Aaron Boone still thinks the Yankees “are good” and believes they will get back to being the team they were earlier in the season.
Shut out. Again. That’s what happened to the Yankees on Monday night at the Stadium in a 4-0 loss to the Rays. It was their second straight game being shut out and their fourth in their last nine. Since the third inning on Friday night against the Red Sox (a span of now 34 innings), the only Yankee to have driven in a run is Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Since June 19, the Yankees are 23-28. They are 8-16 since the All-Star break and 2-10 since in their last 12 games. They are in a free fall. Not the kind of free fall that will find completely blowing what was once a 15 1/2-game lead in the division (it’s now at 10), but a free fall that will inevitably end in an early postseason exit.
Despite playing like the Nationals (who traded away their 23-year-old generational star) for the last three-plus weeks and like the Rangers (who fired their manager earlier this week) for the last two months, Aaron Boone doesn’t view his team like one that is extremely fortunate no other team in their division has capitalized on their eight-week slide. He said as much in his postgame press conference after Monday night’s shutout loss to the Rays.
“When we are right, and we are hole. We are going to be a very good offense.”
What exactly is “right” and what is “hole?” Because if being “right” and “hole” is having every possible available player healthy then the Yankees will likely never be “right” or “hole” again this season.
DJ LeMahieu has missed the last two games with a foot issue that has reportedly been bothering him for a good amount of the season. Giancarlo Stanton has missed one third of the season with various injuries and still hasn’t played in rehab games. Everything has to go exactly right in Matt Carpenter’s healing from his broken foot for him to return this season. The Yankees need to get all three of those players healthy and back and producing to meet Boone’s promise that the “offense will be very good” again. (I didn’t include Harrison Bader since I expect as much out of him offensively as Aaron Hicks has provided.) What Boone isn’t considering is that more players could get injured even if any of those three return.
Every team deals with injuries and the Yankees have dealt with seemingly more injuries than every other team over the last four seasons. This might be in terms of the Yankees’ lineup though since you can’t count on injured players to return and be productive and you can’t count on other players not getting injured. With the Yankees’ unwillingness to give any player in either Triple-A or Double-A a chance at the major-league level over players like Kiner-Falefa, Hicks and Josh Donaldson, there will be more shutouts over the next six weeks.
“Big picture, there are some good things happening. We just gotta get some guys on track offensively right now.”
The starting pitching has been better of late and the bullpen has gone from completely untrusworthy to just untrustworthy. That’s about the only positives I can see that Boone could possibly be referring to.
Who are the guys that need to get on track? The only offensive players to be consistent all season are LeMahieu, Carpenter, Aaron Judge and Jose Trevino. With LeMahieu and Carpenter out, that leaves Judge and Trevino as the only consistent available bats, and no one should be counting on the best defensive catcher in the league to be an important bat for the Yankees. That leaves Judge.
Anthony Rizzo has had his moments this season, but he’s been bad since returning to play last week and has been up and down all year. He’s the only other “healthy” possibility at the moment you can maybe rely on.
The players Boone is referring to are clearly Hicks, Donaldson and Gleyber Torres.
When Hicks homered in three of four games from July 6 through July 9 there was this perception his power (or whatever power he has ever had) had returned and he was going to turn his season around. Since that home run on July 9 (38 days ago), he hasn’t homered again, and hasn’t even had an extra-base hit. He’s hitting .159/.289/.159 since and on Monday single-handedly helped the Yankees to a loss.
Last Monday in Seattle, for the third time this season, people thought Donaldson was finally going to turn his season around after going 4-for-5 with three RBIs. Since then he’s yet another slump, going 2-for-21 with 11 strikeouts. (I guess it’s not technically a slump since it’s really just been one atrocious season.) His OPS is back down under .700 at .692. The lowest full-season OPS of his career.
Torres had a pair of singles on Monday night, which were his first hits in exactly a week. He has one home run in nearly four weeks and the early-season idea he was returning to the 2018-19 version of himself was always as ridiculous as thinking the 2022 Yankees could achieve what the 1998 Yankees did.
There’s no getting these three “on track.” This is who they are. Hicks is a 32-year-old outfielder who spent his entire 20s on the injured list and is now playing with a surgically-repaired elbow and wrist to go along with all of the ailments he has had in his career. Donaldson is a 36-year-old, washed-up and overpaid shell of his former self who the Yankees foolishly owe $48 million to. Torres is a former star who was on his way to a Monument Park-like career before coming to 2020 spring training out of shape and never recovering. It’s no surprise post-deadline reports have come out that the Yankees were trying to trade all three two weeks ago.
“We’re good. We’re going to get a little more whole as we move forward here.”
