Brian Cashman is always honest. Usually, he’s brutally honest, even when he doesn’t have to be. His honesty isn’t always accurate, but he’s willing to share how he feels about a player, pitcher or topic when it comes to the team he oversees. His end-of-the-season press conference was no different.

Cashman has been through this before. As Yankees general manager he has now faced the media 19 times following a season which didn’t end with a championship. Nineteen times in 23 seasons he has had to answer questions about why the team he built wasn’t good enough to win the last game of the major league season, and he did this again this week.

On the Yankees’ roster.
“I think we had a championship-caliber team.”

The Yankees were a championship-caliber team … in February. They were a championship-caliber team before Luis Severino needed Tommy John surgery and James Paxton needed back surgery. Had the 2020 season been 162 games, the Yankees would have been without Severino for the entire season, Paxton to open the season (and then again when his elbow gave out like it did in the 60-game season), Aaron Judge for half the season, Aaron Hicks for the half the season and Giancarlo Stanton for half the season. Given the fall off in production from the Replacement Yankees, the Yankees likely would have missed the postseason in a 162-game season and five-team format. They barely made it in the postseason with an eight-team format. The Yankees might have also been a championship-caliber team if they had done a single thing to upgrade their roster at the trade deadline, but they didn’t.

Now the Yankees go into 2021 without Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, and to a much lesser (and better) degree, J.A. Happ. Their rotation is in shambles, and their right-handed heavy lineup proved once again incapable of consistently hitting right-handed pitching in the postseason.

The Yankees had a championship-caliber team in February, but by October they didn’t. They are far away from having one right now for 2021.

On the Rays being better all season.
“Ultimately, we ran up against a team that was better … They proved in the marathon of 60 games they were better and then they proved in the sprint of the division series that they were better.”

The Yankees went 2-8 against the Rays in the regular season and many Yankees fans thought it was fluky because of the Yankees’ injuries, as if the Rays didn’t have to deal with any injuries. It wasn’t fluky.

On Apr. 19, 2019, I wrote Yankees Fans Should Be Worried About the Rays This Season, Not the Red Sox. (A lot of Red Sox fans took exception to it.) The Rays nearly made the playoffs in 2018. They made it in 2019, won the wild-card game over a very good A’s team and then took the Astros to five games in the ALDS. The Rays have been coming for some time and they are now here.

The Rays were the best team in the American League over the 60-game season, and to no surprise, they were the best team in the AL in the postseason.

On the state of the Rays and Yankees.
“They are a better franchise right now than we are.”

It takes a lot for the general manager of the team with the highest payroll in baseball to admit the team he built with baseball’s best financial resources isn’t as good as the team with the 29th payroll in the league. Cashman disregarded payroll as if it means nothing, citing the Rays’ ability to create a plan and stick with it over the last five or six seasons being more meaningful than money. Only the general manager of the most prestigious team in baseball with the deepest pockets would try to say money doesn’t matter when his team isn’t as good as the one with limited money.

Can you imagine how good the Rays would be if they had the brains they do coupled with the Yankees’ finances? It’s essentially what the Dodgers are, and it’s what the Yankees have failed to be for so many years now. The Yankees want to have the Dodgers’ ability to successfully draft and develop players and then use their money to fill holes along the way. But the Yankees aren’t very good at drafting or developing players. They are good at turning other teams’ trash into treasure like they did with Luke Voit and Gio Urshela, but not their own players.

On Aaron Boone saying no to analytics.
“Does he push back? The answer is yes. Not every manager has agreed with suggestions made, but every manager was allowed to plot their own course. I think there is a healthy debate that transpires and an all-in commitment once that decision is ultimately made. In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s. It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”

Maybe it’s time you stop letting him push back. There are thousands of people who can manage the Yankees and manage them as poorly as Boone. If Cashman wants his staff to tell Boone what to do, what is Boone going to do? Threaten to quit? Oh no! What would the Yankees ever do?!

