing. As do we. But my job, and our front office’s job, is to find a way within the current restrictions that we have, and the options that are available: ‘OK, what can we come up with that solves these problems, as fast as possible?’”
There should be no “restrictions” when it comes to the Yankees. They’re the Yankees! In October 2021, after the Yankees’ postseason lasted nine innings (though really not even a full inning with Xander Bogaerts’ two-run, first inning home run), Cashman spoke about how the 2021 Yankees were “unwatchable” and needed “upgrades” and how there were many “legitimate options” to add to the roster. He added zero “legitimate options” to the roster.
“We believe if we get there, we’re good enough to run the table,” Cashman said. “The Braves showed it last year. All due respect. They’re world champs. But were they the odds-on favorite? Or the second? Or the third? Or whatever, entering that process. And the answer was ‘No.’”
In 2021, the Yankees were the odds-on favorite to win the AL and finally get back to the World Series. As the odds-on favorite, they finished fifth in the AL and third in their own division. The Yankees’ financial position allows them to be able to put together the best possible roster to win a championship each season. They shouldn’t have to settle for “getting hot” in October or having a miraculous month like the Braves did.
That Cashman quote is why I rooted for the Astros over the Phillies this season. (Yeah, I said it. I rooted for the Astros.) The Phillies were an 87-win team, the 6-seed in the NL, and including the AL, they were the last seed in the entire postseason field. Had they been able to upset the Astros, it would have only given more credence to Cashman and the Yankees’ belief that the postseason is a crapshoot and a month of random luck. Except it’s not. If it were, the Astros wouldn’t have just played in their second straight World Series and fourth in six years after having a six straight ALCS appearances. If it were, then the Yankees teams that have allowed Cashman to maintain his position within the organization for a quarter of a century weren’t in fact good, but just the luckiest collection of baseball players on the planet in the late 90s and early 2000s.
For a general manager that hasn’t produced a single World Series appearance in 13 seasons and just one in the last 19 seasons, who once traded Ted Lilly for Jeff Weaver, who traded Tyler Clippard for Jonathan Albaladejo, who signed Kei Igawa, who chose Nick Johnson over Hideki Matsui, who traded for Javier Vazquez twice, who let his belief in Eduardo Nunez prevent him from acquiring Cliff Lee, who gave Jacoby Ellsbury $153 million, who hired Boone and extended Boone, who took on $50 million owed to Josh Donaldson simply to acquire Isiah Kiner-Falefa, that interview was the lowest moment of his tenure as Yankees general manager. That is, until last week.
The moment Gleyber Torres caught the final out of the 2022 ALDS against the Guardians, I knew Cashman and Boone would be back. As I walked out of Yankee Stadium that Tuesday evening, I knew the tandem would return no matter what happened in the ALCS. What I should have truly realized was that it didn’t matter what happened in the ALDS against the Guardians. The moment the Yankees clinched a postseason berth, the tandem would return.
I don’t know that not reaching the postseason would have been enough to move on from them either. I don’t know that blowing the single-largest game lead in baseball history would have led to organizational change for the Yankees. When the Yankees’ once-15 1/2-game lead was down to one game and Boone was slapping tables in postgame press conferences and stunningly telling the media they would “have a hell of story to write if the Yankees blow this thing,” I know it didn’t matter to Cashman, and I’m quite sure it didn’t matter to ownership either. But if it did, that was the Yankees fans’ chance at change. Endure the worst regular-season embarrassment in baseball history to go along with the team’s ownership of the worst postseason embarrassment in the game’s history, and maybe, just maybe it would result in the kind of organizational change I wrote was needed after the 2021 season.
Once the Yankees reached the postseason, once they barely survived the inferior Guardians who took them to a winner-take-all Game 5 and had the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning of that Game 5, and once they reached the ALCS, nothing mattered. The Yankees couldn’t have been less of a challenge for the Astros, and it didn’t matter.
“I think I’m living proof and our ownership is living proof of the fact that people don’t get let go because of results,” Cashman said in what was his new low moment as Yankees general manager, a moment that will likely never be topped.
The New York Yankees: Where people don’t get let go because of results.
Because of that admission from Cashman, nothing mattered from a win-loss perspective for the 2022 Yankees. It didn’t matter that the Yankees were swept by the Astros. It didn’t matter that in the two home games in the series, they were shut out in one and blew a three-run lead in the other. It didn’t matter that they struck out 50 times in the series. It didn’t matter that they became the first team in Major League Baseball postseason history to have a three-game span with 12 hits or fewer, 40-plus strikeouts and three losses. It didn’t matter that they set the MLB record for most consecutive games in postseason history with six hits or fewer at 10 straight games. It didn’t matter that they recorded the lowest team batting average through eight postseason games in MLB history. It didn’t matter that they used three different starting shortstops in the four-game ALCS and changed their leadoff hitter and left fielder each game in the series. None of it mattered because like Cashman told the media on three different occasions in his annual end-of-the-season press conference (while the baseball season is still going), the reason the Yankees lost to the Astros was injuries.
