Yankees Thoughts – Page 28 – Keefe To The City

Blogs • Yankees • Yankees Offseason • Yankees Thoughts

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.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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

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.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New episode after every game during the season.

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 24, 2022

Yankees-Astros ALCS Game 4 Thoughts: Ballgame Over, American League Championship Series Over

The Yankees lost 6-5 to the Astros in Game 4 of the ALCS, completing the series sweep. The Yankees’ season is now over and the World Series drought is up to 13 years.

The Yankees lost 6-5 to the Astros in Game 4 of the ALCS, completing the series sweep. The Yankees’ season is now over and the World Series drought is up to 13 years.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I couldn’t have cared less about Game 4. I had spent the last nearly two weeks sleep depriving myself through the ALDS and the first three games of the ALCS and to go to and from Yankee Stadium. After the Game 3 embarrassment, I wasn’t about to subject myself to go back to the Bronx for Game 4, so when I left the Stadium on Saturday after the seventh inning, I knew I would be saying goodbye until next season.

2. The idea the Yankees could pull off the single greatest comeback in the history of major professional sports was absolutely ridiculous. The 2022 Yankees are no 2004 Red Sox. When the Red Sox came back in the ninth inning against Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS and then erased a two-run deficit in the eighth inning of Game 5 the following night, it didn’t matter that they had to go to New York for Games 6 and 7, as they were set up with Curt Schilling and Derek Lowe to start those games. Meanwhile, the Yankees would turn to Jon Lieber in Game 6 and Joe Torre was undecided on a starter for Game 7, eventually choosing Kevin Brown. Once the Red Sox won Game 5, the series was theirs, a series they never should have been down 3-0 in to begin with.

If the Yankees were to survive Game 4 with Nestor Cortes against Lance McCullers Jr., they would still have to win games started by Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez in the series while countering with Jameson Taillon, Luis Severino, Gerrit Cole on short rest and an exhausted and overused bullpen. They would still have to win two games in Houston, a place they have won a single postseason game in three ALCS. They would have to beat a team they only led for a total of six batters over 10 games in 2022 four straight times. It was never going to happen.

3. Within the Yankees on Sunday, Chad Bohling, the team’s Director of Mental Conditioning, sent around a video compilation of the 2004 Red Sox coming back against the Yankees. It was an appalling strategy, and yet, Aaron Boone gleefully told the media about his team watching 2004 ALCS highlights in the clubhouse to prepare for Game 4 of their own ALCS. The message couldn’t have been more tone deaf. Did Boone think Yankees fans would be excited and pumped to hear the team they invest so much of their time and money on was watching replays of the destruction of the most recent Yankees dynasty?

With ideas like this, it’s no surprise Bohling has been employed by the Yankees in his role for the last 12 years, which happens to be every season since the team’s last championship. Bohling has overseen the team’s mental skills since the first season after the 2009 World Series win, a period of 12 years in which the team has appeared in zero World Series and has lost five ALCS.

While the Yankees were tucked away in their clubhouse watching Kevin Millar draw a leadoff walk against Rivera, watching Dave Roberts steal second and Bill Mueller single him home, Boone was spending his time before the game FaceTiming with David Ortiz and picking his brain as to how to pull off the unthinkable. There would be only one way for the Yankees to win four straight and destroy the Astros’ prolonged success over them the way the Red Sox did to the Yankees: score runs.

4. In the first three games of the series, the Yankees scored two earned runs, and four total. (The two unearned came on Valdez’s double error.) Two runs produced on their own in 27 innings. A disastrous offensive performance for a team that seems to one-up their disastrous October offensive performances each year. But in Game 4, the Yankees bats came alive. It still didn’t matter.

The Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the first and had a 3-0 lead at the end of the second. The insane Yankees fans who actually attended the game were jumping around in the crowd as if the Yankees were on the verge of clinching a World Series berth. And then the third inning happened.