It’s good to know Aaron Boone is the one who writes out the lineup card and makes in-game pitching decisions. It’s not good that I’m now thinking back to every horrible move he has made over three years and realizing it was his decision all along.

On the front office telling Boone what to do.
“I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true. I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.”

Boone should be a puppet. Because three years of watching him create lineups with Brett Gardner batting third, Mike Tauchman batting fourth and Gleyber Torres batting eighth coupled with him bringing Jonathan Holder into high-leverage situations, letting Luis Avilan try to close out games against the Rays and continuing to use Michael King as an opener have proven he can’t handle the lineup or in-game strategies. Let Boone be the “manager” of the Yankees. Let him talk to the media and be everyone’s friend in the clubhouse. But take away the lineup card from him and take away the in-game decisions since those are what’s preventing this team from realizing its potential and actually winning a championship.

I think Cashman wanted to make it clear that Boone’s idiotic decisions are his and not the front office’s. That clears Cashman and his team’s name from the inexplicable decisions Boone has made in three years. Though it doesn’t reflect well on Cashman for hiring Boone and continuing to employ him.

On the ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy.
“We didn’t ask Deivi Garcia to do something he wasn’t used to. He was asked to start, right? And we were not going to have a long rope with him, obviously at this stage of his career. It doesn’t mean he could not have pitched well, but again, we were trying to exploit the current roster going into that series. We felt this was the best strategy. We didn’t ask J.A. Happ to do something he wasn’t used to doing. And what do I mean by that? I know he’s a starter, but he’s had 15 career postseason appear in his entire career. You know how many starts he’s had in the postseason? He’s had four. So his whole postseason career is coming out of the pen typically, including last year.”

Why couldn’t Garcia have a long rope at this stage of his career? Anyone watch the NLCS? The Braves’ Ian Anderson had exactly as much major league experience (six starts) as Garcia and look what he did in the postseason. The Astros used a bullpen of nearly all rookies, and look where it got them. I don’t think any Yankees fan needs to be reminded of what Jaret Wright at age 21 did to the Yankees in 1997 or what Josh Beckett at age 21 did to the Yankees in 2003. Garcia gave the Yankees the best chance to win Game 2 and Cashman let Boone utilize a plan which sunk the Yankees’ season.

On using J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS.
“We tried to put J.A. Happ in the best position he possibly could be in to find a way to navigate what I call that Swiss Army knife lineup, so that Kevin Cash would take some right-handers out of that lineup, so when Happ came in he had better lanes to try to navigate. Didn’t work. It didn’t work. 

No, it didn’t. But it was obvious it wouldn’t work the second Garcia threw a pitch in the game and Happ began warming up. It was a move that was first-guessed and not second-guessed after Happ inevitably pooped his pants on the Petco Park mound by allowing nine baserunners, four earned runs, two home runs and three walks, while also hitting a batter and committing an error in his 2 2/3 innings of work. The best position possible for Happ would have been to not have pitched in the game. 

On if the team’s lost revenue will hinder them in free agency.
“I haven’t had conversations directly with Hal Steinbrenner about how it affects our decision making moving forward.”

I don’t think the Yankees will re-sign DJ LeMahieu. I can see them crying poor and then letting Tyler Wade or Thairo Estrada be the everyday second baseman in 2021. The Yankees are already planting the seeds for this excuse the way Hal Steinbrenner talked about the Yankees losing more money than any other team last week, and the way Cashman has avoided the question which he knows the answer to.

On if Giancarlo Stanton can play the outfield.
“Given the injuries that we’ve experienced with him thus far, I think a safe bet would be to focus with him at the DH level.”

