I can’t imagine the 2021 Yankees without LeMahieu. Or rather, I don’t want to imagine the 2021 Yankees without him.
DJ LeMahieu was supposed to be a Ray. The Rays offered LeMahieu the chance to be their everyday second baseman for a similar amount of money the Yankees were offering him to not be their starting second baseman. The Yankees couldn’t give LeMahieu their starting second base job with Gleyber Torres at the position and Didi Gregorius blocking Torres from moving to shortstop, but what Cashman could offer LeMahieu was the opportunity to be an everyday player at multiple positions. Before LeMahieu could sign with the Rays, the Yankees improved their offer, flexing the financial might they should always flex when they really, really want a certain player, and LeMahieu became a Yankee rather than a Ray.
Can you imagine the 2019 or 2020 Yankees without LeMahieu? I can’t. Even worse, can you imagine him as a Ray? The Rays already proved themselves to be the better and more complete team than the Yankees this season, so just think about how much better they would be with the unshiftable LeMahieu in their well-balanced lineup and the multi-position LeMahieu as part of their deep position player roster. Cashman likes to refer to the Rays’ lineup as a “Swiss Army Knife” for Kevin Cash to utilize, well, LeMahieu is the most Swiss Army Knife player in the majors. Think about the Yankees without LeMahieu, their only true contact hitter, and think about how not having him would likely mean a full-time role for Tyler Wade.
***
On Opening Day 2019, LeMahieu wasn’t even in the starting lineup. He sat on the bench as the Yankees beat up on the Orioles with his Yankees debut coming in the second game of the season. In that game, he started at the unfamiliar third base and batted ninth. Of course, he went 2-for-4 with a double. The following day, he batted ninth again, and again he picked up two hits to go along with two walks.
Through Apr. 19, Aaron Boone and the analytics department batted LeMahieu ninth (two times), seventh (three times), fifth (four times), leadoff (three times), sixth (five times) and third (once). It wasn’t until Apr. 20 when LeMahieu became the Yankees’ permanent leadoff hitter, and even then there were a few games when he was dropped down to second against right-handed starters, so the Yankees could force Aaron Hicks into the leadoff spot.
LeMahieu hit .327/.375/.518 in his first season as a Yankee, was named the starting second baseman for the AL All-Star Team and won his first Silver Slugger award. He set career-highs in hits (197), runs (109), doubles (33), home runs (26) and RBIs (102). He was the Yankees’ MVP and nearly the league MVP, finishing fourth behind Mike Trout (OK), Alex Bregman (OK) and Marcus Semien (not OK). He also nearly became the first player in major league history to win the batting title in both leagues with his .327, but was narrowly beaten by the White Sox’ Tim Anderson who only appeared in 22 fewer games.
In the postseason, he posted a .976 OPS in the three-game ALDS sweep of the Twins and then topped that with a 1.029 OPS in the six-game ALCS loss to the Astros. It was his two-out, ninth-inning heroics that momentarily saved the Yankees’ season before Aroldis Chapman ended in the bottom half of the inning. LeMahieu finished the postseason going 13-for-40 (.325), with three doubles, three home runs, seven RBIs, four walks, a .386 on-base percentage and .625 slugging percentage. He single-handedly tried to carry the Yankees to the World Series with his 1.011 postseason OPS, but unfortunately he was only helped by Gleyber Torres in October.
This season, LeMahieu hit as if the 2019 season never ended. Despite, the nearly nine-month layoff between Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS and his first game in 2020, LeMahieu never stopped hitting. He avenged his batting title loss to Anderson from last season, becoming the first hitter in major league history to win the batting title in both leagues with a .364 average. His 41 runs scored in 50 games were the equivalent of 133 over 162 games and his 10 home runs were the 162-game equivalent to 32. He set career-highs in average, on-base percentage (.421), slugging percentage (.590), OPS (1.011) and OPS+ (177), and led the league in average, on-base percentage, OPS and OPS+. He didn’t have a postseason like he had in 2019, but he still managed to hit .281, recording multiple hits in three of the Yankees’ seven games.
There’s a good chance when LeMahieu struck out (the most unlikely result for a plate appearance of his) against Diego Castillo in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the ALDS it was the last time Yankees fans would have the privilege of watching him hit as a Yankee.
***
LeMahieu will become a free agent at the conclusion of the World Series, and given the Yankees’ league-high payroll in 2020 coupled with the loss of revenue from a shortened, fan-less season and the uncertainty of what the 2021 season will look like, you better believe the Hal Steinbrenner Yankees will act as though they’re suddenly poor, and unable to bring back a player they desperately need. Steinbrenner has already said in interviews the Yankees lost more money than any other team in baseball in 2020, conveniently forgetting the Yankees make more money than any other team in baseball every other season.
Without LeMahieu the Yankees’ one-dimensional lineup becomes even more one dimensional and the strikeout-prone Yankees become even more strikeout prone. Without LeMahieu, the Yankees lose their leadoff hitter, though they will happily replace him at the top of the order with Hicks since they have done everything they can to give Hicks that spot, LeMahieu just wouldn’t let them. Without LeMahieu, they lose their starting second baseman, who can also play third base and first base, and without LeMahieu, they lose an easy-to-love fan favorite who has done nothing other than be great as a Yankee.
CC Sabathia recently spoke on his podcast about the Yankees needing more hitters like LeMahieu the way the team needed more hitters like “the other DJ (Derek Jeter” as the former Yankees left-hander put it. The Yankees need more contact hitters who have a B or even C swing when the count isn’t in their favor and can put the ball in play as well as move the runner over from second to third with a ground ball to the right side. The removal of LeMahieu from the Yankees makes the Yankees worse in 2021 than they were in 2020, and in 2020 they weren’t good enough to get out of the division series.