5. Cortes walked No. 9 hitter Martin Maldonado, as the Yankees continued to display their inability of retiring the bottom of the Astros’ order. After Cortes fell behind Jose Altuve, Boone visited Cortes on the mound with a trainer as Cortes’ velocity had dropped nearly 3 mph. Cortes was able to talk Boone out of pulling him, but went on to walk Altuve. With two on and no outs and Jeremy Pena representing the tying run, Boone stayed in the dugout against his better judgment to allow Cortes to face the right-handed Pena, who was having an all-time postseason to that point. Cortes fell behind 3-1, threw an 82 mph batting practice cutter with his diminished velocity and Pena sent it into the left-field seats, narrowly missing the second deck. Tie game.

6. Boone then took Cortes out. After the game Boone said Cortes was dealing with a groin issue, the same groin issue that caused him to miss starts in the regular season. Boone went on to say that Cortes aggravated the injury in the ALDS. And yet, there was Boone letting his starter with a known injury pitch to the top of the Astros’ order with diminished stuff and velocity. In each of the four games in the ALCS, Boone made a decision that backfired and helped the Yankees lose, and his decision to leave Cortes in wasn’t the only one.

The Astros went ahead 4-3 in the third. The Yankees tied the game at 4 in the bottom of the fourth, and in the bottom of the sixth, Harrison Bader hit his fifth home run of the postseason to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead. The Yankees were nine outs away from a Game 4 win and from completing the first step in the long road to trying to pull off a miracle. They might have done won the game, and there might be a Game 5 tonight, if not for a Boone pregame decision.

7. After the Yankees lost Game 3 to the Guardians in the ALDS, Boone benched Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The worst everyday Yankee on a Yankees team competing for a championship in the team’s history had single-handedly helped the Guardians put the Yankees on the brink of elimination, and just a little more than a month since the delusional Boone referred to Kiner-Falefa as “one of the best shortstops in the game,” he was benching one of his favorite players. The Yankees won Games 4 and 5 over the Guardians and saved their season without Kiner-Falefa’s unstable glove and weak bat in the lineup.

For Game 1 of the ALCS, it was as if the ALDS never happened. There was Kiner-Falefa back on the lineup and starting at shortstop. With a less-than-healthy Matt Carpenter, and without DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi, the Yankees were going to need to optimize every inch of their roster to have a prayer in competing with the Astros, and Boone was willingly playing the team’s at-best, third-best shortstop in Game 1.

After the Yankees lost Game 1, Kiner-Falefa was back on the bench. The Yankees were 1-4 in the playoffs when he started and he was providing them nothing in the field or at the plate. After choosing not to play Top 50 MLB prospect and the Yankees’ third-best prospect Oswald Peraza with any consistency upon being called up in September, and after purposely leaving him off the ALDS roster, Boone was now OK with starting Peraza at shortstop in Game 2 of the ALCS. Peraza rewarded the decision with a fantastic play on the first batted ball of the game by the Astros, robbing Altuve of a would-be leadoff hit, fielded every routine ground ball flawlessly and used a 360-spin to complete a jaw-dropping double play with Gleyber Torres. Peraza should have become the Yankees’ everyday shortstop the moment he was called up from Triple-A, where he led the Yankees’ farm team in home runs. In 18 games in the majors, he hit .306/.404/.832 and played exceptional defense. Boone had done everything he could to avoid using Peraza, but finally it seemed like he was coming to his senses, and even if Peraza wasn’t going to hit in the playoffs, at least the Yankees were getting elite defense at the most important infield position.

Peraza never saw the field again. Boone decided to use Oswaldo Cabrera at shortstop in Game 3 instead of Peraza, and in Game 4, with the Yankees on the brink of elimination for the second time in less than a week, Boone went back to Kiner-Falefa. It was unbelievable, and at the same time, very believable. Kiner-Falefa had botched the first ball hit to him in the postseason in the first inning of Game 1 of the ALDS. He had single-handedly lost the Yankees Game 3 of the ALDS, forcing them to play an additional game, giving the team no days off between the ALDS and ALCS, forcing their bullpen to work even more and screwing up the rotation for the ALCS. And yet, there was Boone going back to his guy with the season on the line. And there was Kiner-Falefa taking the Yankees off the brink of elimination and eliminating them.