You’re not “good.” You were good in late April, May and early June. Now you’re a team that is living off what they accomplished two-plus months ago and seems to be destined for another ALDS exit. And again, you may get “whole,” but there’s no assurance you will.
“We’re going to recover.”
I don’t know that the Yankees will recover. And recover to me means to play like a championship team, which it seemed like they were earlier in the season, but last were on June 18. Back then it was the Yankees and Astros in the American League and everyone else. Now in the AL? It’s the Astros and everyone else.
The Yankees may have a bye to the ALDS, but that doesn’t mean they will survive the ALDS. If they play the Mariners, who will feel confident, considering the Mariners just won four of six against the Yankees and boast Luis Castillo, who the Yankees failed to acquire. What Yankees fan would feel good about a matchup with the Rays or Blue Jays? No Yankees fan that has seen how they have played against either of those teams in the last few years.
By claiming the Yankees will recover, Boone opened himself up to a potential disaster if they don’t.
The Yankees lost another series, this time to the last-place Red Sox finish their 2-7 on their nine-game road trip. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees. 1. I haven’t heard the YES broadcast booth
The Yankees lost another series, this time to the last-place Red Sox finish their 2-7 on their nine-game road trip.
1. I haven’t heard the YES broadcast booth or any Yankees fan compare the 2022 Yankees to the 1998 Yankees lately. I wonder why that is.
Maybe it’s because the only Yankees the 2022 Yankees are comparable to are the 2021 Yankees. A team whose season was based around one hot streak and who ultimately (to use Aaron Boone’s second-favorite word after “obviously”) underachieved. The 2022 Yankees’ hot streak might have lasted longer than the 2021 Yankees’, but it looks like they are headed down the same path with the same inevitable fate: an early postseason exit.
2. The Yankees are 23-27 since June 19. They are 8-15 since the All-Star break. They are 2-9 in their last 11 games. They were shut out on Sunday night for the third time in eight games. If not for the rest of the AL East playing nearly as poorly as they have for the last eight weeks, they could have easily blown their massive division lead. The lead was at its highest at 15 1/2 games and now sits at 10 games. So while they have managed to erase 35 percent of their lead, it’s still a double-digit lead because the Blue Jays and Rays failed to capitalize on an opportunity to overtake the Yankees.
“If you would have asked me at the start of the year, would I like a 10-game lead in the middle of August?” Aaron Judge said to the media after Sunday night’s shutout loss, “I think any of us would have signed up for that.”
That’s true. But that’s also like being given $1 million, losing one third of it and then trying to justify being fine with it just because you didn’t expect to have the $1 million in the first place.
3. At 3-10 since the trade deadline, the Yankees’ marginal upgrades at the time haven’t even been that. Andrew Benintendi looks like the guy the Red Sox gave up on, and while he was always expected to regress, regressing to be worse than Joey Gallo is certainly something else. Scott Effross’ only earned runs came on one mistake pitch (a giant mistake at that) and Lou Trivino has been OK, but both have them have been used at times after Albert Abreu and Lucas Luetge have pitched and been allowed to blow games. Frankie Montas has pitched like a No. 5 starter in two starts, and a bad No. 5 at that, and Harrison Bader still isn’t close to playing for the Yankees. Add in Jordan Montgomery putting together two scoreless starts for the Cardinals (with one coming against the Yankees), and to date, the Yankees couldn’t have botched the deadline any worse than they did.
The new Yankees are only a small portion of the team’s problems. The majority of the rest of the team is the still the problem.
4. Anthony Rizzo finally decided to halt his non-injured list stint after a week of missing games and is 1-for-15 with six strikeouts since returning.
A week ago, for the third time, people thought Josh Donaldson was finally going to turn his season around after he went 4-for-5 with three RBIs in the series opener in Seattle. Since then he’s 2-for-18 with nine strikeouts, and his season OPS is back below .700 yet again.
The idea that 2018-19 Gleyber Torres was back was always an illusion. Since July 28, Torres is hitting .154/.167/.200. His OPS was at .802 at the beginning of play that day. It’s now at .729 as he tries to become another everyday Yankees to have a sub-.700 OPS.
Aaron Hicks is part of the sub.-700 OPS club. His is at .650. Remember when he homered in three of four games from July 6 through July 9 and there was this perception his power (or whatever power he has ever had) has returned and he was going to turn his season around? Well, July 9 was the last time he homered, 37 days ago. Since then he’s hitting .165/.297/.165 with no extra-base hits.
Benintendi is an exceptional candidate for worst deadline acquisition of all time, hitting .196/.323/.294 with the Yankees. If you want to say “Oh, it’s only 16 games,” well, the Yankees traded for him prior to Game 100, so he has played more than one quarter of the games he will be a Yankee for.
