Yankees Thoughts – Page 28 – Keefe To The City

Mar 31, 2023

There’s Nothing Better Than an Opening Day Win

Opening Day always feels more important than other regular-season games, even if it holds the same value as the other 161 regular-season games. It feels like a playoff game.

On Wednesday, I overheard someone ask, “When is Opening Day?” When is Opening Day? When is Opening Day?! WHEN IS OPENING DAY?! I couldn’t understand how someone couldn’t know when Opening Day is. It’s a day I know as soon as the schedule is announced during the prior season. It’s a day I count down to. It’s a day I eagerly and anxiously wait for. Every year.

This offseason seemed to go by incredibly fast. Maybe it’s because the Yankees gave us a somewhat extended postseason run into late October. Maybe it’s because of the mild winter we had. Maybe it’s because I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and an 11-month-old that I’m trying to keep alive every day. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like I was just walking out of Yankee Stadium during (yes, during) Game 3 of the ALCS knowing I wouldn’t be returning to it until this season.

A year ago on Opening Day, Gerrit Cole laid a first-inning egg against the Red Sox, the way he always lays an egg against the Red Sox, and the Yankees had to overcome an early hole on their way to a walkoff win. On this Opening Day, Cole walked the first batter of the game on four pitches for the second consecutive season, and I began to wonder if that was an ominous sign for the season.

Cole wasn’t hurt by that walk though. Instead, he struck out the side. The only thing that he would hurt in the game would be his pitch count as he racked up strikeout after strikeout, which left me yearning for the chance for the Yankees to compete in the NL West rather than the AL East with this type of competition. Cole would go on to dominate the feeble Giants offense, striking out 11 and setting the Yankees’ Opening Day strikeout record. It was as dominant a pitching line as Cole has put together as a Yankee, even if his stuff didn’t look as sharp as it can be when he’s completely on.

If you had to pick a pitcher to beat these Yankees, Logan Webb would probably be that pitcher. Everything he does well as a pitcher combats what the Yankees do well as an offense. As a hard-throwing righty who doesn’t allow home runs, he would face a nearly-all-right-handed lineup on Thursday wanting to hit home runs. Like Cole, Webb was really good, striking out 12 in six innings, but the Yankees were able to do exactly what they wanted to do against him and what they want to do against every pitcher: hit home runs.

I kept thinking on Thursday what if Aaron Judge were batting in the top of the first for the Giants at the Stadium instead of in the bottom of the first for the Yankees. It was close to happening and for a few minutes on December 6, we all thought it was going to happen. Thankfully, Judge is a Yankee, and thankfully, he was there batting second on Thursday and driving a Webb sinker into Monument Park. Webb had to be thinking, “What the fuck just happened?” because Webb doesn’t allow home runs (just 11 in 192 1/3 innings last year), and certainly not home runs like that.

It took until the bottom of the third inning for Anthony Volpe to get his first major-league plate appearance. The rookie shortstop swung at the first pitch he saw (very Derek Jeter-esque), and ended up drawing a seven-pitch walk, in which he saw five balls, but unfortunately, Laz Diaz was the home plate umpire. Once on base, everyone knew Volpe was going to run, including Webb, who threw over to first with Volpe standing on the base. Volpe did run, did steal second and looked every bit like a major leaguer in his debut. He made a nice play off-balance on a slow roller on the infield grass and turned a perfect double play with DJ LeMahieu later in the game. To think, just five months ago Yankees fans had to watch Isiah Kiner-Falefa play shortstop every day.

With one out in the bottom of the fourth, the Yankees were still holding a 1-0 lead and the game under that opened at 7.5 and closed at 6.5 looked like it should have been set at 4.5 or even 3.5 To that point in the game, there were two hits and 17 strikeouts. Despite all the rule changes, it looked exactly like a Yankees game from the past. The game was flying by, but it wasn’t because of the pitch clock. It was because no one was putting the ball in play. There had been just two hits in the game through 4 1/3 innings.