On Opening Day, the Yankees shared their slogan for 2023:
“No moral victories. No excuses. No storylines. No narratives. Talk is cheap.”
If you’re a fan of the Red Sox, Astros or Mets, or simply a baseball fan who hates the Yankees, the Yankees’ decision to make that the 2023 team motto was too perfect. There was a 100 percent chance it would come back to haunt the Yankees, just like the decision by Boone and the team’s mental conditioning coach to use the franchise’s collapse in the 2004 ALCS as motivation prior to Game 4 of this past ALCS.
Excuses have become the foundation for which these Yankees are built on. That’s because the man hired by Cashman to manage the team has an endless list of them. His Yankees always seem to run into a hot lineup, a starting pitcher having his best day who kept his offense off balance and a shutdown bullpen that was a tough matchup. His starting pitcher always seems to have “good stuff,” but made just one or two “mistakes.” His bats are always just about to come around based on their recent quality of at-bats. And his bullpen seems to always be on the brink of straightening things out.
After Boone played for tomorrow in Game 1 of the ALCS and gave away a tie game against Justin Verlander in the sixth inning in Houston, the Yankees had to have Game 2. When the Yankees lost Game 2, the team spent their postgame session with the media saying how they should have won if not for the wind, the same way their general manager told the media the team should have won the 2017 World Series. The same way their manager “Annie” Boone talks about “tomorrow” the way the Broadway character sang about it, the players have followed the act their management has led them on. So when Boone spends every October talking about how “close” these Yankees are to winning a championship (like he did again this year, even though they have never been as close as they were the season before he took over), the players believe it. They don’t believe it’s their fault when they don’t win in October. It’s never on the roster or the person who constructed the roster or the person who manages the roster. It’s always on something else: sign stealing, start times, the wind, the weather, a roof being open, bad luck, a small sample size or an unlucky bounce.
“I think Aaron did a great job,” Cashman said last week about his manager’s season, a season in which Boone publicly admitted to hearing “Fire Boone” chants during the team’s home games. And why wouldn’t he say that? Boone was handpicked by Cashman and sold to ownership as the right guy to oversee the Baby Bombers. Those Baby Bombers are no longer babies, and nearly all of them are no longer Bombers. Aaron Judge is a free agent. Gary Sanchez was traded. Greg Bird, Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier were let go for nothing. Torres’ career has fallen apart since the end of 2019 and the Yankees unsuccessfully tried to trade him this past July at the deadline. Luis Severino’s 2023 option was picked up earlier this week, and there’s a good chance he will be the only Baby Bomber left.
Yes, that would mean Judge is no longer a Yankee in 2023, and that’s not only a very real possibility, it’s the likely possibility. The Yankees are now one of 30 teams Judge can sign with.
“If you could wave a magic wand,” Cashman said at the general manager meetings earlier this week, “We would secure Aaron Judge and retain him and have him signed and happy in the fold as soon as possible.”
The Yankees didn’t need to possess a magic wand for Judge to be a Yankee, and it never needed to come to this. This being Judge being a free agent and this being the Yankees now having to overpay to re-sign him for what’s left of his prime and his entire decline. The Yankees could have extended Judge during or after his 2017 Rookie of the Year campaign. They could have done the same in 2018. Or 2019. Or 2020. Or 2021. Or 2022. They didn’t. So now their general manager is searching for a fictional piece of equipment to bring back the Yankees’ best player.
“As George Steinbrenner would say, ‘Fannies in the seats,'” Cashman said about Judge last week. “People want to go watch that guy play.”
You know what else George Steinbrenner said? “Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.”
Steinbrenner said that in 1998. The same year Cashman inherited a team and core that would win the World Series that season, again the next season, again the season after that, and reach the World Series in two of the next three seasons after that. Back then, the Yankees weren’t preaching that “process” is more important than “results.” They didn’t need to because the only result they knew was winning. They didn’t to have speak and act like losers. The same type of loser Derek Jeter referenced in his documentary this past summer: the kind of people who make excuses for their shortcomings. The last time the Yankees appeared in the World Series was with the core that Cashman inherited. You want to give him credit for being part of Gene Michael’s team that helped create that core? Fine. Then give him the same blame for the late-80s and early-90s Yankees teams that were the laughingstock of the AL because he was part of the organization then as well.