Want to call Saturday’s win over the Red Sox the “Isiah Kiner-Falefa Game?” Go ahead. That’s the only game he has had as a Yankee that could be considered that. After 104 games played, he’s hitting .269/.315/.323 with one home run as he tries to be the worst everyday player to play for a championship team.
5. The Yankees aren’t currently a championship team. Not with the combination of an abundance of underachieving players and an abundance of injuries. Maybe in late April, May and early June they were when they were getting seven innings of one-run or shutout ball every night from their starting pitching and they were completely healthy. But even then, the offense was severely flawed, and as the injuries have mounted, the offense has only gotten worse.
6. The only players to be consistent this season have been Judge, Jose Trevino, Nestor Cortes, DJ LeMahieu, Matt Carpenter, Jose Trevino, Nestor Cortes, Michael King, Ron Marinaccio and Clarke Schmidt. Judge is the AL MVP and Trevino and Cortes All-Stars. LeMahieu is now injured, which is why he didn’t play on Sunday night. Carpenter is out for possibly the season and King is out for this year and maybe all of next, while Marinaccio and Schmidt are both wasting away in Triple-A because they have options to allow the Yankees to manipulate the team’s depth. Everyone else has been inconsistent, awful or has underachieved.
7. I never thought Clay Holmes would be a part of the inconsistent group on this team. Not after how good he was for the first three months of the season. But now that he doesn’t know where the ball is going and walks at least one batter an appearance, he can’t be trusted just like the rest of the bullpen. He’s been so bad since mid-July that Aroldis Chapman has jumped him on the bullpen pecking order and Chapman is the least trustworthy reliever given the high-leverage situations he’s used in. Holmes has allowed 11 earned runs, 11 hits and 10 walks in his last 9 2/3 innings with opposing batters hitting .282/.482/.385 off him. Prior to July 9, batters had hit .165/.213/.188 off him and he allowed two earned runs, 22 hits and five walks in 38 innings. The Yankees’ bullpen is too beat up and too shallow now to have Holmes be Jonathan Holder.
8. It would be nice if Giancarlo Stanton could play baseball in the near future. Stanton has missed 35 games this season, the equivalent of 32 percent of the season. (I thought Eric Cressy and his team has solved injuries! It’s almost as if you can’t prevent injuries, especially for historically injury-prone players.) But what you can prevent is the amount of time it takes for Stanton to return. Stanton has taken one day to shag balls, another to swing a bat, another to run the bases, another to go through a pregame routine, and so on. Basically one day per baseball-related activity. It’s all pretty ridiculous and there’s no evidence this will prevent him from getting injured in his first game back.
With Rizzo out and now back but being unproductive, LeMahieu now out, Carpenter out, the Yankees could desperately use Stanton. But I’m sure he will need to brush his teeth on Monday and then go through buttoning his jersey on Tuesday and then try to tie his cleats on Wednesday and maybe at this rate he will be cleared to play by Labor Day.
9. Things are likely to get worse before they get better, and I don’t know how much worse they can get for a team that has the second-worst record in the AL since the All-Star break, trailing only the Tigers. On Monday, the Yankees begin a nine-game homestand against the Rays (3), Blue Jays (4) and Mets (2). For a team that in the last month has split a series with the Pirates, lost a home series to the Reds, has lost five of nine to the Red Sox, got swept by the Mets and Cardinals and lost four of six to the Mariners, I don’t know how anyone could feel good going into these nine games. Add in the unknown with LeMahieu’s foot injury, the underperformance of every offensive player not named Judge or Trevino, the shakiness of the rotation after Cortes, the instability of the entire bullpen, the front office’s unwillingness to call anyone up, and the incompetency of the manager, and you have a team that could really screw up its season over the next nine days.
10. Now that the comparisons to the 1998 team’s success have stopped, the comparisons to the Septembers of the 1998 and 2000 teams have started. Two teams that finished out their regular seasons like these Yankees have played for the last eight weeks. The difference is those teams knew how to flip a switch and they could flip the switch once the postseason began. They also earned the right to be allowed to flip the switch with four championships in five years and six championship appearances in eight years.
These Yankees haven’t earned that benefit. They haven’t earned anything other than for fans to think this season will end the same way every other season has ended with this group and this core: early. The Yankees may be headed to the postseason and headed there with a bye to the ALDS, but that doesn’t mean they will do anything once they get there. After these last eight weeks, the only thing I can see them doing is holding an end-of-the-season press conference while the ALCS is going on without them.
The Yankees lost another series, this time to the Mariners in Seattle. They have completed the collapse of their former nine-game lead on the 1-seed in the American League and look destined for another early postseason exit.