With Altuve on first and one out in the seventh, Pena hit a ground ball to Torres. It was going to be hard and maybe not even possible to double-up Pena at first, but at least the Yankees would get one out on the play, and be seven outs away from a Game 4. Instead, Torres fielded the ball and shoveled his throw to Kiner-Falefa and it ended up in left field. Torres got the error on the play because it was his throw, but it wasn’t a bad throw. Kiner-Falefa was out of position, came across the bag wrong and was unable to reach for the throw. It was a play that needed to be made, and one that Peraza would have easily made and no one would have even though any more about it. It was a routine play a major-league shortstop makes.

8. Yordan Alvarez then singled on a ground ball, and instead of runners on first and second (or even first and third) with two outs, Altuve scored to tie the game at 5. When Alex Bregman came up next and singled, instead of tying the game, the Astros took a 6-5 lead, and that was the game, as the Yankees’ offense, for their grand finale, went down in order for the last three innings.

On a night in which the Yankees ended their major-league record streak of 10 straight postseason games with six hits or fewer, they finally produced some offense, scoring five runs on nine hit and a walk, and still couldn’t beat the Astros. The Astros beat them by two runs. They beat them by one run. They beat them in a dominant five-run win, shutting out the Yankees and holding them to three hits. And in the last game of the series, they beat them by overcoming a three-run deficit in the early innings and by overcoming a one-run deficit in the late innings. The Astros beat the Yankees every which was possible, and if this was a best-of-9 or best-of-11 or best-of-any odd number, the Yankees likely get swept in all of those series as well.

9. The disparity between the Yankees and Astros is frightening. The Astros had to clean house as a result of their 2017 scandal, brought in a new general manager and front office, changed their manager and coaching staff, let Cole leave as a free agent, then let George Springer leave as a free agent and then let Carlos Correa leave as a free agent haven’t missed a beat. They just appeared in the ALCS for the sixth straight, having posted an 18-5 ALDS record in those six years, and are headed to their second straight World Series and fourth in those six years.

Five years ago, the gap between the two teams was a single game, with the young, up-and-coming Yankees blowing a 3-2 series lead after overcoming a 2-0 series deficit. Three years ago, the gap was two games, as the Yankees’ hitting stalled once again in October and they didn’t have enough starting pitching or relief pitching to get through the ALCS. This year, the gap was as big as possible: a four-game sweep. The Astros beat the Yankees in nine of 11 games in 2022, and if Dusty Baker had been willing to use his elite relievers in the Yankees’ second win over the Astros, the Astros would have won 10 of 11.

10. The only way for the Yankees to close the growing gap is through organizational change. The kind of organizational change I wrote about after their wild-card loss to the Red Sox a year ago. The kind of organizational change they chose to not make and ended up in the same spot: short of the World Series.

In all likelihood, the Yankees will “run it back” again. A new contract for the general manager, who will retain his manager, who he gave a new three-year deal (with a fourth-year option!) to a year ago. The Yankees will re-sign Aaron Judge and call it an offseason, and on March 30, 2023 against the Giants, Josh Donaldson will be batting fifth or sixth, Kiner-Falefa will be starting at shortstop and batting eighth with Peraza on the bench and Anthony Volpe’s service time being manipulated with him in Triple-A.

The most likely scenario for the 2023 Yankees is that they look nearly identical to the 2022 Yankees, the same way the 2022 Yankees looked (and performed like) the 2021 Yankees. And if that happens, a year from now, the Yankees’ season will be over while the postseason is still going, and I will be wondering when and if the Yankees will ever make the changes needed to win again.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

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