The Giancarlo Stanton contract is a disaster. At the time, it was a great move. The Yankees had come within one win of the World Series and were young and inexpensive and they were adding the NL MVP at a discounted price. But three years later, the Yankees haven’t won anything, Stanton has been hurt nearly the entire time and now he’s only a DH on a team full of players who would be better suited as only being the DH. It’s nice that Stanton hit a bunch of home runs in a postseason in which the Yankees were eliminated in the division series for the second time in three years, but Stanton will be 31 for the 2021 season, and he’s not going to get healthier or better at baseball as his contract progresses.

On what he’s learned from Boone in his three seasons as Yankees manager.
“I think he’s honored who he is every step of the way. I think he’s a real approachable person that connects well with his players, connects well with his co-workers … He’s a very patient, very approachable, very open-mined individual, extremely intelligent, that is willing to put the work in to try to decipher the next move and the best position to be sitting in. And then look at the results for better or for worse. All I continue to see from Aaron Boone the person is everything that I thought I felt from that interview process … he’s made that real. He’s exactly who he is with you in the media, he is with us, and that’s a tremendous skill.”

If I didn’t see these words come out of Cashman’s mouth and just read them, I would think a member of Boone’s family was asked how they feel about Boone. Boone helped ruin three seasons of a championship window and helped eliminate three teams Cashman built, all of which Cashman believes could have won the World Series. If you feel as strongly as Cashman doe that the Yankees had championship-caliber teams for the last three years and then watched the manager you hired make the moves he did over the last three regular seasons and postseason, how can you still say these things about him?

“Willing to put the work in to try to decipher the next move and the best position to be sitting in?” Are we sure Cashman knows who Boone is?

On how hard it is to continue to give this type of end-of-the-season press conference.
“I’d rather be doing this than not making the playoffs first and foremost. We’re playing meaningful games in October, and I’m not going to shy away from how important that is in the very least. Just because we’re here doesn’t guarantee anything. Just because we have the highest payroll doesn’t guarantee us anything.”

Several times Cashman talked about how the Yankees earned their postseason berth. Eight of the AL’s 15 teams got in. When 53 percent of the league goes to the postseason, it’s hard to feel good about your accomplishment, especially when you wouldn’t have reached the postseason under the usual format. The Yankees shouldn’t be proud about making the postseason in 2020.

On the future of the Yankees.
“Ultimately, we have a championship-contending roster. I believe that is a fact. We’re not going to be able to call ourselves champions. That is also a fact.”

It’s a fact that the Yankees won’t be able to call themselves champions for the 11th straight season. (They haven’t even been able to call themselves American League champions in that time.) I don’t necessarily believe they have a championship-contending roster either. They have a good roster. They have a roster capable of beating up on the Orioles and Red Sox and crappy rotations and bullpens over 162 games. They don’t have a roster that can handle elite pitching or a rotation that can handle the league’s top lineups in October.

Here will be the ages of the Yankees currently under contract (who will be counted on) in April 2021:

Zack Britton: 33
Aroldis Chapman: 33
Aaron Hicks: 31
Giancarlo Stanton: 31
Kyle Higashioka: 31
Gerrit Cole: 30
Luke Voit: 30
Chad Green: 29
Aaron Judge: 29
Gio Urshela: 29
Gary Sanchez: 28
Luis Severino: 27
Clint Frazier: 26
Gleyber Torres: 24
Deivi Garcia: 21

(I’m sure they will re-sign Gardner again and he will be 37.)

Three years ago, the young, inexpensive Baby Bombers came within a game of the World Series and the future was as bright as it had been in a long time for the Yankees. Three years later, and they have two ALDS exits, one ALCS exit, and they’re no longer babies, no longer inexpensive and seem to be headed in the wrong direction.

“Championship-contending roster?” Not as it’s currently constructed.

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Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes after every game throughout the season.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

Aaron Boone will be the manager of the Yankees in 2021. At least the Yankees say he will be. He hasn’t signed a new contract yet, but Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman have said and reiterated that Boone is their guy and that he will once again lead the team in its current championship window for a fourth season.