The Yankees lost another series, this time to the Mariners in Seattle. They have completed the collapse of their former nine-game lead on the 1-seed in the American League and look destined for another early postseason exit.
1. The Derek Jeter documentary is depressing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic, but it’s depressing. I know I was spoiled as a Yankees fan growing up during the ’90s dynasty, thinking going to the World Series every year was normal. (It wasn’t normal). But as enjoyable as it is to look back at the career of my favorite player (an everyday part of the Yankees from when I was nine years old until I was 28 years old), it’s depressing.
It’s depressing because of what the Yankees were and what they have become. When you listen to Jeter or Bernie Williams or Jorge Posada or Mariano Rivera or Andy Pettitte or Tino Martinez or David Cone talk about their obsession with winning and doing whatever it took to win, it’s a far cry from the Yankees I root for today. This week, Aaron Hicks told The Athletic, “If I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.” Hicks is in the middle of a seven-year, $70 million extension and doesn’t care if he plays or not.
2. Everything about these Yankees is the complete opposite from those Yankees. Most importantly, the Yankees are no longer owned by someone whose entire life revolved around winning every single day on the field, off the field, in the media, in trades, in free-agent signings. Even if George Steinbrenner didn’t always make the best decision, every decision he made was made because he truly believed it would help the Yankees win.
These Yankees are owned by George’s son. A son who wasn’t even supposed to run the team. The original succession plan was that George would leave the team in the hands of his son-in-law, instead of his own two sons. Why? Likely because of the result we see today. (George knew what would happen if penny-pinching Hal got a hold of his Yankees.) But George’s daughter and her husband got divorced and the team ended up where it is now: with Hal.
In the 15 years since George was last involved in the day-to-day operations, Hal has kept the payroll essentially the same as it was when he took over. Sure, in 2022, the Yankees have their highest payroll in team history around $240 million, but it’s only increased by $12 million overall in a decade. Have the Yankees’ revenues only increased by about $1.2 million per year? Have beer prices, concessions and merchandise stayed stagnant for the last 10 years?
In keeping with the status quo, Hal has continued to employ Brian Cashman as the team’s general manager, a position he has held for now 25 years, despite producing one championship in the last 21 years and one World Series appearance in the last 18.
3. Cashman too has operated with the status quo. This past offseason he had a chance to walk away from the manager he wrongfully hired. Instead, he gave him a new three-year deal with an option for a fourth year, despite producing four straight early postseason exits, culminating in a fifth place finish in the American League in a season in which the Yankees were the odds-on favorite to win the pennant.
“As a team and as an organization, we must grow, eveolve and improve,” Hal said upon announcing Boone’s next contract. “We need to get better. Period.”
Nothing says “We need to get better” like bringing back the same manager who has never won anything as a manager, just like he never won anything as a player. And nothing says “grow,” “evolve” and “improve” like bringing back the same roster. Cashman has doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on the status quo with the roster, running it back time and again with the same core and the same overall roster that hasn’t been good enough for five straight years.
On that roster the Yankees have a washed-up, 36-year-old third baseman owed $48 million who was suspended earlier this season for controversial comments. They also roster two pitchers who were suspended for violating the league’s domestic violence policy. Yes, 15 percent of the Yankees’ pitching staff has been suspended for domestic violence. When Aroldis Chapman became a Yankee after his suspension, Hal said, “Sooner or later, we forget, right? That’s the way we’re supposed to be in life.” I didn’t forget. And when Domingo German was suspended for half a season, in order to remain a Yankee, Hal said, “I have to absolutely feel comfortable that he deeply, deeply regrets and is sorry for what he did, and I absolutely have to be comfortable with the fact that he’s turned his life around.” Once Hal realized German would be starting pitching depth making around the league minimum, he was comfortable that German had turned his life around. The roster is littered with scum and fringe major leaguers, taking up roster spots because of money owed and to help with roster manipulation.
4. The Rangers so badly didn’t want to roster or play Isiah Kiner-Falefa that they gave $500 million to Corey Seager and Marcus Semien and traded Kiner-Falefa to the Twins. The Twins then turned around, knowing the Yankees’ wild infatuation with Kiner-Falefa and fleeced Cashman by having him agree to take on Donaldson’s $48 million for 2022 and 2023. After ridding themselves of Donaldson’s ridiculous salary, they gave that money to Carlos Correa, who the Yankees should have signed to the same exact deal he got with the Twins.
The Yankees didn’t sign Correa or any of the available free-agent shortstops in the best free-agent shortstop class in history. Partly because of top prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza, and partly because of Hal’s reluctance to exceed the various luxury-tax thresholds.