After these Yankees came within a game of the 2017 World Series, Cashman persuaded ownership to move on from Girardi, who had won big as both a player and manager for the Yankees. It took one interview for Cashman to sell ownership on the inexperienced Boone (who had never won coached or managed at any level and had never experienced winning either), and all other candidate interviews were canceled.
Since then, the Yankees have passed on every available free-agent position player. They said no to then-26-year-old Manny Machado because they had Andujar at third base and plans for Torres at shortstop. (Andujar was released this season and Torres was removed from shortstop last season.) They chose not to even meet with then-26-year-old Bryce Harper because Cashman told the media the generational superstar wasn’t “a fit” for the Yankees since the team’s outfield was crowded. That crowded outfield was Judge (who was never extended and is now a free agent), Stanton (who isn’t allowed to play the outfield), Aaron Hicks (who has had a season-ending injury in three of the four years since Harper was a free agent) and Jacoby Ellsbury and Clint Frazier (who were both released for nothing). This past offseason, Cashman chose not to sign any of the big-name free-agent shortstops, and instead willingly took on the $50 million owed to Josh Donaldson just to acquire the light-hitting, not-really-a-shortstop Isiah-Kiner Falefa, who ended up getting benched in the postseason. Asked about Kiner-Falefa’s miserable season last week, Cashman said, “Kiner-Falefa was kind of along the lines of what we expected.” He expected a .642 OPS from an everyday player and one of the worst defensive shortstops in the league who would lose his job in the postseason? Is that part of the “process” Cashman says leads the Yankees these days?
What exactly is the process? It should be to build a team from within and fill in areas of need through free agency with the franchise’s financial might. But it’s not. If the Yankees were at full strength in the postseason, and DJ LeMahieu, Andrew Benintendi and Matt Carpenter were all healthy and available, Judge would have been the only homegrown player in the lineup.
The Yankees don’t have a process, and if they believe they do, it’s not working and needs to be rebuilt. What the Yankees do have is a goal, and that goal is to be one of the six best teams in the AL and reach the postseason. If they happen to run into a championship along the way, great. And if they don’t, like Cashman’s favorite position player Hicks said this season when asked about no longer being an everyday player because of his performance, “so be it.”
Cashman didn’t need to be fired after this season. His contract was up, like Boone’s was last year. The Yankees could have had a clean break and moved on to someone else. But like Boone last year, Cashman is still part of the Yankees. He will be going on his 26th season as general manager and his 14th season in trying to produce a World Series team. He’s not going anywhere now and won’t go anywhere until he decides to step away on his own.
My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!
As long as Aaron Boone is manager it’s hard to envision the Yankees winning the World Series, and for at least another season, he will be manager.
I knew this would happen, and yet, I’m still disgusted by it happening. I knew Hal Steinbrenner would retain Aaron Boone. I knew it. It doesn’t matter that the Yankees were just swept by the Astros in embarrassing fashion, and it wouldn’t have mattered if the Yankees lost to the Guardians in the ALDS, or if they had completely blown their 15 1/2-game lead, or if they missed the playoffs completely.
“As far as Boone’s concerned, we just signed him and for all the same reasons I listed a year ago, I believe he is a very good manager,” Steinbrenner said. “I don’t see a change there.”
It doesn’t matter that Boone and his coaching staff spent the hours before Sunday’s Game 4 showing their players videos of their organization experiencing the worst collapse in postseason history as a motivational tactic. It doesn’t matter that the Yankees have grown progressively worse under Boone’s watch since losing Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS and moving on from Joe Girardi. It doesn’t matter that with Boone as manager, the Yankees have been eliminated by both the Red Sox and Astros in two postseasons, and by the Rays once, and in a season in which Boone’s Yankees were the odds-on favorite to represent the American League in the World Series (2021), they finished fifth in the AL and third in their own division with their postseason lasting nine innings (but really not even one full inning thanks to allowing a first-inning, two-run home run). It was after that depressing, miserable season that Steinbrenner decided to double down on his decision to hire Boone by giving him a new three-year deal with a fourth-year option.
A year ago, Boone became the first manager in Yankees history to be given a fifth year on the job without winning a championship in his first four years. Now, he has broken his own record, becoming the first manager in Yankees history to be given a sixth year on the job without winning a championship in his first five. That’s just a small part of the prestigious history he has helped create as Yankees manager.
In 2018, Boone oversaw the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history. In this year’s postseason, his Yankees became the first team in Major League Baseball postseason history to have a three-game span with 12 hits or fewer, 40-plus strikeouts and three losses. His Yankees set the MLB record for most consecutive games in postseason history with six hits or fewer at 10 straight games. After Game 3 of the ALDS, his Yankees recorded the lowest team batting average through eight postseason games in MLB history as well. And best of all, Boone’s bullpen management of Game 3 of ALDS became the first time the Yankees as an organization have blown a multi-run lead in the ninth inning of a postseason game, as they were 167-0 prior to Boone deeming Clay Holmes unavailable.