Maybe what should happen will happen and the Yankees re-sign LeMahieu, sign Trevor Bauer and trade for Francisco Lindor. It’s a doable plan, but it’s far-fetched given Steinbrenner already planting the seeds for a lackluster offseason and the idea Yankees’ ownership will be eating bagel bites and Cup Noodles for the foreseeable future because of their 2020 revenue losses. But it’s a plan that would give the Yankees the best rotation and lineup in baseball. Most likely, the Yankees will let LeMahieu leave, re-sign Brett Gardner (again), and go into 2021 with the same lineup minus LeMahieu, and a rotation of
I can’t imagine the 2021 Yankees without LeMahieu. Or rather, I don’t want to imagine the 2021 Yankees without him. The LeMahieu-less Yankees won’t be pretty. A team that has gone from coming within one win of the World Series three years ago with a future to growing annoying, frustrating and at times truly unlikeable along the way will become even more annoying, frustrating and unlikeable without LeMahieu.
Brian Cashman is always honest. Usually, he’s brutally honest, even when he doesn’t have to be. His end-of-the-season press conference was no different.
Brian Cashman is always honest. Usually, he’s brutally honest, even when he doesn’t have to be. His honesty isn’t always accurate, but he’s willing to share how he feels about a player, pitcher or topic when it comes to the team he oversees. His end-of-the-season press conference was no different.
Cashman has been through this before. As Yankees general manager he has now faced the media 19 times following a season which didn’t end with a championship. Nineteen times in 23 seasons he has had to answer questions about why the team he built wasn’t good enough to win the last game of the major league season, and he did this again this week.
On the Yankees’ roster. “I think we had a championship-caliber team.”
The Yankees were a championship-caliber team … in February. They were a championship-caliber team before Luis Severino needed Tommy John surgery and James Paxton needed back surgery. Had the 2020 season been 162 games, the Yankees would have been without Severino for the entire season, Paxton to open the season (and then again when his elbow gave out like it did in the 60-game season), Aaron Judge for half the season, Aaron Hicks for the half the season and Giancarlo Stanton for half the season. Given the fall off in production from the Replacement Yankees, the Yankees likely would have missed the postseason in a 162-game season and five-team format. They barely made it in the postseason with an eight-team format. The Yankees might have also been a championship-caliber team if they had done a single thing to upgrade their roster at the trade deadline, but they didn’t.
Now the Yankees go into 2021 without Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, and to a much lesser (and better) degree, J.A. Happ. Their rotation is in shambles, and their right-handed heavy lineup proved once again incapable of consistently hitting right-handed pitching in the postseason.
The Yankees had a championship-caliber team in February, but by October they didn’t. They are far away from having one right now for 2021.
On the Rays being better all season. “Ultimately, we ran up against a team that was better … They proved in the marathon of 60 games they were better and then they proved in the sprint of the division series that they were better.”
The Yankees went 2-8 against the Rays in the regular season and many Yankees fans thought it was fluky because of the Yankees’ injuries, as if the Rays didn’t have to deal with any injuries. It wasn’t fluky.
On Apr. 19, 2019, I wrote Yankees Fans Should Be Worried About the Rays This Season, Not the Red Sox. (A lot of Red Sox fans took exception to it.) The Rays nearly made the playoffs in 2018. They made it in 2019, won the wild-card game over a very good A’s team and then took the Astros to five games in the ALDS. The Rays have been coming for some time and they are now here.
The Rays were the best team in the American League over the 60-game season, and to no surprise, they were the best team in the AL in the postseason.
On the state of the Rays and Yankees. “They are a better franchise right now than we are.”
It takes a lot for the general manager of the team with the highest payroll in baseball to admit the team he built with baseball’s best financial resources isn’t as good as the team with the 29th payroll in the league. Cashman disregarded payroll as if it means nothing, citing the Rays’ ability to create a plan and stick with it over the last five or six seasons being more meaningful than money. Only the general manager of the most prestigious team in baseball with the deepest pockets would try to say money doesn’t matter when his team isn’t as good as the one with limited money.
Can you imagine how good the Rays would be if they had the brains they do coupled with the Yankees’ finances? It’s essentially what the Dodgers are, and it’s what the Yankees have failed to be for so many years now. The Yankees want to have the Dodgers’ ability to successfully draft and develop players and then use their money to fill holes along the way. But the Yankees aren’t very good at drafting or developing players. They are good at turning other teams’ trash into treasure like they did with Luke Voit and Gio Urshela, but not their own players.
On Aaron Boone saying no to analytics. “Does he push back? The answer is yes. Not every manager has agreed with suggestions made, but every manager was allowed to plot their own course. I think there is a healthy debate that transpires and an all-in commitment once that decision is ultimately made. In terms of the lineup and in-game strategies, those are the manager’s. It always has been and as long as I’m the general manager, it never will be different.”
Maybe it’s time you stop letting him push back. There are thousands of people who can manage the Yankees and manage them as poorly as Boone. If Cashman wants his staff to tell Boone what to do, what is Boone going to do? Threaten to quit? Oh no! What would the Yankees ever do?!
It’s good to know Aaron Boone is the one who writes out the lineup card and makes in-game pitching decisions. It’s not good that I’m now thinking back to every horrible move he has made over three years and realizing it was his decision all along.
On the front office telling Boone what to do. “I know there’s that narrative about the manager being a puppet and none of that’s true. I’ve never ordered a manager to do anything specifically and Aaron would be able to testify to that as well as Joe Girardi and Joe Torre. They’ve never been directed at any time by me or our front office to do something they didn’t want to do.”
Boone should be a puppet. Because three years of watching him create lineups with Brett Gardner batting third, Mike Tauchman batting fourth and Gleyber Torres batting eighth coupled with him bringing Jonathan Holder into high-leverage situations, letting Luis Avilan try to close out games against the Rays and continuing to use Michael King as an opener have proven he can’t handle the lineup or in-game strategies. Let Boone be the “manager” of the Yankees. Let him talk to the media and be everyone’s friend in the clubhouse. But take away the lineup card from him and take away the in-game decisions since those are what’s preventing this team from realizing its potential and actually winning a championship.
I think Cashman wanted to make it clear that Boone’s idiotic decisions are his and not the front office’s. That clears Cashman and his team’s name from the inexplicable decisions Boone has made in three years. Though it doesn’t reflect well on Cashman for hiring Boone and continuing to employ him.