“I’ve got a lot of partners and banks and bondholders and things like that, who I answer to,” Hal said after passing on all the free-agent shortstops. “We do have two incredible prospects that I am excited to give a chance to.”
The problem is those prospects are ready to be given a chance, and yet, Kiner-Falefa continues to play every day even though he has the same amount of home runs as me. After Aaron Judge and DJ LeMahieu, Kiner-Falefa has inexplicably played in the most games by any Yankee this season (101) with a .265/.311/.312 slash line.
5. A month ago, Hal Steinbrenner talked to the media and defended his decision to not sign a free-agent shortstop.
“I didn’t spend $300 million …,” Hal said. “But I think most people are pretty happy with Isiah and the job he’s done.”
Hal thinks all Yankees fans are idiots, and to his credit he’s right. He’s like the owner of a cigarette company telling its customers cigarettes are safe. Don’t worry about all the warnings and the data. If the owner says everything is good, it’s good. If he says winning a championship is his priority as he uses the luxury-tax tiers as imaginary salary caps and only allows his front office to fill needs from anywhere other than the top shelf, then who is anyone to argue. Keep investing your time and money and energy into lies and a diminished product.
Hal doesn’t care if the Yankees win the World Series. It doesn’t drive him like it drove his father. If the Yankees happen to come across a championship, like Hicks said, “Cool.” And if they don’t, like Hicks also said, “It is what it is.” Hal Steinbrenner isn’t going to lose sleep over the Yankees not winning the World Series.
6. Peraza has a 1.008 OPS at Triple-A since June 11. (Volpe has a .942 OPS at Double-A since May 28.) In seven minor-league seasons, Kiner-Falefa had a .679 OPS. (Again, he’s not a major leaguer.) When is Peraza getting the chance Hal is so “excited” to give him? Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t get it until 2023, after his service time is screwed with enough that his eventual free agency gets pushed back. Because a delayed free agency means savings, and a penny saved tomorrow is more important than a championship today for the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees.
The faction of Yankees fans who think the organization knows best and that if they don’t think Peraza is ready then he’s not ready are fools. We’re talking about the same front office that thought Clint Frazier and Miguel Andujar projected out to be too valuable to trade away for Gerrit Cole prior to the 2018 season. (Frazier was released for nothing this past winter and the only time Andujar gets called up is when seven players go on the injured list). We’re talking about the same organization that thought Eduardo Nunez was going to be the heir to Jeter at shortstop and scoffed at the idea of trading him to the Mariners for Cliff Lee with the Yankees lined up to potentially win back-to-back titles. (They ended up releasing Nunez for nothing four years later.) Sorry if I don’t think the Yankees know what they’re doing when it comes to position player evaluation and development.
7. Look around the field. Anthony Rizzo? Brought over via trade and then re-signed as a free agent. DJ LeMahieu? Signed as a free agent. Donaldson? Trade. Hicks? Trade. Giancarlo Stanton? Trade. Jose Trevino? Trade. Matt Carpenter? Free agent. Kiner-Falefa? Trade. Gleyber Torres? Trade. Andrew Benintendi? Trade. The only everyday position player the Yankees drafted and developed is Judge, who is on his way to winning AL MVP and could very well leave as a free agent.
Ten years ago this week, the Orioles called up Manny Machado at age 19 and changed his position midseason from short to third because they needed help. Two months later they were in the postseason for the first time in 15 years and took the Yankees to a winner-take-all Game 5 in the ALDS. The year after that, the Red Sox called up 20-year-old Xander Bogaerts for the final weeks of the season and had him play third base because Will Middlebrooks wasn’t cutting it with his 17 home runs and .696 OPS (numbers Kiner-Falefa could only dream of). Bogaerts helped the Red Sox win the World Series.
8. Peraza isn’t the only one unnecessarily playing at Triple-A. Ron Marinaccio was unbelievably sent down a few days ago as was Clark Schmidt because they both have options remaining. And because Albert Abreu doesn’t have options he gets to remain a Yankee.
The Yankees traded Abreu to the Rangers in the offseason. He pitched 8 2/3 innings (walking 12!) for the on-pace-for-91-losses Rangers before they said ‘Fuck this!’ and traded him to the Royals for a 21-year-old, Single-A pitcher. The on-pace-for-100-losses Royals let him pitch 4 1/3 innings (allowing 11 baserunners) for them before they also said ‘Fuck this!’ and designated him for assignment. So the Yankees gladly took him back.
Abreu could be a useful bullpen arm as a depth piece who eats innings and sees the mound in lopsided games. The problem is the Yankees have always thought of him as more. It’s as though Cashman is still trying to prove he didn’t fuck up by paying Brian McCann to play for the Astros (and help beat the Yankees in the 2017 ALCS) in exchange for Abreu. In his mind, if Abreu works out, then that double McCann hit to put the 2017 ALCS on ice won’t hurt as much.
