The Yankees were a game under .500 then a game over .500 then two games under .500 then .500 and now they’re two games under .500 again. That’s a textbook bad team, and that’s what the Yankees are. They aren’t average or mediocre because they would have to be .500 to be that. They flat-out suck.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I used to hate off days on the Yankees’ schedule. Not anymore. Not with this team. A day off from watching this team is like a vacation. There’s no being frustrated, annoyed, upset or angry over a bad baseball team that is run poorly, managed poorly and plays poorly.

I wish I could go back to life on March 31. Back to the day before this miserable season began when there hadn’t been any games yet, and the idea that this season might be different than the previous three was still a possibility. That’s no longer a possibility as the Yankees are a mess.

2. In the series finale, I didn’t expect the Yankees to win. So when Bo Bichette took Chad Green deep to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning, all I could do was laugh because this team is a joke. In the rubber game of a series against the team the Yankees are directly competing against for the division, and with an off day the following day, Aaron Boone still decided to give both DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton the day off. The Yankees played an immensely important game without their leadoff hitter and best defensive infielder and without their cleanup hitter for no reason other than that their manager thought they needed to rest.

Rest from what? Stanton entered the season having played 51 games since the start of 2019. How could he need more time off? The 2021 season has been going on for 15 days. In those 15 days, the Yankees have had three scheduled days off (April 2, 8 and 15). Stanton, personally, has had another two days off (April 4 and 14). In 15 days, he has played 10 games, all as the designated hitter. He has barely exerted any energy. He has scored three runs and one of them was on his lone home run, so he has barely had to run the bases. He has barely been on base with his dismal .233 on-base percentage. He’s also making $179,012.35 per game this season (though the Marlins are paying some of his salary), so Boone may want to have him play sometimes. And by play, I mean walk from the dugout to the on-deck circle, from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box and then maybe walk back to the dugout (strikeout), jog to first (walk or base hit to the outfield), jog the bases (home run), or do something between a jog and run (groundout or flyout).

If you think things are bad with Stanton when it comes to his actual production and the amount of time off he gets, think about what you will be doing six years from now. Because six years from now, the Yankees will be still be playing Stanton. They will either be paying him to be their 37-year-old designated hitter or they will be paying him to not play for them. And eight years from now, they will pay him a $10 million buyout to not play for them.

3. For the first time as a Yankee, LeMahieu has looked off. How would you go about getting LeMahieu back on track? I would think you would want him to play and get at-bats and correct whatever is screwing him up. It’s hard to do that when you’re sitting on the bench, but Boone clearly thinks not getting at-bats is what LeMahieu needs to produce better at-bats. If you’re terrible at cooking, the best way to get better is to simply not cook. Just sit in the living room and look at the kitchen and envision yourself cooking. That’s what Boone had LeMahieu do on Wednesday.

4. I don’t have the energy anymore to fight the Aaron Hicks battle. I’m tired and worn down. The Yankees think he’s Bernie Williams and no lack of production will change their mind. I also have lost the energy to criticize the decision to not add any major-league- worthy left-handed bats in the offseason, so the Yankees continue to force Rougned Odor and Jay Bruce into the lineup. Outside of Gerrit Cole and a couple of home runs from Gary Sanchez two weeks ago, there is nothing else to be happy or excited about with this team unless you’re excited about a scumbag being given the fifth starter spot out of spring training, a tired and overworked bullpen, a lineup that doesn’t walk as much as they used to and can’t hit or a former two-time Cy Young winner who’s making J.A. Happ seem not so bad.

5. Back on Jan. 7, I wrote a blog titled Corey Kluber Is Perfect Low-Risk, High-Reward Candidate. I stand by that. He was the perfect candidate for the back end of the Yankees’ rotation, and if he were to regain his pre-2019 form then the Yankees would have an elite option behind Cole and Luis Severino (once he comes back). I thought he could be a valuable piece as a guy trying to save his career. I didn’t think he would be the piece. I didn’t think the Yankees would be foolish enough to trust a 35-year-old coming off a shoulder injury with a lot of miles on his right arm to be their No. 2 starter.

Kluber has been awful, and if his name weren’t Corey Kluber and the Yankees weren’t paying him $11 million this season, he would no longer be a Yankee. But he’s what they have right now, and what that is is a really bad starting pitcher, who doesn’t give the team length or quality innings, and is ineffective in the small amount of innings he does give them. Here is Kluber’s line in three starts: 10.1 IP, 16 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 7 BB, 12 K, 3 HR, 6.10 ERA, 2.226 WHIP. You can’t even turn to his FIP to try and make it seem like he’s been better than traditional numbers suggest because he has a 7.20 FIP.

6. On Wednesday, Kluber was horrible, yet again. He only lasted four innings, giving up three earned runs and two home runs. No one could say he was any good with a straight face. No one except for Boone.

“Kluber, I still think is close,” Boone said after the game. “I thought the stuff was fine.”

Close to what? No longer being a major leaguer? He’s certainly not close to figuring it out or turning into the pitcher he was in Cleveland. If Kluber ever gets through five innings as a Yankee and records 15 outs, they should stop the game like when a player reaches a historic milestone and have the entire team go out to the mound and hug him. That’s how far away he is.

As for his stuff being fine. What? He put eight baserunners on in four innings. He’s put 23 runner on in 10 1/3 innings this season. That doesn’t seem like “fine” stuff to me.

7. That answer about Kluber’s performance from Boone was expected. Boone is a liar. All he does is lie. He lies about injuries. He lies about performance. He lies about roles on the team. Lie after lie after lie.