And Boone deemed Holmes unavailable on a night in which Holmes told the media he was available to pitch, which led to that night’s starter (Luis Severino) questioning Boone’s bullpen management to the media. It was Severino who in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS didn’t know what time the game started before getting rocked by the Red Sox and before Boone let that game get out of his hand with his slow hook and poor choice of relievers, just like it was Harrison Bader this postseason unaware he was leading off for the first time as a Yankee until the media told him.
When Boone was hired, fans were led to believe the Yankees chose him over more experienced and better-suited candidates because of his communication skills. And yet, the team’s communication failed at least twice (that the public knows about) in this postseason to go along with countless other instances since 2018. Instances like Boone benching Gary Sanchez in the postseason in favor of his personal favorite Kyle Higashioka without explaining to Sanchez his decision, or Boone saying he didn’t think Domingo German needed to address the clubhouse upon returning from his domestic violence suspension. It wasn’t until Zack Britton spoke out about German’s presence that Boone backtracked and had German apologize to the team to try to make amends for being a scumbag.
“Fire Boone” chants began at Yankee Stadium during the 2021 season and carried over to this season when the Yankees watched a 15 1/2-game division lead fall to one game in the loss column. When questioned about the possibility of blowing the division, Boone told the media, “If we blow this thing, you’ll have a hell of a story to write.” His use of the word “if” was an admission that the Yankees might blow the single-largest division lead in baseball history. I’m shocked the manager who didn’t deny the possibility of blowing the AL East this season thought it was smart to both show his team video highlights of the worst moment in organization history and willingly tell the media and public about his decision show these videos.
Steinbrenner’s decision to give Boone a new contract last season was his own admission as well: an admission that winning doesn’t matter and losing is acceptable. That’s because winning doesn’t matter to Steinbrenner. The Yankees’ revenues are at an all-time high, and year after year the team’s payroll isn’t relative to revenue. Winning isn’t close to being a top priority for ownership, if it’s even a priority at all. George Steinbrenner planned on leaving the team to his son-in-law over his own children, and then when his daughter and son-in-law divorced, he had no choice other than to leave the team to his children, who had never wanted a part of running a baseball team. We’re likely seeing why George didn’t want Hal to run his team.
If Steinbrenner isn’t willing to replace Boone then the only other hope is that Brian Cashman isn’t given a new deal and a new general manager wants his own manager. Unfortunately, that prayer isn’t going to be answered, as Steinbrenner announced he’s working on a new deal with Cashman, who has been Yankees general manager for a quarter of a century, and has produced one World Series appearance in two decades.
“Cash and I had some preliminary conversions,” Steinbrenner said on Wednesday.
Cashman gave up on Sonny Gray after 2018, saying, “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results,” and yet, the Yankees just went through the same exercise in 2022 as they did the previous four seasons, and to no surprise the result was the same: no World Series. It seemed unfathomable ownership could possibly bring back the same general manager and manager tandem that continues to fail and the same roster that continues to disappoint, but it’s happening, again.
Boone is a loser, who never won anything as a player and hasn’t as a manager, and the Yankees have become losers under him. A once-proud franchise that used to live in the World Series hasn’t been there in 13 years, and it’s hard to expect that number to not reach 14 in 2023. As long as Boone is manager it’s hard to envision the Yankees winning the World Series, and for at least another season, he will be manager.
The Yankees lost 6-5 to the Astros in Game 4 of the ALCS, completing the series sweep. The Yankees’ season is now over and the World Series drought is up to 13 years.
The Yankees lost 6-5 to the Astros in Game 4 of the ALCS, completing the series sweep. The Yankees’ season is now over and the World Series drought is up to 13 years.
1. I couldn’t have cared less about Game 4. I had spent the last nearly two weeks sleep depriving myself through the ALDS and the first three games of the ALCS and to go to and from Yankee Stadium. After the Game 3 embarrassment, I wasn’t about to subject myself to go back to the Bronx for Game 4, so when I left the Stadium on Saturday after the seventh inning, I knew I would be saying goodbye until next season.
2. The idea the Yankees could pull off the single greatest comeback in the history of major professional sports was absolutely ridiculous. The 2022 Yankees are no 2004 Red Sox. When the Red Sox came back in the ninth inning against Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS and then erased a two-run deficit in the eighth inning of Game 5 the following night, it didn’t matter that they had to go to New York for Games 6 and 7, as they were set up with Curt Schilling and Derek Lowe to start those games. Meanwhile, the Yankees would turn to Jon Lieber in Game 6 and Joe Torre was undecided on a starter for Game 7, eventually choosing Kevin Brown. Once the Red Sox won Game 5, the series was theirs, a series they never should have been down 3-0 in to begin with.