Josh Donaldson changed that with a single on a ground ball to left field before Gleyber Torres extended the one-run lead to three with a two-run home run to right-center. I have been an advocate for trading Torres since the end of the 2021 season, but like I wrote in Yankees Thoughts earlier in the week: I’m fine with Torres being a Yankee, but feel like he should no longer be a Yankee. If he remains a Yankee, so be it. If he’s traded, so be it.

It would be hard to argue for the Giants having had a real threat in the game. They had the walk to lead off the game. They had a runner on second with two outs in the second. They had a leadoff walk in the fourth. They had a runner on second with one out in the seventh. Those were their “threats” for the day. The only threat was that of Cole giving up his pair of home runs that he seems to allow every start, and those home runs never came. Instead the Giants were held to four singles (two from ex-Yankee Thairo Estrada who continued the theme of every ex-Yankee playing well against them), and they never had multiple baserunners in any inning. That’s likely to happen often this season for the Giants, who have Wilmer Flores batting third.

Aaron Boone didn’t have to do anything. He got to stand in the dugout, chew his gum and play with his oversized watch. That’s how I wish every Yankees game would go. Cole gave them six shutout innings, the bullpen added three more shutout innings and the offense did enough to get the win. Boone never had to interject himself on Thursday, and any reliever he called on would have likely shut down the Giants, including Albert Abreu. But it was Wandy Peralta, Jonathan Loaisiga and Ron Marinaccio who did it in on Opening Day. (It was very odd that Boone had Loaisiga only throw two pitches and get one out and then asked Marinaccio to pitch two innings and throw the most pitches he has ever thrown in a game.)

It was as good a Yankees Opening Day win as you could ask for. Cole dominated, Judge did what he does, Volpe looked like he belongs, Torres continued with his returned power from last season and the bullpen was as good as expected. The only Yankee who went home feeling down was Oswaldo Cabrera after going 0-for-4 with strikeouts. I’m not worried about Cabrera, but you just know Boone will now likely play Aaron Hicks in left on Saturday. I would have mentioned Hicks as feeling down for not being in the starting lineup or playing on Opening Day, if not for his comments last season about playing time: “If I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.”

Opening Day always feels more important than other regular-season games, even if it holds the same value as the other 161 regular-season games. It feels like a playoff game. And because of that, there’s nothing worse than an Opening Day loss especially with the scheduled day off following. But there’s also nothing better than an Opening Day win, and there wasn’t anything better on Thursday.

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Mar 27, 2023

Yankees Thoughts: Anthony Volpe Provides Vigor to Old, Stale, Injured Roster

This week there will be Yankees baseball. Real, meaningful baseball. We made it. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

This week there will be Yankees baseball. Real, meaningful baseball. We made it.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I was very close to ending my relationship with the Yankees as a fan.

If Anthony Volpe had been sent down on Sunday instead of being named to the Opening Day roster, that would have been it. After calling the shortstop situation an “open competition” entering spring training and having Volpe win that competition outright, it would have been a disgusting and unacceptable act by the Yankees to have him start the season in Triple-A. It would have meant not fielding the best possible team based on merit and production simply because of a lack of Triple-A time and a need to manipulate service time. For an organization that has performed egregious act after egregious act in recent years, not making Volpe a major leaguer after the spring he just had would have topped them all.

2. Thankfully, Volpe is a Yankee. I’m sure there are many in the front office who are disappointed Oswald Peraza didn’t outperform Volpe this spring, so that the service time clock would have been delayed on Volpe to save the Yankees some money in 2029, as if 2029 or saving the richest franchise in the sport (recently valued at $7.1 billion) matters. The Yankees went into spring training wanting Peraza to be the Opening Day shortstop and wanting Volpe to begin the season in Triple-A. But after the disparity in offensive production this spring, there was no possibly way the Yankees could have spun having Volpe go to the minors without their fan base revolting. Not having enough games at Triple-A was no longer a valid excuse. Because what constitutes enough games at Triple-A anyway?