On the ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy. “We didn’t ask Deivi Garcia to do something he wasn’t used to. He was asked to start, right? And we were not going to have a long rope with him, obviously at this stage of his career. It doesn’t mean he could not have pitched well, but again, we were trying to exploit the current roster going into that series. We felt this was the best strategy. We didn’t ask J.A. Happ to do something he wasn’t used to doing. And what do I mean by that? I know he’s a starter, but he’s had 15 career postseason appear in his entire career. You know how many starts he’s had in the postseason? He’s had four. So his whole postseason career is coming out of the pen typically, including last year.”
Why couldn’t Garcia have a long rope at this stage of his career? Anyone watch the NLCS? The Braves’ Ian Anderson had exactly as much major league experience (six starts) as Garcia and look what he did in the postseason. The Astros used a bullpen of nearly all rookies, and look where it got them. I don’t think any Yankees fan needs to be reminded of what Jaret Wright at age 21 did to the Yankees in 1997 or what Josh Beckett at age 21 did to the Yankees in 2003. Garcia gave the Yankees the best chance to win Game 2 and Cashman let Boone utilize a plan which sunk the Yankees’ season.
On using J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS. “We tried to put J.A. Happ in the best position he possibly could be in to find a way to navigate what I call that Swiss Army knife lineup, so that Kevin Cash would take some right-handers out of that lineup, so when Happ came in he had better lanes to try to navigate. Didn’t work. It didn’t work.
No, it didn’t. But it was obvious it wouldn’t work the second Garcia threw a pitch in the game and Happ began warming up. It was a move that was first-guessed and not second-guessed after Happ inevitably pooped his pants on the Petco Park mound by allowing nine baserunners, four earned runs, two home runs and three walks, while also hitting a batter and committing an error in his 2 2/3 innings of work. The best position possible for Happ would have been to not have pitched in the game.
On if the team’s lost revenue will hinder them in free agency. “I haven’t had conversations directly with Hal Steinbrenner about how it affects our decision making moving forward.”
I don’t think the Yankees will re-sign DJ LeMahieu. I can see them crying poor and then letting Tyler Wade or Thairo Estrada be the everyday second baseman in 2021. The Yankees are already planting the seeds for this excuse the way Hal Steinbrenner talked about the Yankees losing more money than any other team last week, and the way Cashman has avoided the question which he knows the answer to.
On if Giancarlo Stanton can play the outfield. “Given the injuries that we’ve experienced with him thus far, I think a safe bet would be to focus with him at the DH level.”
The Giancarlo Stanton contract is a disaster. At the time, it was a great move. The Yankees had come within one win of the World Series and were young and inexpensive and they were adding the NL MVP at a discounted price. But three years later, the Yankees haven’t won anything, Stanton has been hurt nearly the entire time and now he’s only a DH on a team full of players who would be better suited as only being the DH. It’s nice that Stanton hit a bunch of home runs in a postseason in which the Yankees were eliminated in the division series for the second time in three years, but Stanton will be 31 for the 2021 season, and he’s not going to get healthier or better at baseball as his contract progresses.
On what he’s learned from Boone in his three seasons as Yankees manager. “I think he’s honored who he is every step of the way. I think he’s a real approachable person that connects well with his players, connects well with his co-workers … He’s a very patient, very approachable, very open-mined individual, extremely intelligent, that is willing to put the work in to try to decipher the next move and the best position to be sitting in. And then look at the results for better or for worse. All I continue to see from Aaron Boone the person is everything that I thought I felt from that interview process … he’s made that real. He’s exactly who he is with you in the media, he is with us, and that’s a tremendous skill.”
If I didn’t see these words come out of Cashman’s mouth and just read them, I would think a member of Boone’s family was asked how they feel about Boone. Boone helped ruin three seasons of a championship window and helped eliminate three teams Cashman built, all of which Cashman believes could have won the World Series. If you feel as strongly as Cashman doe that the Yankees had championship-caliber teams for the last three years and then watched the manager you hired make the moves he did over the last three regular seasons and postseason, how can you still say these things about him?
“Willing to put the work in to try to decipher the next move and the best position to be sitting in?” Are we sure Cashman knows who Boone is?
On how hard it is to continue to give this type of end-of-the-season press conference. “I’d rather be doing this than not making the playoffs first and foremost. We’re playing meaningful games in October, and I’m not going to shy away from how important that is in the very least. Just because we’re here doesn’t guarantee anything. Just because we have the highest payroll doesn’t guarantee us anything.”
Several times Cashman talked about how the Yankees earned their postseason berth. Eight of the AL’s 15 teams got in. When 53 percent of the league goes to the postseason, it’s hard to feel good about your accomplishment, especially when you wouldn’t have reached the postseason under the usual format. The Yankees shouldn’t be proud about making the postseason in 2020.
On the future of the Yankees. “Ultimately, we have a championship-contending roster. I believe that is a fact. We’re not going to be able to call ourselves champions. That is also a fact.”
It’s a fact that the Yankees won’t be able to call themselves champions for the 11th straight season. (They haven’t even been able to call themselves American League champions in that time.) I don’t necessarily believe they have a championship-contending roster either. They have a good roster. They have a roster capable of beating up on the Orioles and Red Sox and crappy rotations and bullpens over 162 games. They don’t have a roster that can handle elite pitching or a rotation that can handle the league’s top lineups in October.
Here will be the ages of the Yankees currently under contract (who will be counted on) in April 2021:
(I’m sure they will re-sign Gardner again and he will be 37.)
Three years ago, the young, inexpensive Baby Bombers came within a game of the World Series and the future was as bright as it had been in a long time for the Yankees. Three years later, and they have two ALDS exits, one ALCS exit, and they’re no longer babies, no longer inexpensive and seem to be headed in the wrong direction.
“Championship-contending roster?” Not as it’s currently constructed.
The Yankees don’t appear to be close to the Rays or Astros or winning the American League pennant.
Aaron Boone can keep talking about how the Yankees were a tie game in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the ALDS from beating the American League-winning Rays, but the difference between the two teams was much greater than that. The Yankees weren’t going to score a second run in that game if it went 10 innings or 100 innings. The Yankees might be in a championship window, but when you look at the roster construction of the Rays or Astros, the Yankees don’t appear to be close to even winning the AL pennant.