If the Yankees were to survive Game 4 with Nestor Cortes against Lance McCullers Jr., they would still have to win games started by Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez in the series while countering with Jameson Taillon, Luis Severino, Gerrit Cole on short rest and an exhausted and overused bullpen. They would still have to win two games in Houston, a place they have won a single postseason game in three ALCS. They would have to beat a team they only led for a total of six batters over 10 games in 2022 four straight times. It was never going to happen.
3. Within the Yankees on Sunday, Chad Bohling, the team’s Director of Mental Conditioning, sent around a video compilation of the 2004 Red Sox coming back against the Yankees. It was an appalling strategy, and yet, Aaron Boone gleefully told the media about his team watching 2004 ALCS highlights in the clubhouse to prepare for Game 4 of their own ALCS. The message couldn’t have been more tone deaf. Did Boone think Yankees fans would be excited and pumped to hear the team they invest so much of their time and money on was watching replays of the destruction of the most recent Yankees dynasty?
With ideas like this, it’s no surprise Bohling has been employed by the Yankees in his role for the last 12 years, which happens to be every season since the team’s last championship. Bohling has overseen the team’s mental skills since the first season after the 2009 World Series win, a period of 12 years in which the team has appeared in zero World Series and has lost five ALCS.
While the Yankees were tucked away in their clubhouse watching Kevin Millar draw a leadoff walk against Rivera, watching Dave Roberts steal second and Bill Mueller single him home, Boone was spending his time before the game FaceTiming with David Ortiz and picking his brain as to how to pull off the unthinkable. There would be only one way for the Yankees to win four straight and destroy the Astros’ prolonged success over them the way the Red Sox did to the Yankees: score runs.
4. In the first three games of the series, the Yankees scored two earned runs, and four total. (The two unearned came on Valdez’s double error.) Two runs produced on their own in 27 innings. A disastrous offensive performance for a team that seems to one-up their disastrous October offensive performances each year. But in Game 4, the Yankees bats came alive. It still didn’t matter.
The Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the first and had a 3-0 lead at the end of the second. The insane Yankees fans who actually attended the game were jumping around in the crowd as if the Yankees were on the verge of clinching a World Series berth. And then the third inning happened.
5. Cortes walked No. 9 hitter Martin Maldonado, as the Yankees continued to display their inability of retiring the bottom of the Astros’ order. After Cortes fell behind Jose Altuve, Boone visited Cortes on the mound with a trainer as Cortes’ velocity had dropped nearly 3 mph. Cortes was able to talk Boone out of pulling him, but went on to walk Altuve. With two on and no outs and Jeremy Pena representing the tying run, Boone stayed in the dugout against his better judgment to allow Cortes to face the right-handed Pena, who was having an all-time postseason to that point. Cortes fell behind 3-1, threw an 82 mph batting practice cutter with his diminished velocity and Pena sent it into the left-field seats, narrowly missing the second deck. Tie game.
6. Boone then took Cortes out. After the game Boone said Cortes was dealing with a groin issue, the same groin issue that caused him to miss starts in the regular season. Boone went on to say that Cortes aggravated the injury in the ALDS. And yet, there was Boone letting his starter with a known injury pitch to the top of the Astros’ order with diminished stuff and velocity. In each of the four games in the ALCS, Boone made a decision that backfired and helped the Yankees lose, and his decision to leave Cortes in wasn’t the only one.
The Astros went ahead 4-3 in the third. The Yankees tied the game at 4 in the bottom of the fourth, and in the bottom of the sixth, Harrison Bader hit his fifth home run of the postseason to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead. The Yankees were nine outs away from a Game 4 win and from completing the first step in the long road to trying to pull off a miracle. They might have done won the game, and there might be a Game 5 tonight, if not for a Boone pregame decision.
7. After the Yankees lost Game 3 to the Guardians in the ALDS, Boone benched Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The worst everyday Yankee on a Yankees team competing for a championship in the team’s history had single-handedly helped the Guardians put the Yankees on the brink of elimination, and just a little more than a month since the delusional Boone referred to Kiner-Falefa as “one of the best shortstops in the game,” he was benching one of his favorite players. The Yankees won Games 4 and 5 over the Guardians and saved their season without Kiner-Falefa’s unstable glove and weak bat in the lineup.
For Game 1 of the ALCS, it was as if the ALDS never happened. There was Kiner-Falefa back on the lineup and starting at shortstop. With a less-than-healthy Matt Carpenter, and without DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi, the Yankees were going to need to optimize every inch of their roster to have a prayer in competing with the Astros, and Boone was willingly playing the team’s at-best, third-best shortstop in Game 1.