3. Unfortunately, because of Volpe’s promotion to the majors to be the everyday shortstop, Peraza ends up back in Triple-A due to poor roster construction and poor roster management — a staple of the Brian Cashman Yankees in recent seasons. Peraza is no longer a Triple-A player, after having demolished the competition in his final months at the level. He has nothing more to prove or gain playing against minor-league players, but that’s where he finds himself because of the Yankees’ self-created infield logjam.

4. My Yankees’ infield would look like this:

Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Oswald Peraza, SS
Anthony Volpe, 2B
DJ LeMahieu, 3B

That infield doesn’t include Josh Donaldson or Gleyber Torres.

Cashman and Aaron Boone can say whatever they want about believing in Donaldson as a bounceback candidate for 2023, but the simple fact is that if he weren’t owed $21.75 million for 2023 and an $8 million buyout after 2023 (totaling $29.75 million), he would no longer be a Yankee.

“The things he did this winter to get himself ready to go, I think you’re crazy to think that a bounce back is not in there offensively,” Boone said of Donaldson as he hit this spring exactly like he did in all of 2022. “This guy still has bat speed, and is super talented. He’s in a much better place than he was a year ago right now.”

If his contract had expired after last season, he wouldn’t be a Yankee. The Yankees wouldn’t have re-signed him as a free agent. The only reason he is a Yankee is because of the $29.75 million owed.

5. As for Torres, I’m fine with him being a Yankee, but feel like he should no longer be a Yankee. If he remains a Yankee, so be it. If he’s traded, so be it. The 2018-19 version of Torres was a product of the juiced baseball and that version of him is never coming back. Torres might have been an above-average hitter last season, but that’s because the average hitter in baseball last season was essentially the Mets’ Luis Guillorme, who had a .691 OPS. There’s nothing I hate more than a low on-base percentage player and Torres posted a .310 OBP in 2022. Yes, he hit 24 home runs and had some big hits, but for a six-week period he had the lowest OPS in all of baseball. I think the Yankees would have been better off adding to their rotation by moving Torres, a rotation that is now in shambles.

6. Earlier this offseason, Boone said the 2023 rotation was the best he has had as Yankees manager. It wasn’t exactly going out on a limb, as some of the other rotations he has managed have had Sonny Gray, J.A. Happ and an opener. In theory and on paper, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas was the best rotation in the majors. But in theory and on paper is something that never pans out, at least not for the Yankees.

Cole and Cortes are now the only healthy names from that planned rotation and Cortes is coming off a groin injury that delayed his start to spring training. The rest of the rotation is now Clarke Schmidt, Domingo German and Jhony Brito. Darrell Rasner and Jeff Karstens aren’t far behind on the depth chart.

7. It turns out Rodon was dealing with the same elbow problem in the middle and at the end of last season and that didn’t stop the Yankees from signing him. We knew Montas was hurt a few weeks before the Yankees traded for him, but we didn’t know he became a Yankee still hurt and tried to pitch through a shoulder problem, and that didn’t stop the Yankees from trading for him.

It’s unfortunate, but not surprising that Severino is hurt. It’s now been five years since Severino has pitched a full, injury-free season and hearing that he has a “minor lat strain” isn’t exactly reassuring. He had a “minor lat strain” last season and missed two months. In 2019, a lat strain was part of the litany of injuries that caused him to not make his first start of the season until September. The Yankees are talking like Severino is going to miss one start. Knowing him and his injury history, specifically with lat injuries, I would sign up for him only missing April right now.

8. When Hal Steinbrenner was negotiating a new contract with Aaron Judge, he told Judge he could sign him and do more. After the Yankees signed Rodon, Steinbrenner said they weren’t done. They were done. The Yankees brought back the same offense minus Matt Carpenter and Andrew Benintendi and added Rodon. The Yankees chose not to upgrade the offense, not to add an everyday left fielder and to give two of 26 roster spots to Hicks and Donaldson. The supposed best rotation in baseball was going to make up for a yet-again-right-handed-heavy lineup. But now that rotation looks like a mid-2000s Yankees rotation held together by scotch tape, string and hope.