Aaron Boone spent his entire end-of-the-season press conference blaimng everything other than himself for the Yankees’ early postseason exit.
Aaron Boone will be the manager of the Yankees in 2021. At least the Yankees say he will be. He hasn’t signed a new contract yet, but Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman have said and reiterated that Boone is their guy and that he will once again lead the team in its current championship window for a fourth season.
It’s a regrettable decision. The last three regular seasons and postseasons have proven so. Boone took the job as an inexperienced candidate with zero coaching experience at any level, let alone any managerial experience at any level. His lack of experience was apparent from his very first spring training when he tried to bring Dellin Betances into a game even though Boone hadn’t yet called on Betances to warm up yet. Boone’s inexperience was exposed throughout the 2018 regular season, culminating in a disastrous Game 3 and 4 in the ALDS when he single-handedly helped lead the team to postseason elimination.
His second season wasn’t any better, filled with a multitude of mistakes and head-scratching choices, and his third season, the season which just concluded, was his worst of all. Boone has yet to evolve, progress or develop as a major league manager. He made the same mistakes in 2020 that he made in 2018, and he somehow made even more egregious postseason mistakes in 2020 than he had in 2018 and 2019 combined. Simply put, Boone is undeserving of continuing to be Yankees manager. He hasn’t earned a second contract with the team after his initial three-year contract turned out to be a bust. Despite no longer being contractually obligated to Boone, and despite no longer owning him a single penny, the Yankees are going to bring him back, hoping for a different result than the last three seasons have provided.
If Boone’s actual in-game management over three seasons wasn’t enough of a weak resume for anyone to easily determine he should no longer hold his current position, his end-of-the-season press conference on Wednesday reinforced the fact that he’s unqualified for his current position, and should no longer be in that position.
On the lack of consistency in 2020. “That’s probably one of my biggest frustrations. I take a lot of pride in creating an environment that no matter what’s going on with the rigors of a season … injuries, people dealing with different things. Obviously, this year dealing with the Covid environment, that was a challenge, but creating an environment that we’re able to take advantage of that. And I think that over the course of the length of the season, the peaks and valleys I felt should have been better despite some of the challenges we faced at different times of the year with injuries, so that part is a little bit frustrating. I feel like we’re better than our overall record would have shown.”
I forgot the Rays and Astros didn’t have any injuries and didn’t play baseball in the middle of a global pandemic like the Yankees had and had to.
The Yankees went 33-27 in the 60-game shortened season, which projects out to an 89-63 record in a normal, 162-game season. That’s not good. Well, it’s good if you’re a team from Toronto or Baltimore, or now Boston, but it’s not good for the Yankees.
The Yankees began the season 16-6 then went 5-15, rebounded with a 10-0 run, and finished the season losing six of eight. Boone said he was “frustrated” by the lack of consistency from his team, yet he’s the one who’s supposed to prevent a lack of consistency. His lineup decisions, in-game bullpen decisions, load management and unnecessary rest for everyday players were all questionable throughout the entire shortened season. And they were his decisions, and not the analytics department or front office’s decisions, as many Yankees fans and Boone supporters (are there any of those left?) have always refuted. Boone made it clear all lineup and pitching decisions are his during the press conference.
On not being a “puppet” for the front office and analytics team. “Ultimately, I’m writing out the lineup and I’m making these decisions.”
No Yankees fan can ever blame a nonsensical lineup card or horrific call to the bullpen on the front office or analytics department ever again. Boone was adamant during the press conference that he’s the one who makes the decisions regarding the game being played on the field.
If you were under the impression the nerds, statistical analysts and Ivy League graduates on Cashman’s team were the reason for Lance Lynn relieving Luis Severino with the bases loaded and no outs in Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS, or CC Sabathia being allowed to face the entire Red Sox’ lineup a second time just so he could match up against their 9-hitter in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS, or Brett Gardner batting third in the 2019 playoffs, or Clint Frazier sitting for Gardner in 2020 postseason or Gary Sanchez being benched for Kyle Higashioka this October or Mike Ford being used a pinch hitter with the season on the line instead of Frazier or Sanchez in Game 5 against the Rays, just know it was Boone all along. And if you thought the idiotic ALDS Game 2 pitching strategy against the Rays was an organizational decision, it wasn’t. Boone said so several times.
On the decision to open Game 2 with Deivi Garcia and then go right to J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS. “Well, its something we started to really discuss right after the Cleveland series about how we’re going to line up. Obviously, we know we’re up against another really good team in Tampa and one of the things that makes Tampa a really special club is how they’ve constructed their roster to exploit platoon advantages, and it was simply a matter of ultimately, probably going to go with J.A. Happ in one of those games and for a team that can probably shoot out seven, eight right-handed hitters against him if you want, and if they would have wanted to, just a way of trying to create a little of a platoon for J.A. in that game.”
There’s a scene in The Office where David Wallace asks Michael Scott what his philosophy on management is. Here is Scott’s answer:
“My philosophy is basically this, and this is something that I live by, and I always have, and I always will: Don’t ever, for any reason do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going …”
That incoherent answer was purposely written for a comedic sitcom, and yet it matches Boone’s incoherent answer as to why he decided to implement a pitching strategy which was first-guessed by everyone as it was made and not second-guessed after the result. Boone’s answer makes zero sense.
Ultimately (yes, I’m going to use Boone’s favorite word), Boone wanted to coerce his counterpart, the much smarter Kevin Cash, into writing out a left-handed-heavy lineup card to face Garcia and then … Voila! … Boone would bring the left-handed Happ into the game to face a left-handed lineup. The problem is Happ sucks. He has sucked since Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS. For two calendar years, Happ has proven to be unable to get good major league hitters out. Sure, he won some games against the 2020 Red Sox, Mets and Orioles, but none of those three teams sniffed the postseason in a season in which 16 of the majors’ 30 teams went to the postseason. Boone wasn’t tricking Cash into playing mostly lefties and then bringing in Clayton Kershaw or Chris Sale or Blake Snell. He was bringing in Happ. Rather than use a 21-year-old starting pitcher who proved more than capable of being successful in the majors and who would serve as a mystery to the Rays at least the first time through the order, Boone had Happ warming up the second Garcia threw his first pitch of the game.