It’s a regrettable decision. The last three regular seasons and postseasons have proven so. Boone took the job as an inexperienced candidate with zero coaching experience at any level, let alone any managerial experience at any level. His lack of experience was apparent from his very first spring training when he tried to bring Dellin Betances into a game even though Boone hadn’t yet called on Betances to warm up yet. Boone’s inexperience was exposed throughout the 2018 regular season, culminating in a disastrous Game 3 and 4 in the ALDS when he single-handedly helped lead the team to postseason elimination.

His second season wasn’t any better, filled with a multitude of mistakes and head-scratching choices, and his third season, the season which just concluded, was his worst of all. Boone has yet to evolve, progress or develop as a major league manager. He made the same mistakes in 2020 that he made in 2018, and he somehow made even more egregious postseason mistakes in 2020 than he had in 2018 and 2019 combined. Simply put, Boone is undeserving of continuing to be Yankees manager. He hasn’t earned a second contract with the team after his initial three-year contract turned out to be a bust. Despite no longer being contractually obligated to Boone, and despite no longer owning him a single penny, the Yankees are going to bring him back, hoping for a different result than the last three seasons have provided.

If Boone’s actual in-game management over three seasons wasn’t enough of a weak resume for anyone to easily determine he should no longer hold his current position, his end-of-the-season press conference on Wednesday reinforced the fact that he’s unqualified for his current position, and should no longer be in that position.

On the lack of consistency in 2020.
“That’s probably one of my biggest frustrations.  I take a lot of pride in creating an environment that no matter what’s going on with the rigors of a season … injuries, people dealing with different things. Obviously, this year dealing with the Covid environment, that was a challenge, but creating an environment that we’re able to take advantage of that. And I think that over the course of the length of the season, the peaks and valleys I felt should have been better despite some of the challenges we faced at different times of the year with injuries, so that part is a little bit frustrating. I feel like we’re better than our overall record would have shown.”

I forgot the Rays and Astros didn’t have any injuries and didn’t play baseball in the middle of a global pandemic like the Yankees had and had to.

The Yankees went 33-27 in the 60-game shortened season, which projects out to an 89-63 record in a normal, 162-game season. That’s not good. Well, it’s good if you’re a team from Toronto or Baltimore, or now Boston, but it’s not good for the Yankees.

The Yankees began the season 16-6 then went 5-15, rebounded with a 10-0 run, and finished the season losing six of eight. Boone said he was “frustrated” by the lack of consistency from his team, yet he’s the one who’s supposed to prevent a lack of consistency. His lineup decisions, in-game bullpen decisions, load management and unnecessary rest for everyday players were all questionable throughout the entire shortened season. And they were his decisions, and not the analytics department or front office’s decisions, as many Yankees fans and Boone supporters (are there any of those left?) have always refuted. Boone made it clear all lineup and pitching decisions are his during the press conference. 

On not being a “puppet” for the front office and analytics team.
“Ultimately, I’m writing out the lineup and I’m making these decisions.”

No Yankees fan can ever blame a nonsensical lineup card or horrific call to the bullpen on the front office or analytics department ever again. Boone was adamant during the press conference that he’s the one who makes the decisions regarding the game being played on the field.

If you were under the impression the nerds, statistical analysts and Ivy League graduates on Cashman’s team were the reason for Lance Lynn relieving Luis Severino with the bases loaded and no outs in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, or CC Sabathia being allowed to face the entire Red Sox’ lineup a second time just so he could match up against their 9-hitter in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS, or Brett Gardner batting third in the 2019 playoffs, or Clint Frazier sitting for Gardner in 2020 postseason or Gary Sanchez being benched for Kyle Higashioka this October or Mike Ford being used a pinch hitter with the season on the line instead of Frazier or Sanchez in Game 5 against the Rays, just know it was Boone all along. And if you thought the idiotic ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy against the Rays was an organizational decision, it wasn’t. Boone said so several times.