9. The Yankees will begin the season without 60 percent of their expected rotation, their starting center fielder and two important pieces of their bullpen in Tommy Kahnle and Lou Trivino. The Yankees ended last season without LeMahieu, Benintendi, Aaron Hicks, Michael King and Chad Green, and had Carpenter playing on a barely-healed broken foot. Had the ALCS gone past Game 4, Cortes wouldn’t have been able to start another game in the postseason. This after all the injuries of 2019, 2020 and 2021. Last week, Meredith Marakovits asked Hal Steinbrenner about all of the Yankees’ injuries over the last few years.

“We’re doing everything right,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re doing everything right. We believe that.”

It takes a special kind of person to see the injuries the Yankees have endured going on now five seasons and still think the organization is handling, diagnosing and rehabbing injuries the right way. In a results-driven business, the Yankees’ results in terms of injuries have been disastrous, and yet, the owner of the team isn’t worried by it. Maybe this is part of the “process is more important than results” bullshit Cashman was spewing at his end-of-the-season press conference. It’s an organization-wide belief and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to change.

10. I’m happy baseball is back even if the Yankees’ same issues from last season and the season before that and the season before that and the season before that still exist: the team is too right-handed heavy, too much of the core is still here and there are too many injuries.

Between now and Thursday at 1:05 p.m. I will talk myself into believing in this team and this roster like I do every year entering Opening Day because I have no other choice. For me, as a Yankees fan, I have to find a way to persuade myself into thinking this team can what the previous 13 iterations of the Yankees couldn’t. For the Yankees, as an organization, all they can do now is play the hand they dealt themselves.

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Jan 12, 2023

Yankees Thoughts: Aaron Hicks, Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa Still Yankees

Pitchers and catchers report in a month, and position players shortly after that. Baseball is almost here, even if real meaningful baseball isn’t here until the end of March. Here are 10 thoughts on the

Pitchers and catchers report in a month, and position players shortly after that. Baseball is almost here, even if real meaningful baseball isn’t here until the end of March.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I’m excited for the return of Yankees baseball because I’m always excited for the return of Yankees baseball, though my excitement is somewhat diminished compared to what it normally is at this point in the calendar because I know what I’m getting myself into. Watch a good movie once and it’s encapsulating. Watch it a second time and it’s still good, though that first-view feeling is gone. By the third time, you’re reciting lines. By the fourth time, you’re on your phone outside of your favorite scenes, and by the fifth time, you’re nodding in and out as you watch it. I know I’m about to spend the next nearly full calendar year, writing, talking, reading and spending thousands of hours investing my time into a team and roster whose ceiling remains the same: losing to the Astros in the playoffs. I have seen this movie before. I just saw it less than three months ago, and I know how it ends.

The reason I’m willing to spend those thousands of hours letting a game in which one man throws a five-ounce white ball at another man holding a rounded wooden stick is because of the hope that this season will somehow be different, and that the team of 26 men I happened to grow up closest to can throw that white ball better and use that rounded wooden stick better than the other 29 teams. I watch the Yankees each season hoping they win the last game of the major league season. Growing up, that hope was often fulfilled. Over the last 22 years, it’s been fulfilled once, and over the last 13 years, it hasn’t been fulfilled at all. Now I feel like Rudy’s scout team teammate who tells him the only reason he hasn’t quit is that he’s “under the delusion he might get a chance to run out of that tunnel.”

2. That’s how I feel about these Yankees. A roster that shocked everyone with their run to Game 7 of the ALCS in 2017 has never gotten as far again. The Baby Bombers are no longer babies, and the majority of the original core either plays for other teams or doesn’t play baseball at all, and would gladly pay for even one more at-bat in the majors. The only two position players still on the Yankees from that 2017 ALCS Game 7 lineup are Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks, and if Judge isn’t the only remaining Yankee from that lineup come Opening Day 2023, it will be a problem.