Garcia for one inning and Happ for as long as he could go was the plan no matter, and Boone stuck with it. He stuck with it for 2 2/3 innings as Happ put nine runners on base, allowed four earned runs and two home runs, walked three, hit a batter and made an error. With a 1-0 series lead and with a chance to put the Rays on the brink of elimination, Boone made a monumentally awful decision. One that will forever stain his legacy as a manger and one that cost the Yankees their season.
On his contract as Yankees manager expiring and on getting a new contract. “Not worried. I love doing this. I love being a part of this organization. To get to work for Hal and the Steinbrenner family, and Brian Cashman and his staff is a privilege and an honor and something that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. Honestly, I’ve never worried about my status year by year or moving forward. I kind of feel like that will all take care of itself.”
Boone might be the only person in the world other than a firefighter, police officer or tenured teacher who isn’t worried about his job security. Even in a contract year, and even with his contract expiring, Boone isn’t worried. He’s so comfortable in his role and he’s so comfortable with a pair of first-round exits and an ALCS loss over the last three Octobers that he “honestly” has never worried about not being the Yankees manager in 2021.
On the three postseason exits. “We lose to Boston when we’re a couple feet from Gary’s ball going out and forcing a Game 5 where they’ve already shot their man guy and they go on to win the World Series. Obviously, last year, with Houston, having a grueling series with them. Going down tied in the eighth inning in Game 5 against Tampa who’s now looking like they’re on their way to a World Series. So we understand the club we have, how close, and that does add to the disappointment because you realize how close you are to being a championship team and just haven’t been able to get over the hump yet.”
Now I understand better why Boone has never thought for a second about his future as Yankees manager, and it’s because he doesn’t think the Yankees’ lack of postseason success over the last three years is in any way his fault.
Boone thinks the Yankees lost the 2018 ALDS to the Red Sox because the New York October weather didn’t allow Sanchez’s fly ball to clear the left-field wall, not because his Game 3 starter didn’t know time the game started, not because he kept his Game 3 starter in for too long and then went to at best the sixth-best option in his bullpen and not because he once again left his starter in for too long in Game 4. Had Sanchez hit a game-winning grand slam, Boone figures the Yankees would have automatically won Game 5 and then endured the same postseason success the Red Sox eventually did, which would have meant beating the Astros in the ALCS and Dodgers in the World Series. It’s that easy!
On any current injuries or offseason surgeries scheduled. “Uh, gosh … No, I don’t believe we have anything coming on the books.”
Boone had to think about this one. He paused and stammered before providing his answer. Gosh, how is the Yankees manager unsure of the team’s current injury situation?
Two years ago, Boone failed to mention Didi Gregorius needed Tommy John surgery and would miss nearly the first half of the 2019 season until his press conference had already ended. Last season, the Yankees were unaware James Paxton would need back surgery right before spring training from an injury suffered in his final regular-season start in September. They failed to evaluate Severino’s elbow after he complained of pain in the postseason and then he needed Tommy John surgery early in spring training. Rather than miss only 2020, Severino will now miss half of 2021 as well. They didn’t think it was necessary to check in on Aaron Judge who suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung diving in September, an injury that didn’t get properly diagnosed until this past spring and would have kept him out of the first half of a 162-game season.
On benching Sanchez for Kyle Higashioka. “I still have a ton of confidence in Gary Sanchez, I know it was a tough year for him, but I’ll go back to, as I’ve said a lot of times over the last few weeks, I do feel like he was different guy over the last month of the season.”
Boone has so much confidence in Sanchez and he thought Sanchez played so well over the last month of the season that he played him in two of seven postseason games. He played Sanchez in one of the five game in the ALDS after Sanchez single-handedly saved the Yankees’ season in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. Sanchez’s go-ahead, two-run home run against the Indians tried to win the game for the Yankees until Boone’s bullpen management gave away that lead. And then in the ninth, trailing by one run with the bases loaded and one out, Sanchez’s game-tying sacrifice fly saved the game for the Yankees with the team’s last chance to drive in the game-tying run without needing a base hit. It saved the Yankees’ season because had the Yankees lost that game, they would have played for their season the following night with Happ on the mound, and we saw how he fares against teams which are actually good a few nights later.
On the offense not being the reason the Yankees lost to the Rays. “Over the course of even a championship run, you’re going to have to win games … 2-1, 1-0, 3-2. You’re going to have those games … I don’t necessarily look at offense being the issue with our demise this year.”
Boone has never won the World Series, so he doesn’t really know what it takes to win a championship, even though he constantly talks as if he knows. As a player, he played in one postseason. Certainly, that’s not his fault, but in that one postseason, he posted a .498 OPS over 58 plate appearances. He did however hit his famous Game 7 home run in that postseason, a home run that got him his current job because without it, he would just be a random third baseman the Yankees traded for at the 2003 deadline. That home run got the Yankees to the World Series, a World Series they lost. It made the Red Sox hungrier than ever for a championship, and they went out and made significant trades and moves to finally overtake the Yankees in historic fashion for baseball and embarrassing fashion for the Yankees. That home run did much more harm than it did good since its good only last another six games and the harm is still affecting the Yankees 17 years later.
On the Yankees being close to winning a championship. “I also want to make sure we keep in perspective how close we are. Again, we lost Game 5 in a game we’re tied in the eighth inning to a team that is 3-0 right now in the ALCS.”
If I had a dollar for every time Boone mentioned “how close the Yankees are to winning a championship” in his press conference, I would have enough money to give the Steinbrenner family to use to re-sign DJ LeMahieu this offseason since they will likely talk about how they poor they suddenly are from the fan-less and shortened 2020 season. They have already started sharing hints of this, as Steinbrenner did on The Michael Kay Show this week.
On anything he needs to change or do differently next season. “There’s nothing yet that I’m wholesale changing.”