On the decision to open Game 2 with Deivi Garcia and then go right to J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS.
“Well, its something we started to really discuss right after the Cleveland series about how we’re going to line up. Obviously, we know we’re up against another really good team in Tampa and one of the things that makes Tampa a really special club is how they’ve constructed their roster to exploit platoon advantages, and it was simply a matter of ultimately, probably going to go with J.A. Happ in one of those games and for a team that can probably shoot out seven, eight right-handed hitters against him if you want, and if they would have wanted to, just a way of trying to create a little of a platoon for J.A. in that game.”

There’s a scene in The Office where David Wallace asks Michael Scott what his philosophy on management is. Here is Scott’s answer:

“My philosophy is basically this, and this is something that I live by, and I always have, and I always will: Don’t ever, for any reason do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going …”

That incoherent answer was purposely written for a comedic sitcom, and yet it matches Boone’s incoherent answer as to why he decided to implement a pitching strategy which was  first-guessed by everyone as it was made and not second-guessed after the result. Boone’s answer makes zero sense.

Ultimately (yes, I’m going to use Boone’s favorite word), Boone wanted to coerce his counterpart, the much smarter Kevin Cash, into writing out a left-handed-heavy lineup card to face Garcia and then … Voila! … Boone would bring the left-handed Happ into the game to face a left-handed lineup. The problem is Happ sucks. He has sucked since Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS. For two calendar years, Happ has proven to be unable to get good major league hitters out. Sure, he won some games against the 2020 Red Sox, Mets and Orioles, but none of those three teams sniffed the postseason in a season in which 16 of the majors’ 30 teams went to the postseason. Boone wasn’t tricking Cash into playing mostly lefties and then bringing in Clayton Kershaw or Chris Sale or Blake Snell. He was bringing in Happ. Rather than use a 21-year-old starting pitcher who proved more than capable of being successful in the majors and who would serve as a mystery to the Rays at least the first time through the order, Boone had Happ warming up the second Garcia threw his first pitch of the game.

Garcia for one inning and Happ for as long as he could go was the plan no matter, and Boone stuck with it. He stuck with it for 2 2/3 innings as Happ put nine runners on base, allowed four earned runs and two home runs, walked three, hit a batter and made an error. With a 1-0 series lead and with a chance to put the Rays on the brink of elimination, Boone made a monumentally awful decision. One that will forever stain his legacy as a manger and one that cost the Yankees their season.

On his contract as Yankees manager expiring and on getting a new contract.
“Not worried. I love doing this. I love being a part of this organization. To get to work for Hal and the Steinbrenner family, and Brian Cashman and his staff is a privilege and an honor and something that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. Honestly, I’ve never worried about my status year by year or moving forward. I kind of feel like that will all take care of itself.”

Boone might be the only person in the world other than a firefighter, police officer or tenured teacher who isn’t worried about his job security. Even in a contract year, and even with his contract expiring, Boone isn’t worried. He’s so comfortable in his role and he’s so comfortable with a pair of first-round exits and an ALCS loss over the last three Octobers that he “honestly” has never worried about not being the Yankees manager in 2021. 

On the three postseason exits.
“We lose to Boston when we’re a couple feet from Gary’s ball going out and forcing a Game 5 where they’ve already shot their man guy and they go on to win the World Series. Obviously, last year, with Houston, having a grueling series with them. Going down tied in the eighth inning in Game 5 against Tampa who’s now looking like they’re on their way to a World Series. So we understand the club we have, how close, and that does add to the disappointment because you realize how close you are to being a championship team and just haven’t been able to get over the hump yet.”

Now I understand better why Boone has never thought for a second about his future as Yankees manager, and it’s because he doesn’t think the Yankees’ lack of postseason success over the last three years is in any way his fault.