3. Hicks is about to get 10-5 rights as a major leaguer with 10 years in the league and five years with the same team, which will kick in a full no-trade clause. The Yankees have been trying to move his unmovable contract since last year and have been unable to, so imagine how much harder it will be once Hicks can decide if he’s moved at all or where he can be moved to.

I can’t believe no team wants Hicks and the $31,357,144 owed to him. No team wants a 33-year-old center fielder who is coming off a .216/.330/.313 season in which he was benched at least three times, who has played in 60 percent of his team’s games in the last seven years, who has had season-ending injuries in four of the last five years, who has had his elbow and wrists surgically repaired within the last four years and who has hit 30 home runs total in the last four years? How could no team want a player who told The Athletic last season, “If I’m a guy that’s in the lineup, cool. If I’m not, it is what it is.”

4. Unfortunately, that no-trade is going to kick in. As of right now, the Yankees owe Hicks the $31,357,144 and there’s nothing they can do about it. If any of the other 29 teams was willing to eat even $1 million of that owed amount, he would likely have been gone by now. But no team wants him. This isn’t a pay David Justice to play for the A’s or pay A.J. Burnett to play for the Pirates or pay Brian McCann to play for the Braves. This is more like a pay Jacoby Ellsbury to do nothing. The Yankees have certainly come to terms that the remaining money on Hicks’ deal is a sunk cost since the last two years have been a sunk cost. If they’re going to have to release him for nothing to remove him from the roster, they might as well start the season with him and in terms of his production, hope to catch lightning in a bottle, and then catch lightning in a second, bigger bottle and put that first bottle of lightning in that bigger bottle, and then catch lightning in an even bigger bottle a third time and put the first two bottles of lightning in that third bottle.

5. The alternatives right now are either Oswaldo Cabrera (who the Yankees clearly don’t want to have to pigeonhole into one position, as Brian Cashman seems to finally have his answer to Ben Zobrist, the answer he thought he had in the failed Tyler Wade experiment), Estevan Florial (who the Yankees have never been willing to give an extended look to, and as recently as last August called him up to what Aaron Boone said was “to play every day” only to then not play him) or Willie Calhoun, whose best chance at playing baseball in New York this summer prior to getting a contract with the Yankees was with the Long Island Ducks in the independent Atlantic League. The Yankees are set to have their highest payroll in organization history and don’t have a true answer at one of their everyday positions.

Hal Steinbrenner is OK with it. He’s more than OK with it. He was able to re-sign his cash cow in Judge, so he doesn’t have to pay to have the Judge’s Chambers in right field renovated, but he does have to pay $360 million of his father’s money over the next nearly decade. That money has to come from somewhere (it doesn’t actually, but the Steinbrenners will make you believe it does), so skimping out on having a major-league-capable left fielder is where it has come from at this point.

6. I say “as of now” and “currently” and “at this point” leaving open the possibility that the Yankees make a trade that fills their left field void between now and Opening Day, but we all know it’s unlikely the Yankees’ roster is any different on March than it is today.

The Yankees are no better today than they were when the Astros took their American League champions team picture on the Yankee Stadium infield while the Yankees were answering questions in their clubhouse about why they yet again couldn’t score runs in the postseason. At the beginning of January, I went around the field with a brief summary of each expected Yankees starting position player. It’s not pretty. If you’re a Yankees fan with a heart condition, I don’t recommend reading it. The most frightening situation isn’t even left field. It’s the entire left side of the infield.

7. I literally feel sick when I have to write or talk about Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson. I’m not exaggerating. I feel like I just ate from a questionable street meat cart on 6th Avenue and am now going to need to find a somewhat respectable public toilet to build a 15-layer toilet paper nest on just having to type their names. The fact this duo makes up the left side of the infield, came over in the same trade and are nearly universally (“nearly” only because there are a lot of boomer Yankees fans who think Kiner-Falefa is good at baseball) despised by Yankees fans is oddly beautiful in the way a tornado is. They are going to be standing side by side and saluting the Bleacher Creatures during Roll Call on March 30 against the Giants. If you think otherwise, you clearly don’t know how the Yankees conduct business.