Boone doesn’t think he needs to change anything. He has managed a team in a championship window to zero championships. His teams have failed to get out of the division series twice. He managed the preseason American League favorite to a .550 winning percentage and the sixth-best record in the AL. (They wouldn’t have made the playoffs in the usual five-team format.) He decided on the Game 2 pitching strategy. HE USED MIKE FORD AS A PINCH HITTER WITH GARY SANCHEZ AND CLINT FRAZIER AVAILABLE IN A WINNER-TAKE-ALL GAME AFTER FOR WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ON THE YANKEES’ 28-MAN ROSTER IN SEPTEMBER AND THEN HE CITED ON-BASE PERCENTAGE AS TO WHY HE USED FORD WHEN FORD HAD A .226 ON-BASE PERCENTAGE THIS SEASON. But no, Boone doesn’t need to change anything.
On the Yankees being as good as whichever team wins the World Series. “I understand the frustration of the fan base, but I think if you really look at it, it’s razor thin between us and the team that’s going to win the World Series this year. I do believe we are going to get there.”
It’s not really razor thin. The difference between winning and losing the ALDS didn’t come down to Aroldis Chapman giving up a home run in the eighth inning of Game 5. It came down to having a lack of starting pitching and a lack of trustworthy pitching which lost the Yankees Games 2 and 3. It came from a lack of lineup balance which lost the Yankees Game 5. Boone is completely disregarding that had the Yankees gotten past the Rays (which they didn’t), they still would have had to win eight more games and navigate two postseason rounds without an actual rotation and with only three trustworthy relievers.
If the Yankees had won Game 5, what were they going to do in the ALCS? Game 5 of the ALDS was on Friday and Game 1 of the ALCS was on Sunday. Gerrit Cole had just thrown 97 high-intensity pitches on three days rest on Friday. Normal rest for him would have been Game 4 on Wednesday. Let’s say the Yankees were going to use him in Game 3 on short rest again, so they could have him for Game 7 for a third straight start on short rest. They would never use Masahiro Tanaka on short rest since they like to give him extra rest and had just used their season-altering ALDS Game 2 strategy in order to give him an extra day of rest. That means Tanaka couldn’t pitch Game 1 because it would have been on three days rest, but he could pitch Game 2.
Here is a rough outline of what the Yankees’ rotation for the ALCS would have looked like if Tanaka had pitched on normal rest and if the Yankees were willing to pitch Cole on short rest for three consecutive starts:
Sunday, Game 1: ? Monday, Game 2: Masahiro Tanaka (four days rest) Tuesday, Game 3: Gerrit Cole (three days rest) Wednesday, Game 4: Jordan Montgomery (five days rest) Thursday, Game 5: ? Friday, Game 6: ? Saturday, Game 7: Gerrit Cole
Who would the Yankees have started in Games 1, 5 and 6 of the ALCS? Happ? HA! Garcia? They wouldn’t let him really start in the ALDS. Michael King? That went well in the regular season. Chad Green? Then who would pitch the middle high-leverage innings? Jonathan Loaisiga? He was doing so well in October. Nick Nelson? How is he even on the postseason roster?
The offense would have had to score at least eight runs against the Astros in at least three ALCS games, and even that might not have been enough. And let’s say by some miracle the Yankees were able to slug their way to the World Series, the starting pitching situation for the World Series would have only gotten worse with Cole needing to pitch even more on short rest and eventually Tanaka and the others needing to as well.
The difference this season wasn’t “razor thin” and it wasn’t last year or the year before either. The Yankees were at a distinct roster disadvantage in all three seasons, and they needed to capitalize on every available opportunity where their manager might be able to exploit an advantage over the Red Sox, Astros or Rays and they never did. He never did.
I thought this season would be different. I really did. Then again, I have thought the last three seasons would be different, and they haven’t been. Once again, these Yankees weren’t good enough to win in the postseason, and I’m not sure they will ever be ready to.
I thought this season would be different. I really did. Then again, I have thought the last three seasons would be different, and they haven’t been. Once again, these Yankees weren’t good enough to win in the postseason, and I’m not sure they will ever be ready to.
Most people think I’m negative or pessimistic when it comes to the Yankees. I try to tell those people I’m a realist. I’m optimistic when I need to be and pessmistic when I need to be. I write and speak facts about the Yankees and give my opinion on those facts. Most Yankees fans don’t want to read or listen to facts about their favorite team if they don’t toe the party line that the front office and manager have created. To believe every decision Brian Cashman and his team make is the right one and to think every move Aaron Boone makes is the best one, and to trust that neither can do no wrong takes a special kind of idiot. The Yankees have won one championship in the last 20 seasons and haven’t even appeared in the World Series in a decade.
***
When Cashman finally decided to pull the plug on Sonny Gray as a Yankee because Cashman’s pitching department couldn’t tap into the pitcher who David Ortiz referred to in 2015 as “the toughest guy I’ve faced in the last few seasons,” Cashman said the following: “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results.”
Rather than try to continue what Cashman thought was attempting to jam a square peg into a round hole, Cashman decided to move Gray, who has pitched a 3.07 ERA with 277 strikeouts in 231 1/3 innings since being traded. Cashman traded a former (and now current) front-end starter for a single prospect in Shed Long. He then flipped Long to the Marieners for Josh Stowers. Stowers struck out 123 times in 105 games in Single-A for the Yankees.
The point isn’t that Cashman wrongfully gave up on a guy who still clearly had No. 1 stuff (and got absolutely nothing in return) because his pitching department wasn’t good enough to figure him out, the point is that Cashman got rid of Gray because he didn’t think it would work. A point he has yet to admit with the current Yankees roster he has constructed.
Each time Cashman has had a chance to put the Yankees over the top in the last four seasons, he has failed to do so and ownership has failed to allow him to do so. The Yankees could have had Justin Verlander at the August 2017 deadline, but they didn’t want to take on his salary. So he went to the Astros and single-handedly swung the ALCS with wins in Games 2 and 6.
The 2017 Yankees came within one win of the World Series after not trading for Verlander, and then they decided to cut payroll by $50 million for 2018. The Red Sox and Dodgers greatly outspent them that season, and guess which two teams met in the 2018 World Series?