Boone thinks the Yankees lost the 2018 ALDS to the Red Sox because the New York October weather didn’t allow Sanchez’s fly ball to clear the left-field wall, not because his Game 3 starter didn’t know time the game started, not because he kept his Game 3 starter in for too long and then went to at best the sixth-best option in his bullpen and not because he once again left his starter in for too long in Game 4. Had Sanchez hit a game-winning grand slam, Boone figures the Yankees would have automatically won Game 5 and then endured the same postseason success the Red Sox eventually did, which would have meant beating the Astros in the ALCS and Dodgers in the World Series. It’s that easy!

On any current injuries or offseason surgeries scheduled.
“Uh, gosh … No, I don’t believe we have anything coming on the books.”

Boone had to think about this one. He paused and stammered before providing his answer. Gosh, how is the Yankees manager unsure of the team’s current injury situation?

Two years ago, Boone failed to mention Didi Gregorius needed Tommy John surgery and would miss nearly the first half of the 2019 season until his press conference had already ended. Last season, the Yankees were unaware James Paxton would need back surgery right before spring training from an injury suffered in his final regular-season start in September. They failed to evaluate Severino’s elbow after he complained of pain in the postseason and then he needed Tommy John surgery early in spring training. Rather than miss only 2020, Severino will now miss half of 2021 as well. They didn’t think it was necessary to check in on Aaron Judge who suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung diving in September, an injury that didn’t get properly diagnosed until this past spring and would have kept him out of the first half of a 162-game season.

On benching Sanchez for Kyle Higashioka.
“I still have a ton of confidence in Gary Sanchez, I know it was a tough year for him, but I’ll go back to, as I’ve said a lot of times over the last few weeks, I do feel like he was different guy over the last month of the season.”

Boone has so much confidence in Sanchez and he thought Sanchez played so well over the last month of the season that he played him in two of seven postseason games. He played Sanchez in one of the five game in the ALDS after Sanchez single-handedly saved the Yankees’ season in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. Sanchez’s go-ahead, two-run home run against the Indians tried to win the game for the Yankees until Boone’s bullpen management gave away that lead. And then in the ninth, trailing by one run with the bases loaded and one out, Sanchez’s game-tying sacrifice fly saved the game for the Yankees with the team’s last chance to drive in the game-tying run without needing a base hit. It saved the Yankees’ season because had the Yankees lost that game, they would have played for their season the following night with Happ on the mound, and we saw how he fares against teams which are actually good a few nights later.

On the offense not being the reason the Yankees lost to the Rays.
“Over the course of even a championship run, you’re going to have to win games … 2-1, 1-0, 3-2. You’re going to have those games … I don’t necessarily look at offense being the issue with our demise this year.”

Boone has never won the World Series, so he doesn’t really know what it takes to win a championship, even though he constantly talks as if he knows. As a player, he played in one postseason. Certainly, that’s not his fault, but in that one postseason, he posted a .498 OPS over 58 plate appearances. He did however hit his famous Game 7 home run in that postseason, a home run that got him his current job because without it, he would just be a random third baseman the Yankees traded for at the 2003 deadline. That home run got the Yankees to the World Series, a World Series they lost. It made the Red Sox hungrier than ever for a championship, and they went out and made significant trades and moves to finally overtake the Yankees in historic fashion for baseball and embarrassing fashion for the Yankees. That home run did much more harm than it did good since its good only last another six games and the harm is still affecting the Yankees 17 years later.

On the Yankees being close to winning a championship.
“I also want to make sure we keep in perspective how close we are. Again, we lost Game 5 in a game we’re tied in the eighth inning to a team that is 3-0 right now in the ALCS.”

If I had a dollar for every time Boone mentioned “how close the Yankees are to winning a championship” in his press conference, I would have enough money to give the Steinbrenner family to use to re-sign DJ LeMahieu this offseason since they will likely talk about how they poor they suddenly are from the fan-less and shortened 2020 season. They have already started sharing hints of this, as Steinbrenner did on The Michael Kay Show this week.