After the Yankees lost Game 1, Kiner-Falefa was back on the bench. The Yankees were 1-4 in the playoffs when he started and he was providing them nothing in the field or at the plate. After choosing not to play Top 50 MLB prospect and the Yankees’ third-best prospect Oswald Peraza with any consistency upon being called up in September, and after purposely leaving him off the ALDS roster, Boone was now OK with starting Peraza at shortstop in Game 2 of the ALCS. Peraza rewarded the decision with a fantastic play on the first batted ball of the game by the Astros, robbing Altuve of a would-be leadoff hit, fielded every routine ground ball flawlessly and used a 360-spin to complete a jaw-dropping double play with Gleyber Torres. Peraza should have become the Yankees’ everyday shortstop the moment he was called up from Triple-A, where he led the Yankees’ farm team in home runs. In 18 games in the majors, he hit .306/.404/.832 and played exceptional defense. Boone had done everything he could to avoid using Peraza, but finally it seemed like he was coming to his senses, and even if Peraza wasn’t going to hit in the playoffs, at least the Yankees were getting elite defense at the most important infield position.
Peraza never saw the field again. Boone decided to use Oswaldo Cabrera at shortstop in Game 3 instead of Peraza, and in Game 4, with the Yankees on the brink of elimination for the second time in less than a week, Boone went back to Kiner-Falefa. It was unbelievable, and at the same time, very believable. Kiner-Falefa had botched the first ball hit to him in the postseason in the first inning of Game 1 of the ALDS. He had single-handedly lost the Yankees Game 3 of the ALDS, forcing them to play an additional game, giving the team no days off between the ALDS and ALCS, forcing their bullpen to work even more and screwing up the rotation for the ALCS. And yet, there was Boone going back to his guy with the season on the line. And there was Kiner-Falefa taking the Yankees off the brink of elimination and eliminating them.
With Altuve on first and one out in the seventh, Pena hit a ground ball to Torres. It was going to be hard and maybe not even possible to double-up Pena at first, but at least the Yankees would get one out on the play, and be seven outs away from a Game 4. Instead, Torres fielded the ball and shoveled his throw to Kiner-Falefa and it ended up in left field. Torres got the error on the play because it was his throw, but it wasn’t a bad throw. Kiner-Falefa was out of position, came across the bag wrong and was unable to reach for the throw. It was a play that needed to be made, and one that Peraza would have easily made and no one would have even though any more about it. It was a routine play a major-league shortstop makes.
8. Yordan Alvarez then singled on a ground ball, and instead of runners on first and second (or even first and third) with two outs, Altuve scored to tie the game at 5. When Alex Bregman came up next and singled, instead of tying the game, the Astros took a 6-5 lead, and that was the game, as the Yankees’ offense, for their grand finale, went down in order for the last three innings.
On a night in which the Yankees ended their major-league record streak of 10 straight postseason games with six hits or fewer, they finally produced some offense, scoring five runs on nine hit and a walk, and still couldn’t beat the Astros. The Astros beat them by two runs. They beat them by one run. They beat them in a dominant five-run win, shutting out the Yankees and holding them to three hits. And in the last game of the series, they beat them by overcoming a three-run deficit in the early innings and by overcoming a one-run deficit in the late innings. The Astros beat the Yankees every which was possible, and if this was a best-of-9 or best-of-11 or best-of-any odd number, the Yankees likely get swept in all of those series as well.
9. The disparity between the Yankees and Astros is frightening. The Astros had to clean house as a result of their 2017 scandal, brought in a new general manager and front office, changed their manager and coaching staff, let Cole leave as a free agent, then let George Springer leave as a free agent and then let Carlos Correa leave as a free agent haven’t missed a beat. They just appeared in the ALCS for the sixth straight, having posted an 18-5 ALDS record in those six years, and are headed to their second straight World Series and fourth in those six years.
Five years ago, the gap between the two teams was a single game, with the young, up-and-coming Yankees blowing a 3-2 series lead after overcoming a 2-0 series deficit. Three years ago, the gap was two games, as the Yankees’ hitting stalled once again in October and they didn’t have enough starting pitching or relief pitching to get through the ALCS. This year, the gap was as big as possible: a four-game sweep. The Astros beat the Yankees in nine of 11 games in 2022, and if Dusty Baker had been willing to use his elite relievers in the Yankees’ second win over the Astros, the Astros would have won 10 of 11.
10. The only way for the Yankees to close the growing gap is through organizational change. The kind of organizational change I wrote about after their wild-card loss to the Red Sox a year ago. The kind of organizational change they chose to not make and ended up in the same spot: short of the World Series.