Owed money is king for the Yankees and controls all decision making. The Yankees would rather lose than have owed money sitting on the bench in favor of a better, less expensive player, and they would rather watch countless runners get left on third base with less than two outs than release owed money for nothing. When envisioning a possible Yankees lineup, the first thing you need to do is scrap everything related to on-the-field play and go right to the payroll.

8. Kiner-Falefa is on the books for $6 million in 2023. That’s $6 million of guaranteed money, which is a lot more than the league minimum Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe will command, so you can pencil in Kiner-Falefa at short. (Be on the lookout for the first day of spring training quotes talking about how hard Kiner-Falefa worked tirelessly over the winter on his defense. And don’t forget about the secret Yankees metrics Boone and Cashman referenced throughout 2022 that rate Kiner-Falefa as one of the best defenders in the game.)

Kiner-Falefa ended up being the worst everyday non-catcher Yankee to get a full season of at-bats in the Cashman era (and one of the worst in the history of the 100-year-old franchise). Kiner-Falefa’s defense on routine plays was as bad as his bat, and after single-handedly trying to advance the Guardians in the ALDS, he was benched by the manager who spent the summer defending him by citing vague and secret defensive metrics. These metrics were so powerful that it led to Cashman hiring Brian Sabean to find out what has been going on in Cashman’s player evaluation department. Sabean told the media his first assignment is to watch every postseason game from this past October and share his evaluation with Cashman. I hope he has some TUMS readily available while watching the offense, some Pepto Bismol while watching the defense and a barf bag for the in-game management.

9. Donaldson is owed $21.75 million in base salary in 2023 and has an $8 million buyout attached to him for 2024. There’s a better chance the Yankees figure out how to efficiently conduct Stadium entrance security than there is that Donaldson isn’t bought out in 2024. That means Donaldson remains a $29.75 million investment for the Yankees. I have made a lot of foolish purchases in my life. The Tubthumper album from Chumbawama in 1997 comes to mind. But that cost my sixth grade self, what, $14? Maybe $15. (I should have used that money on a safer investment like buying more Pogs.) The Yankees willingly traded for Donaldson and took on the entire $51.5 million owed to him to acquire Kiner-Falefa. Teams do crazy shit like that when they are getting an elite player in return. Pay off this overpaid sunk cost for us and we will give you the player you covet. The Dodgers took on David Price’s remaining contract to get Mookie Betts. The Yankees coveted Kiner-Falefa, a player the Rangers spent half-a-billion dollars to avoid playing (by signing Corey Seager and Marcus Semien), and a player the Twins immediately flipped to the Yankees (and then used the money saved on Donaldson to sign Carlos Correa). The Yankees coveted him so much, they were willing to take on more than the entire team payrolls of the A’s and Orioles to make it happen.

Donaldson is going to play because of owed money. There’s no circumstance in which he will be benched for underperformance. If he wasn’t benched last year when he posted career lows in runs, hits, home runs, RBIs, walks, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and had the highest strikeout rate of his career, what exactly would he need to do to get benched in 2023? If he were to have a sub-.500 OPS around Memorial Day, Boone would still deflect questions about Donaldson batting fifth with how great his defense has been as if defense doesn’t grow on trees.

10. As currently constructed (again with the “as currently constructed” as if it’s going to change), I know the hours I will put into this season are likely to be wasted if measuring the season as championship or bust, which I do. Even if the Yankees were the best team on paper, winning it all would still be unlikely, and they aren’t close to being the best team on paper. At best, they are same team they were 12 weeks ago, and most likely, they are worse. They have 11 weeks left to change to that.

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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!

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Dec 8, 2022

Relief Over Yankees Re-Signing Aaron Judge

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!

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Thoughts

Oct 26, 2022

Delusional Hal Steinbrenner Says Aaron Boone Will Be Back, Calls Him ‘Very Good Manager’

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.

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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!