On anything he needs to change or do differently next season.
“There’s nothing yet that I’m wholesale changing.”

Boone doesn’t think he needs to change anything. He has managed a team in a championship window to zero championships. His teams have failed to get out of the division series twice. He managed the preseason American League favorite to a .550 winning percentage and the sixth-best record in the AL. (They wouldn’t have made the playoffs in the usual five-team format.) He decided on the Game 2 pitching strategy. HE USED MIKE FORD AS A PINCH HITTER WITH GARY SANCHEZ AND CLINT FRAZIER AVAILABLE IN A WINNER-TAKE-ALL GAME AFTER FOR WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ON THE YANKEES’ 28-MAN ROSTER IN SEPTEMBER AND THEN HE CITED ON-BASE PERCENTAGE AS TO WHY HE USED FORD WHEN FORD HAD A .226 ON-BASE PERCENTAGE THIS SEASON. But no, Boone doesn’t need to change anything.

On the Yankees being as good as whichever team wins the World Series.
“I understand the frustration of the fan base, but I think if you really look at it, it’s razor thin between us and the team that’s going to win the World Series this year. I do believe we are going to get there.”

It’s not really razor thin. The difference between winning and losing the ALDS didn’t come down to Aroldis Chapman giving up a home run in the eighth inning of Game 5. It came down to having a lack of starting pitching and a lack of trustworthy pitching which lost the Yankees Games 2 and 3. It came from a lack of lineup balance which lost the Yankees Game 5. Boone is completely disregarding that had the Yankees gotten past the Rays (which they didn’t), they still would have had to win eight more games and navigate two postseason rounds without an actual rotation and with only three trustworthy relievers.

If the Yankees had won Game 5, what were they going to do in the ALCS? Game 5 of the ALDS was on Friday and Game 1 of the ALCS was on Sunday. Gerrit Cole had just thrown 97 high-intensity pitches on three days rest on Friday. Normal rest for him would have been Game 4 on Wednesday. Let’s say the Yankees were going to use him in Game 3 on short rest again, so they could have him for Game 7 for a third straight start on short rest. They would never use Masahiro Tanaka on short rest since they like to give him extra rest and had just used their season-altering ALDS Game 2 strategy in order to give him an extra day of rest. That means Tanaka couldn’t pitch Game 1 because it would have been on three days rest, but he could pitch Game 2.

Here is a rough outline of what the Yankees’ rotation for the ALCS would have looked like if Tanaka had pitched on normal rest and if the Yankees were willing to pitch Cole on short rest for three consecutive starts:

Sunday, Game 1: ?
Monday, Game 2: Masahiro Tanaka (four days rest)
Tuesday, Game 3: Gerrit Cole (three days rest)
Wednesday, Game 4: Jordan Montgomery (five days rest)
Thursday, Game 5: ?
Friday, Game 6: ?
Saturday, Game 7: Gerrit Cole

Who would the Yankees have started in Games 1, 5 and 6 of the ALCS? Happ? HA! Garcia? They wouldn’t let him really start in the ALDS. Michael King? That went well in the regular season. Chad Green? Then who would pitch the middle high-leverage innings? Jonathan Loaisiga? He was doing so well in October. Nick Nelson? How is he even on the postseason roster?

The offense would have had to score at least eight runs against the Astros in at least three ALCS games, and even that might not have been enough. And let’s say by some miracle the Yankees were able to slug their way to the World Series, the starting pitching situation for the World Series would have only gotten worse with Cole needing to pitch even more on short rest and eventually Tanaka and the others needing to as well.

The difference this season wasn’t “razor thin” and it wasn’t last year or the year before either. The Yankees were at a distinct roster disadvantage in all three seasons, and they needed to capitalize on every available opportunity where their manager might be able to exploit an advantage over the Red Sox, Astros or Rays and they never did. He never did.