In all likelihood, the Yankees will “run it back” again. A new contract for the general manager, who will retain his manager, who he gave a new three-year deal (with a fourth-year option!) to a year ago. The Yankees will re-sign Aaron Judge and call it an offseason, and on March 30, 2023 against the Giants, Josh Donaldson will be batting fifth or sixth, Kiner-Falefa will be starting at shortstop and batting eighth with Peraza on the bench and Anthony Volpe’s service time being manipulated with him in Triple-A.
The most likely scenario for the 2023 Yankees is that they look nearly identical to the 2022 Yankees, the same way the 2022 Yankees looked (and performed like) the 2021 Yankees. And if that happens, a year from now, the Yankees’ season will be over while the postseason is still going, and I will be wondering when and if the Yankees will ever make the changes needed to win again.
The Yankees were three-hit and shutout in a 5-0 loss to the Astros in Game 3 of the ALCS and are now facing elimination for the second time in four days. Here are 10 thoughts
The Yankees were three-hit and shutout in a 5-0 loss to the Astros in Game 3 of the ALCS and are now facing elimination for the second time in four days.
1. The Yankees had a nine-game lead on the Astros for the 1-seed in the American League on June 18. From June 19 through the end of the season, the Yankees went 50-47 and the Astros went 66-31 with the Astros eventually winning the 1-seed by seven games (a 16-game swing since mid-June when the Yankees had their biggest lead over the Astros of the season). Within those remaining 97 games played by each team were seven head-to-head games, in which the Yankees went 2-5 and never led for a single pitch in any of the games. Both of their wins came on walk-off hits by Aaron Judge at Yankee Stadium.
What we have seen over the last three games and four days isn’t anything new, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Astros were better than the Yankees in the regular season, they have been better than the Yankees for now eight seasons and they have been drastically better than them through in this series. It’s why I wrote things recently like …
I don’t expect the Yankees with their injuries, first-round bullpen usage and schedule to beat the Astros. The Astros were the better team in the regular season (especially against the Yankees having never trailed them in their seven head-to-head games) and they are set up to be the better team in the postseason. The Yankees needed to win the 1-seed in the American League to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to sweep the Guardians to have a chance to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to beat the Guardians in four games to have a prayer to beat the Astros in the ALCS. Now? Now they’re coming off a five-game series that went the distance and are landing in Houston on the same day they will be asked to beat the soon-to-be-named AL Cy Young winner who has owned the Yankees in the postseason in five different seasons and with two different teams.
2. Like a fool, I returned to the Stadium on Saturday afternoon to observe the disparity between the “Top 2” teams in the AL with my own eyes. I should have stayed home rather than venturing to the Bronx yet again. At least I would have been able to change the channel when Aaron Boone removed Gerrit Cole with the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth in favor of the at-best fourth-best reliever on the team. Instead, I had to watch Christian Vazquez once again ruin the Yankees in a postseason game, just like he did in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS.
Trailing 5-0, I knew the game was over. To that point, the Yankees had scored two earned runs in 23 innings in the series and would now need five runs in four innings just to tie the game and would need to somehow find a way to score a sixth run to win the game if they were able to prevent the Astros from scoring again. The Astros didn’t score again after plating their fourth and fifth runs on the Vazquez single, but it didn’t matter because the Yankees never scored. A second straight game of scoring zero earned runs in a best-of-7 is a good way to ensure you go home early.
3. I did go home early. After the Yankees went down listlessly in the seventh, while still sitting on one hit for the game, I walked out of the Stadium. A few of my inebriated friends asked “Really?” when I said I was leaving, and I answered, “Yes. I know how simple math works.” The odds were close to zero the Yankees would go from being one-hit through seven innings to staging the greatest late-game postseason comeback in the team’s history. I was present for their last great postseason comeback in Game 4 of the 2017 ALCS against the Astros, but this Yankees team isn’t that Yankees team.
That Yankees team was the team that turned what was supposed to be a rebuild into coming within one win of the World Series. Their young core was the envy of the league and was about to get even better by acquiring Giancarlo Stanton for nothing and promoting top prospect Gleyber Torres. Big contracts and owed money was going to be coming off the books left and right, giving the Yankees the rare opportunity to combine a young, inexpensive core with young, expensive big-name free agents also in their prime.
Instead, the Yankees cut payroll by nearly $50 million after that magical 2017 postseason run. A year later, they met with then-26-year-old Manny Machado as a well-we-tried ploy more than anything and chose to not even meet with the then-26-year-old Bryce Harper because they claimed their outfield of the future was set with Judge, who they needed to extend (and never did and now might lose him for nothing), Stanton (who they never let actually play the outfield), Aaron Hicks (who they then gave a seven-year extension to) and Clint Frazier (who they eventually released for nothing).