Compounded in that issue is that Boone trusts Abreu the same way Joe Girardi trusted Luis Ayala in 2011. (If you remember Girardi used Ayala twice in the 2011 ALDS before using David Robertson once.) Abreu was in Boone’s inner circle lsat season all the way until the final weekend of the season when he lost the Yankees Game 160 of the season, which helped the one-game playoff take place at Fenway Park.
After Abreu blew Wednesday’s game in Seattle, his last four appearances have been entering a 6-6 game and allowing two runs, facing three batters and retiring one, turning a one-run deficit into a two-run deficit, and finally, allowing the go-ahead, two-run home run in the seventh to the Mariners. After King’s injury, Marinaccio became the Yankees’ second-best reliever. Since that injury the Yankees have treated Abreu as if he’s King. As for Schmidt? All he has done is excel in every role the Yankees have used him in this year: starter, long man, middle relief, extra innings. Schmidt has been an unsung hero for the 2022 Yankees.
9. There are currently four players to feel good about on the Yankees: Aaron Judge, DJ LeMahieu, Jose Trevino and Nestor Cortes. Luis Severino, Michael King and Matt Carpenter would also be on this list, but they’re all on the injured list, and Clay Holmes would be on this list if knew where his sinker was going when it left his hand for the last three weeks. Marinaccio and Schmidt would be on this list too, but they’re currently in Triple-A, wasting away and throwing meaningless pitches at a level they have already proven to be too good for.
The Yankees could have more likable players on the roster, if they weren’t always passing on top-tier talent like they did most recently at the trade deadline. The Yankees continue to pass on the most talented players in both free agency and trades. Even when they traded for Stanton after he forced his way out of Miami, they still cut payroll by about $50 million that offseason. They got within one win of the World Series and decided to cut back rather than put their foot on the gas. Since then … Justin Verlander in 2017? Can’t take on that salary. Let him go to Houston and single-handedly swing the ALCS like Lee did with the Rangers seven years prior. Manny Machado? Pass. Bryce Harper? Don’t even set up a meeting. Nolan Arenado? Can’t take on the money of the best third baseman in baseball in his prime in a straight salary dump when the organization makes more money than any other team in the league. Freddie Freeman? Eh, let’s go with Rizzo. He’s cheaper. Verlander as a free agent? Can’t give him a second year on his deal (but the Astros happily did). Luis Castillo? Nah, we’ll get Frankie Montas. Juan Soto? Benintendi will do.
The Yankees have had endless opportunities to add superstars for either money (the resource they make more of than any other team) or prospects (players who will almost certainly never match the production of the player they are being traded for and who might never even make the majors.) They have passed and keep on passing.
10. I thought about all of this early Wednesday morning as I laid in bed around 2:30 a.m. shortly after the Yankees were shut out for the second time in four days and had officially blown their former nine-game lead for the 1-seed in the American League. I laid there thinking What the fuck am I doing rooting for this team? For this manager? Run by this general manager and this owner? But 14 hours later I was ready for the series finale, having talked myself into thinking Wednesday afternoon’s game would be different. It wasn’t.
Rizzo, who had missed five straight games with back problems and who wasn’t available to pinch hit 14 hours earlier in any of the four extra innings played, was now able to start and bat third. (The Yankees would have been better off had he sat out on Wednesday as well.) Benintendi, who the Yankees traded for as a rental for two months was given the day off (even though his time as a Yankee is finite) because the left-handed Robbie Ray was starting. So the left-handed Rizzo can play against a lefty, but not the left-handed Benintendi? Is the Yankees’ new everyday left fielder going to sit in the playoffs against lefties? What if the Yankees play the Mariners and face Ray?
Leading 3-2 in the seventh inning with the tying run on first and no outs, Boone removed Nestor Cortes in favor of Marinaccio. I mean, in favor of Schmidt. I mean, in favor of Abreu since the other two are in Triple-A, so Abreu can be in the majors. Two batters later the Mariners had a 4-3 lead after Abreu gave up a two-run home run. After the game, Boone said he used Abreu in that spot because Abreu “was rested.” Good reason!
10. In the ninth, trailing 4-3, Boone used Benintendi as a pinch hitter for Andujar, who has produced two of the Yankees seven hits over the last two days. Benintendi struck out on three pitches. And because he hit for Andujar, Boone let Kiner-Falefa and Kyle Higashioka hit for themselves. The inning was over in eight pitches.
At least the game’s early start time allowed for it to end in time for dinner. I wouldn’t have to waste another night watching the Yankees limp to another loss, their 25th in their last 47 games since June 19.