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Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episodes after every game throughout the season.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

I thought the 2019 season ended. I thought the nonstop, devastating injuries which ruined last season would end when the season ended. I thought an offseason of rest and recuperation would lead to a healthier Yankees season in 2020 and ultimately the team’s first championship in 11 years. I was wrong for thinking these things. A day after the Yankees announced Luis Severino needs Tommy Johny surgery and will miss the entire 2020 season and at least part of the 2021 season, the Yankees announced Giancarlo Stanton has a Grade 1 calf strain and will most likely not be ready for Opening Day.

The Stanton injury announcement was the the most and least surprisng news ever. After playing in just 18 regular-season games a year ago when a biceps strain turned into a shoulder strain and that turned into a calf strain (here is a detailed history of those injuries), Stanton returned for the postseason only to end up injured and on the bench again in the ALCS. I decided I would give Stanton a fresh start in 2020. No sarcasm to start the season, no snarky comments, no “Ladies and gentlemen” beginning on Opening Day. I would be positive when it comes to Stanton for as long as he let me be positive. He let me positive until Feb. 26.

I went to the first two games of the 2018 season in Toronto and when Stanton hit a home run in his first Yankees at-bat I couldn’t have been more excited for what was to come in the current Yankees era. When he hit his second home run of the game, I turned to my now wife Brittni and laughed out loud, while thinking of the endless possibilites for the Yankees’ lineup. Yet here we are, nearly two years since that game in Toronto and calling Stanton’s time a disapointment as a Yankee would be an insult to disappointments. While Stanton’s first regular season with the Yankees was OK, he followed it up with an atrocious postseason that ended with him flailing at a Craig Kimbrel slider which bounced several feet away from the plate. And then there was last season. Collectively, Stanton’s Yankees tenure has been a disaster.

I have no idea when Stanton will play a game for the 2020 Yankees, and the Yankees don’t know either. Given the way his biceps strain morphed into other injuries in different parts of his body, there’s no way of knowing what this current calf strain might become. If there were a prop bet on him being ready for Opening Day I would be borrowing money from any and every source in order to maximize my earnings. The way he found new and unusual ways to get injured while already injured on the injured list last season must have made Jacoby Ellsbury proud as Stanton is now the team’s new version of Ellsbury. The Yankees always seem to have an oft-injured player or pitcher signed to a long-term deal who can’t stay healthy, and that person is now Stanton.

For a player who finished his 20s playing in just 11 percent of the team’s games, I highly doubt Stanton is magically going to get healthier with age. He’s now 30 and he’s going to be a Yankee this season and next season … and the season after … and the season after … and the season after … and the season after … and the season after … and the season after … and then season after that in 2028, the Yankees can buy him out and pay him $10 million to not play baseball for them anymore. By then he will be 37 years old and I don’t even want to think about how many games he will have played or not played in the seasons leading up to the end of his career.

The Yankees were able to win 103 regular-season games and get to within two wins of the World Series without him last season, so he’s almost become a luxury. But he’s only a luxury when the team is somewhat healthy, and right now they are nowhere near being somewhat healthy. They are without their starting left fielder in Stanton and starting center fielder in Aaron Hicks. Their No. 2 starter in Severino is out for this season and part of next season and their No. 3 starter in James Paxton will miss at least the first month of the season (and has yet to ever pitch a full season in the majors). On top of these injuries, Aaron Judge has yet to really swing a bat and hasn’t played in a spring training game. So while the Yankees are going to start the season without two-thirds of their expected starting outfield, they are dangerously close to starting it without any of their expected starting outfielders.

I want to like Stanton and I want to root for him. I want him to be the player I thought the Yankees were acquiring when they were handed him by the Marlins, but it’s becoming more and more unlikely he’s ever going to be close to that player again. For now, I will accept him just being healthy and doing his job, which is playing baseball. Let’s start with him being in the regular-season lineup and then I can start to think about him being the middle-of-the-order, MVP presence he’s supposed to be.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!