4. As I approached home, the Yankees did pick up their second and third hits of Game 3, finishing the game 3-for-29 with five walks and 11 more strikeouts to add to their absurd total of 41 strikeouts through three games. The Yankees became the first team in MLB postseason history to have a three-game span with 12 hits or fewer, 40-plus strikeouts and three losses. Congratulations to Aaron Boone on overseeing yet another Yankees milestone! Here are some other great moments in Yankees history Boone has overseen: most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history, only blown multi-run lead in ninth inning in team postseason history (now 167-1) and only team in MLB postseason history to record six hits or less in 10 straight postseason games. After Saturday’s loss, the Yankees now have the lowest team batting average through eight postseason games in MLB history as well. Quite the resume for the Yankees manager!
5. Unfortunately, the Yankees simply advancing to the ALCS guaranteed Brian Cashman would receive a new contract, and in turn, guaranteed Boone would be retained as manager with two more guaranteed years left on his contract. The Yankees needed to either completely blow their 15 1/2-game division lead (which they nearly did) or lose to the vastly inferior Guardians in the ALDS (which they nearly did) for Cashman to possibly not get a new deal with the Yankees and for Boone to not be the manager in 2023, and even then, they were probably both returning next season no matter what.
6. With Game 4 guaranteed to take place, the Yankees will have played five postseason home games, and essentially six with the hours-long delayed call on the postponement of Game 5 of the ALDS. That’s likely enough for Hal Steinbrenner to keep things status quo since his No. 1 priority isn’t winning, it’s maximizing the team’s revenue, and the team once again reached the second-farthest round of the postseason. If the difference between finishing in last place in the league and winning the World Series was $1, Hal would rather finish in last place for that extra dollar.
7. While the Yankees are on the brink of elimination, I would like to think that as a Yankees fan I’m on the brink of seeing a long list of Yankees play their final game (or games if this somehow lasts more than four game) with the team. That includes Josh Donaldson and Gleyber Torres (two players the team unsuccessfully tried to trade at this year’s deadline), and it includes Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who should have never been a Yankee to begin with. When I watched Hicks walk off the field after the collision with Oswaldo Cabrera, it was likely the last time I saw him in a Yankees uniform. (I can only pray.) But I fully expect to see them all on the Yankees next season. They’re all under contract, so why wouldn’t they be back?
8. A year ago when Boone had his end-of-the-season press conference, he said the league had “closed the gap” on the Yankees as if it was 20 years ago and the franchise was coming off five World Series appearances in six seasons. It was a startling and delusional comment from a manager who continues to tell everyone after every postseason elimination how close his team is to winning it all. Except they’re not. They’re not close at all.
They’re further away from winning it all than they were when he took over. He took over a team that came within one win of the World Series and they have never been that close again. As a loser who has never won anything as a player or manager in the league, the young core he took over has blossomed into losers as well, constantly hearing their manager make excuses for the team’s shortcoming, praising mediocre and bad performances from his players and always talking about the next day and the next game has turned the organization into one that is accepting and comfortable with losing.
9. After the Game 3 loss, Judge (who is as much to blame for this postseason debacle as he is for all of the postseason debacles in his time with the Yankees) said, “We’ve got a lot of talented individuals in this room. We just haven’t been able to get everybody clicking on the same page this series, but we’ve still got a lot of ball left to play.”
It’s not just “this series,” and unless the Yankees are playing the Twins in the postseason, it’s every series. The Yankees have talented individuals every season who come up short in the postseason and then get passes from management and the front office who attribute postseason failure to “small sample sizes” and “randomness.” Oddly enough, I don’t remember Cashman or the Yankees claiming “luck” for postseason success when they won four championships in five seasons and appeared in the World Series in six of eight seasons. The “postseason is a crapshoot” excuses didn’t start getting thrown around until the Yankees started losing frequently and excessively in October, and all this group of Yankees (outside of Anthony Rizzo who is the only person in the clubhouse to have ever won anything, and unsurprisingly, has the been the Yankees’ best player this postseason) has known is losing, and so, the “small sample size” and “randomness” and “luck” and “crapshoot” references have been thrown around a lot in recent years.
10. There may only be one game left in the Yankees’ season. Barring the single greatest comeback in postseason history (which would top the Red Sox’ 2004 comeback since they faced Jon Lieber and Kevin Brown in Games 6 and 7, while the Yankees will face Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez), the Yankees’ season will end sometime in the next few days, and as early as Sunday. There will be no more next day or next game or tomorrow for Boone or his roster to reference. All there will be is another wasted season once again ended by the Astros.