It was the worst loss of the season for the Yankees, and it won’t be topped. Tuesday’s loss had something for everyone worried about the Yankees.
I have a headache. Above my left eye, and that eye is twitching or spasming. I’m not sure which because I’m unsure of the difference. (A quick Google search tells me a twitch is a form of a spasm.)
I woke up this morning after what seemed like minutes of sleep to feed a soon-to-be four-month-old and then the soon-to-be two-year-old woke up. Before 7 a.m. I had changed a pair of diapers full of poop, listened to the “Wheels on the Bus” roughly 21 times (in a row) and had already watched the trifecta of the “Circle of Life,” “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,” and “Hakuna Matata” about 14 times.
I’m not complaining. I chose this. I chose to stay up to watch the Yankees play in Seattle at a 10:11 p.m. start time. I chose to stay up as the game went to the 10th inning then the 11th then the 12th then the 13th. I voluntarily kept watching, doubling down on poor decision after poor decision all the way until the Mariners walked off with a 1-0 win at 2:18 a.m.
It was a choice I regretted in the moment and regret even more now as I write this with a Seattle-esque marine layer serving as brain fog. All while not being able to get Pumbaa yelling, “WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WARTHOGGG!” out of my head.
It was the worst loss of the season for the Yankees, and it won’t be topped. Yes, worse than getting walk-off walked on in Baltimore. Yes, worse than all the late blown leads to the last-place Red Sox. Yes, worse than Clay Holmes’ meltdown against the Reds. Yes, worse than all five of the losses to the Astros.
Tuesday’s loss had something for everyone worried about the Yankees.
Worried about the offense? It had yet another disappearing act from the offense. A lineup that can’t come close to hitting starting pitching they will face in October after being shut out just three games prior.
Worried about the team’s baserunning and poor Baseball IQ? It had disastrous, unfathomable baserunning decisions as the Yankees ran into out after out.
Worried about the manager? (How could you not be?) It had bad management and horrible in-game calls like the ill-attempted double steal in the 10th.
The team’s pitching, which has been the team’s least trustworthy component for weeks now was the one aspect of the team that performed well, as a gem from Gerrit Cole was wasted as were five scoreless innings of relief before the 13th.
The offense produced three hits in the game. Three hits in 13 innings. Three singles in 41 plate appearances. It was a disgraceful, non-competitive performance from an offense that seems to have at least one of those a week, if not two. And of course it was Luis Castillo who shut down the Yankees for the third time in a month and twice in a week. It had to be the pitcher the Yankees needed to get, but chose not to, once again choosing a less expensive, second-tier option.
On the bases, Aaron Judge was thrown out trying to steal in the seventh. With runners on first and second and no outs in the 10th, Aaron Boone called for a double steal with Andrew Benintendi at second and Tim LoCastro at first. Benintendi took off too early and got caught in a rundown. In the 11th, with a runner on second and no outs, Aaron Hicks hit a line drive at the second baseman. Miguel Andujar took off too early for third and was doubled off second. In the 12th, with a runner on second and no outs, Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a ball back to the mound, Jose Trevino was too far off second and got caught in a rundown. While Trevino was in the rundown, Kiner-Falefa took off for second, so that the Yankees would have a runner in scoring position with one out once Trevino was tagged. Trevino was tagged immediately and Kiner-Falefa then got caught in a rundown of his own and ran out of the baseline for the second out on the play. After the game, Boone said, “I don’t want us to lose our aggression on the bases.” You might want to lose that aggression, Booney.
The icing on the shit cake that was Tuesday night into Wednesday morning is that the Yankees no longer hold the 1-seed in the American League. The Yankees had a nine-game lead for home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs back on June 19 and now they are 2-seed in the AL with the Astros passing them in the standings. So in a potential ALCS between the two teams, Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 will be played in Houston, just like they were in the 2017 ALCS and the 2019 ALCS. I wonder how the 2022 ALCS will play out if the standings hold and they do meet again.
Thinking about the Yankees in the ALCS right now seems foolish. Yes, they are going to win the division. Yes, they are going to have a bye into the ALDS. Yes, they will only need to win one series to get into the ALCS. But with the team going 22-24 over the last seven-plus weeks, and playing as poorly as they have of late, I don’t know how anyone could feel good about them. Maybe Boone can hold another team meeting since the one he held at the beginning of this week has worked out so well.
The Yankees’ trades for Andrew Benintendi and Harrison Bader mean the end of Aaron Hicks as an everyday player with the team.