Cashman tried to bolster the team’s staff for 2019 by trading top pitching prospect Justus Sheffield for the oft-injured James Paxton, who had never thrown more than 160 1/3 innings in a season in his career, a career which had been and still is one long injured-list stint with some innings in between rather than the other way around. In two seasons with the Yankees, Paxton was bad then hurt then good then hurt then bad then hurt again. The 24-year-old, left-handed Sheffield didn’t miss a start for the 2020 Mariners, pitched to a 3.58 ERA and allowed only two home runs in 55 1/3 innings. The Yankees could have used that arm this past week.
For 2020, the Yankees finally had starting pitching depth. Cashman and the Yankees created a rotation of Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ with Jordan Montgomery as insurance. But that was in February and before Severino needed Tommy John surgery and before Paxton underwent back surgery. The Yankees’ inability to properly diagnose Severino’s elbow injury from the previous October and Paxton’s back injury from the previous September had altered their 2020 plans. The Yankees had four months from the time the 2020 season was shut down until it finally started to add to their rotation, and they didn’t. When Tommy Kahnle went down in the first weekend of the shortened season, the Yankees decided not to add to their bullpen. The trade deadline came and went and the Yankees willingly decided to take their chances with a makeshift rotation, the kind of makeshift rotation they always seem have to by the time October rolls around, and three trustworthy bullpen arms.
In February, the Yankees had the best rotation, lineup and bullpen in baseball. But as injuries piled up for the second straight season despite Cashman and the front office’s investigation into the flaws of their training and medical staff from the previous year when they set the all-time record for most players placed on the injured list in a single season, the Yankees didn’t make a single move. Well, they made one move. They gave Deivi Garcia a chance to crack the rotation, and when he proved capable of doing so at age 21, they decided to use him as a one-inning opener in the postseason, giving the majority of the ALDS Game 2 innings to J.A. Happ who spent the 2020 season underperforming like he had in 2019 and openly complaining about his 2021 option through the media. The Yankees need starting pitching for 2021. When Severino returns, he will have made three regular-season and two postseason starts since October 2018. Paxton, Tanaka and Happ are all free agents.
Right now, the Yankees’ 2020 rotation is Cole, Montgomery, Garcia and Clarke Schmidt. Montgomery was used in this ALDS because the Yankees ran out of options. Garcia has made six career starts and was inexplicably not used as a starter this postseason. Schmidt has made one career start. I guess the other rotation spot would go to noted scumbag Domingo German, who it’s now impossible to root for, the same way it’s impossible to feel anything other than awful to need to also root for noted scumbag Aroldis Chapman to close out games for the Yankees. Unfortuantely for Hal Steinbrenner, I haven’t forgotten that either is a scumbag, the way he hoped Yankees fans would when he allowed the Yankees to trade for Chapman and then gave him a five-year deal and said, “Look, he admitted he messed up. He paid the penalty. Sooner or later, we forget, right?” I haven’t forgotten, and I certaintly didn’t forget when for the second straight season the highest-paid reliever of all time gave up a home run to end the Yankees’ season.
There’s a good chance a year from now I will be writing similar words after the Yankees’ lineup beats up on back-end starters and atrocious bullpens all regular season long only to perform its annual disappearing act against front-end starters and elite relievers come October. The Yankees built a lineup full of right-handed power hitters who are exceptionally prone to the strikeout. They have no left-handed balance, making it extremely easy for a team like the Rays to trot out right-handed relievers of varying ability to shut them down. The only true contact hitter and unshiftable presence in the Yankees’ lineup is DJ LeMahieu, and he’s now a free agent, and who knows what the Yankees will do when it comes to their league-leading payroll after the pandemic-shortened season. The Hal Steinbrenner Yankees have tried to save a penny any chance they have had, and lost 2020 revenue from the pandemic and 2021 season revenue which is impossible to project is the perfect excuse for ownership to stand pat again and pretend they’re suddenly poor.
Cashman has done a lot of great things as Yankees general manager. The Yankees have won four championships in his 23 seasons with the job title. He got ownership to buy in to a rebuild at the 2016 deadline and 14 months later the Yankees were in the ALCS. He has done amazing things recently via trade like turning Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos into Luke Voit and John Ryan Murphy into Aaron Hicks. He was able to acquire Giancarlo Stanton for Starlin Castro and got the Marlins to take on part of Stanton’s contract to boot. He purchased Gio Urshela’s contract from the Blue Jays for nothing and he signed international free agents in Tanaka, Luis Severino and Gary Sanchez. Cashman isn’t the problem, and isn’t even a problem. Yes, he had to ulitimately sign off on the foolish Game 2 pitching strategy, created by someone he hired and employs, but even so, Cashman has done far more good than bad as Yankees general manger, especially of late. With the exception of one thing.
***
I often think about how much better my life would be if Tim Wakefield had struck out Boone. I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here right now waiting for a tweet to show up on my Twitter feed reading, “Source: Yankees not expected to offer Aaron Boone a new contract.” Without that home run and that moment, there’s no way the Yankees name some random third baseman they traded for at the 2003 trade deadline as their manager after moving on from Joe Girardi. There’s no way they hand over the keys to a team in a championship window to someone with no coaching experience, let alone managerial experience.
I don’t know how Cashman or the front office could have watched these seven Yankees postseason games and still believe Boone is the right man to continue to manage this team. Whether or not Boone creates the lineup or fills out the lineup card or determines scheduled days off for players in the regular season doesn’t matter. Neither does his ability to communicate with the players or the media. The goal is to win baseball games and that’s done on the field, not from playing cards on the plane on a West Coast trip or being candid with reporters before each game. Boone’s in-game management is ultimately what matters and what wins games, and in turn championships, and he’s horrible at it.
Boone was extremely bad in the 2018 regular season, his first as a manager at any level of baseball. That season was made worse when his ALDS Game 3 starter didn’t know what time the game started, and when his ALDS Game 3 bullpen management altered the series. After defending his unfathomable decision to let Luis Severino pitch a third inning in that Game 3 and allow him to load the bases with no outs before going to the bullpen and then going to Lance Lynn rather than any one of the four strikeout specialists the Yankees had in their bullpen, Boone followed it up with a Game 4 for the ages. He let CC Sabathia face the entire Red Sox’ lineup a second time because he claimed he liked the matchup of Sabathia against the Red Sox’ No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley. That’s right, Boone let Sabathia face the first eight Red Sox hitters in their lineup to get to a favorable matchup with the 9-hitter, a hitter so bad he’s only in the majors because of his glove, and a hitter so bad anyone in the Yankees’ bullpen could get out and likely a few position players could get out as well. The Yankees’ season ended without Rookie of the Year runner-up Miguel Andujar having a chance to swing the bat in the Yankees’ final game.
Boone was able to navigate the Yankees to 103 wins in 2019 despite leading the league in injuries. He was given the credit for the Yankees’ replacement players’ success rather than the actual players themselves. (Oddly enough, when those same players didn’t perform in 2020, Boone didn’t get any of the blame for replacement players playing like replacement players.) Boone opened the 2019 postseason with Brett Gardner as his No. 3 hitter. Yes, that happened. Eventually, Boone realized Gleyber Torres should bat third and the Yankees’ young star single-handedly beat the Astros in the first game of the ALCS. But as the ALCS went on, Boone let J.A. Happ, a starter by trade in his career, lose Game 2 on a walk-off home run, and then decided the Yankees would be better suited to have Gardner back in the 3-hole, while Torres continued to be the only hitter other than DJ LeMahieu to hit in the series. The Yankees’ offense was so putrid in the 2019 ALCS that it didn’t allow Boone to really get his hands on any of the games the way he would have liked.
Boone’s in-game managing flaws reared their ugly head once again in this postseason. He single-handedly tried to lose Game 2 to the Indians and force a winner-take-all Game 3, and then against Tampa, his bullpen and pinch-hitting moves were comically bad. Boone knows the substantial amount of priase Kevin Cash gets for the job he does with a household-name less roster and a team with a total payroll equaling the salaries of the Yankees’ two top starting pitchers, and he desperately craves that praise and admiration. It’s why he tries to get his hands on any game as early as he can as often as he can. It’s why he does first-guessed, nonsensical things like pitching Jonathan Loaisiga in high-leverage situations, using Adam Ottavino with a one-run deficit, but Chad Green with a three-run deficit, or using Mike Ford as a pinch hitter with the season on the line instead of Clint Frazier or Sanchez and then citing an ability to get on base for using Ford even though Ford posted a .226. on-base percentage this season and wasn’t good enough to be a Yankee in September. Boone has spoken about how the Yankees as an organization don’t believe in “hot” or “being hot” or “hot streaks” and then he and the organization decide to start Gardner over Frazier when the postseason begins. And then after starting Frazier against Tyler Glasnow in Game 2 of the ALDS because of Frazier’s ability to catch up to Glasnow’s triple-digit velocity, it’s Gardner who starts against Glasnow in Game 5 despite being unable to catch up to that kind of heat, because Gardner had a good Game 4 against lesser pitching. Boone’s entire job as manager is to put his players in the best possible position to succeed and he rarely accomplishes that.
After the Game 5 loss, the Yankees tried to say all the right things as the Rays were busy celebrating on the Petco Park field using Frank Sinatra and “New York, New York” as their victory song, serving as the second team in three seasons to beat the Yankees and then use the Yankee Stadium victory anthem to rub their face in it, a right they earned by winning.
“(Aaron Boone) told us he was proud of us for continuing to battle down to the last out, and to continue to keep working,” Aaron Judge said. “There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done with this team, with each individual. Just continue to work and don’t forget that feeling.”
Boone is proud of his team for their third straight early postseason exit and second ALDS exit with him at the helm. Boone being proud of this group perfectly sums up his friend-first, manager-second, relaxed Southern California personality that has made the Yankees feel comfortable with losing since he took over. Go back and look up the postgame comments following any Yankees loss in an important game from this season or any of the two prior and you will find a quote (I have written about most of them) in which a Yankees player or pitcher talks about how they will just have come back and be better tomorrow. These Yankees believe there is always a tomorrow because their manager preaches about “tomorrow” to the media and all too often manages as if there’s always a tomorrow.
There shouldn’t be “a lot of work that still needs to done” when a team is in a championship window. You get inside a championship window by not having a lot of work to do. You’re in a championship window because you’re ready to win a championship. The Blue Jays? They have a lot of work to do. The White Sox? Same. The Yankees with their highest payroll in baseball? There shouldn’t be any work left to be done.
“In what’s been a real year of peaks and valleys for us on the field,” Boone said, “I feel like in a lot of ways we’re playing our best baseball right now,” Boone said after the season-ending loss.”
It’s ironic that on a night the Yankees’ season ended, Boone thought his team played their best baseball. Yes, he thinks their best baseball is losing three out of the last four games of the ALDS, the same way the Yankees lost four of the last five games of the 2019 ALCS, and the same way they lost the last two games of the 2018 ALDS by getting run out of their own building in embarrassing fashion. Boone thinks the Yankees’ best baseball is being eliminated in the ALDS. He’s not wrong, as a five-game series loss to the Rays is as good as it gets for the 2020 Yankees, who went 4-11 against the Rays, who were the much better and more complete team all season.
Yes, the Yankees lost to a really good team, and one that can win the organization’s first championship. But the Yankees could have won the series. After taking a 1-0 series lead, they had the advantage, and after winning Game 4, they had the advantage. They wasted both advantages.
“We lost to a really good team,” Boone said. “We’re going to get there. I know it. And it’s going to make it all the sweeter.”
The last three postseason debacles won’t make winning a championship anymore sweeter if these Yankees ever do win a championship. It will only make it more frustrating that they wasted so many opportunities along the way. Boone can’t speak to what it takes to win in October because he doesn’t know what it takes to win in October because he has never won in October. Not as a player and certainly not as a manger. The only 2020 Yankee to have ever won anything was Gardner and he hasn’t won anything in a long time.
I’m not sure if these Yankees will ever get past their postseason problems. I’m not sure if they will ever not hold their annual offensive October disappearing act or if they will ever have enough starting pitching to navigate the month-long tournament.
It would be a lot sweeter if Boone weren’t the manager for 2021 and beyond because then at least the front office will finally have done something Boone never has as Yankees manager: put the team in the best possible position to succeed.