When Aaron Hicks said his goal was to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in 2022, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was as realistic of a goal as me looking to be part of the Yankees’ rotation in 2022. Hicks had never hit 30 home runs in a season, and had never hit more than 15 outside of the 27 he hit in 2018 at a time when the baseball was juiced more than Alex Rodriguez ever was with the Rangers. (He didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs as a Yankee!) His career high in steals was 13 back when he was 25 years old, before he became a Yankee. So yeah, me slotting in as the Yankees’ No. 5 starter was about as likely as Hicks doubling his non-juiced ball career high in home runs and stealing 57 percent more bases than he ever had in a single season.
Some people might defend Hicks for shooting for the moon. It’s good to have goals! Hicks’ goal of being the first 30/30 Yankee since peak Alfonso Soriano wasn’t a goal, it was a dream. A pipe dream. He should have made a goal of not going on the injured list for an entire season as a Yankee, something he has never been able to accomplish, but while still unrealistic, it was at least something to strive for (and something he actually has achieved to date this season).
The Yankees have played 110 games, and Hicks has played in 97 of them. He has six home runs and nine steals. Earlier this week, he told The Athletic he’s “definitely going to be short” of joining the 30/30 club. (He only needs to hit 24 home runs and steal 27 bases in the team’s final 52 games.)
The problem is Hicks won’t come close to playing in all of those games. Once Giancarlo Stanton returns, and if Harrison Bader plays for the Yankees this season, Hicks will be the odd man out in the outfield. The Yankees didn’t trade for both Andrew Benintendi and Bader to not play them. Hicks will be the one on the bench, and rightfully so, after failing to take advantage of endless opportunities since becoming a Yankee and signing a seven-year extension prior to the 2019 season.
Hicks went from everyday center fielder to everyday left fielder to now looking at being an everyday bench player once the Yankees get healthy. This year he’s hitting .224/.349/.317 and that’s coming off last season when he was appointed as 3-hitter in spring training and then hit .194/.294/.333, lasting only 32 games before needing season-ending wrist surgery.
That surgery on the sheath of his wrist sapped his power (or what there ever was of his power) like it has to others that have had the same surgery. When he homered in three of four games from July 6 through July 9, the idea his power (or what he has ever had of it) was returning was a common theme among Yankees fans for those four days. But July 9 was the last time Hicks homered. A month ago. And in the 23 games he has played in over the last month, he’s hitting .171/.318/.171 (yes, slugging .171 over the last month), highlighted by an 0-for-32 streak that went for nearly two weeks.
“I started off the season good,” Hicks told The Athletic. “I was hitting for a high average for a while. I wasn’t really hitting for much power.”
When Hicks says he “started off the season good” he means literally the start of the season and no more. He was “good” for nine games (seven starts). He hit .348/.464/.478 over the first week of the season. Then he put together back-to-back 0-for-4s and it’s been downhill since. The last time his average was above .300 was on April 20. The last time it was above .275 was on May 3. The last time it was at.250 was on May 9. It’s at .223 today with 13 extra-base hits.
Hicks’ on-base percentage has carried his OPS (he has a higher on-base percentage than slugging percentage) because while he can’t hit, he is smart enough to take walks. His approach at the plate has always been to not swing and hope the pitcher throws four balls before he throws three strikes, and it works out for him often. (I wish more Yankees would have this approach.)
“All we’re trying to do is win a championship here,” Hicks told The Athletic. “So if I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.”
If I were ownership or the front office I would expect a little more fire and motivation about being in the lineup, especially from a player who is under contract for next season and the season after that and the season after that and then will be bought out for $1 million to not play baseball for the Yankees the season after that. Saying it’s “cool” if you play “but it is what it is” if you don’t doesn’t make Hicks sound like a good teammate and team-first guy, it makes him sound like a loser. Hicks talks like a guy who signed a seven-year, $70 million guaranteed contract because he is that guy. And since receiving that extension, he has played in 242 of a possible 494 regular-season games (49 percent).
I have long wanted Hicks off the Yankees, and was vehemently against the extension he was offered in 2019. (The keyword there is “offered.” The extension and the endless treatment of him as if he’s Bernie Williams 2.0 is all on the Yankees. They created this mess. What is Hicks supposed to do? Not accept $70 million to play baseball?) I have been appalled year after year in their belief he could stay healthy and be productive and be counted on to be an everyday player for the Yankees.
It seems like the Yankees finally agree. By trading for two outfielders in Benintendi and Bader they made it clear they no longer believe in Hicks being the player he told The Athletic he “knows he can be,” which is a player he has rarely ever been in his seven years with the Yankees. Hicks is only playing now because of injuries and the only way he will play regularly for the rest of the regular season and the postseason will be because of injuries.
If Hicks has a future with the Yankees as the fourth outfielder, “cool.” If his future in baseball after this season isn’t with the Yankees, well, “it is what it is.”