At his season-opening press conference at spring training, Boone said Clint Frazier would be the team’s everyday left fielder. At the time, the Yankees’ most recent games had been their seven postseason games in which Boone benched Frazier for Brett Gardner in five of them. Back on Feb. 22, I wrote:

If the Yankees were completely healthy, I still think Boone inexplicably sits Frazier against right-handed starting pitching and plays Gardner in left field those days. He did it in the 2020 postseason, so why wouldn’t he do it again in the 2021 regular season? Nothing has changed since then.

Frazier has started nine of the Yankees’ 12 games, but he’s only started six in left field. I thought “everyday player” meant you play every day, not half of the days. The only reason Frazier has appeared in nine games overall is because of the games Aaron Judge missed due to an injury Boone lied about. If not for Judge’s injury, Frazier would have played in six of 12 games.

8. Frazier’s playing time is tied to every single at-bat. There’s no room for error. An 0-for-4 game will find him on the bench the following day. This past week, when trying to sugarcoat the Yankees’ embarrassing offense, he mentioned how baseball is “a game of failure.” Except, it’s only a game of failure when it fits his narrative. Like talking about why his lineups suck or why Hicks can’t hit or why Gleyber Torres looks like he has completely lost all of his ability to play the sport or why Stanton can’t hit the ball in the air. It’s not a game of failure for Frazier.

Frazier has been playing under unrealistic expectations his entire Yankees tenure and this season has taken it to another level. Meanwhile, Judge and Hicks and Stanton, and even Gardner, are allowed to endure extended and endless slumps with no change in their playing time or spot in the batting order. It’s sickening. It really is.

I wanted Gardner back if he were to finally be the team’s fourth outfielder, not as someone who would once again take playing time and at-bats from Frazier. Through 12 games, Gardner has started as many games in left field as Frazier. At a time when the Yankees desperately need offense, they’re turning to the 38-year-old with a career .744 OPS.

9. Remember when Boone said Cole didn’t have a personal catcher in spring training? If you believed him, you likely believe Severino knew the start time of Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS.

The idea Kyle Higashioka makes Cole good is the most ridiculous thing of all time. All time. ALL TIME. You could pull any professional catcher from any level of affiliated or independent baseball, and he would dominate. The only reason the person would need that level of experience would be to catch his breaking pitches.

So now Gary Sanchez will apparently have every fifth day off no matter the opponent or importance of the game. If the Yankees are to reach the postseason, and I say if at this point because it’s clearly no longer a given, that means Higashioka will play in the biggest games of the season. You could see Higashioka in Games 1, 4 and 7 of a seven-game series. Obviously playing in a seven-game series would mean the Yankees have reached the ALCS or World Series and right now they are about as “close” to that as Kluber is close to whatever Boone was suggesting he is close to.

10. The Yankees will hit. They will. They might not hit when it matters or against elite starters or in October, but over the course of six months they will see enough awful pitching that they will score runs. I’m not worried about the offense long term.

I’m worried about the starting pitching though. I truly don’t think it’s going to get better. Kluber isn’t going to suddenly become a seven-inning, 3.00-ERA guy. Jameson Taillon will never be allowed to give the team length since the Yankees are petrified of him getting hurt, and they would rather have him not pitch than win games or preserve their bullpen. Jordan Montgomery is inconsistent. Scumbag German sucks. Deivi Garcia is being wasted at the alternate site. The Yankees are setting themselves up to desperately need Severino to return this summer and be his pre-injured self, which is unfair to him given the time normally needed after Tommy John surgery to regain peak ability, and it’s just an unrealistic expectation.

The Yankees are in trouble. Big trouble. If they don’t outhit their own pitching, there won’t be a postseason for them in 2021. That’s not what I’m worried about though. I’m worried they won’t reach the postseason, will bring back the same roster for 2022 and retain Boone. That’s what keeps me up at night.

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The Yankees tried their best to get swept by the Rays, doing everything they could to lose all three games at Tropicana Field. They managed to eek out a win in the series finale on Sunday, which was a relief, but not satisfying. How could it be with all the issues this team has?

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. At the beginning of Mrs. Doubtfire, with his marriage falling apart, Robin Williams’ character tells Sally Field’s character, “Come on, Miranda. We’ve got problems, but who doesn’t? We could work them out.”

Field responds, “We’ve been trying to work them out for years.”

Williams answers, “Well, let’s take a vacation with the kids …”

Field rebuts, “Our problems would be waiting for us when we got back.”

When I think about the 2021 Yankees, I think about that dialogue. The 2021 Yankees are the same team from 2020. From the final out of the 2020 ALDS until Opening Day 2021, they went on the vacation Williams’ character suggested, and as Field’s character predicted, their problems were waiting for them when they got back.

The nearly six-month layoff that is the offseason didn’t fix the Yankees’ problems. It didn’t change the fact they brought back the same exact lineup that wasn’t good enough to get past the Rays last October. It’s nearly the same lineup that hit .214/.289/.383 in their six-game 2019 ALCS loss to Houston. It’s basically the same lineup that scored 10 runs in their four-game ALDS loss to Boston in 2018. It’s essentially the same lineup that scored three runs in four road games in their seven-game ALCS loss to Houston in 2017.

The break between 2020 and 2021 didn’t enhance the Yankees’ starting pitching. The Yankees chose to turn Masahiro Tanaka into Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon. Kluber looks nothing like his old self and has pitched 6 1/3 innings over two starts, while allowing 15 baserunners, and Taillon is being so overly protected by the Yankees that I can’t see them ever letting him go more than six innings, and even going six innings sounds like a pipe dream. The Yankees still have the same problem they had last year when it comes to their rotation and that’s never knowing what you’re going to get on days when Gerrit Cole doesn’t pitch.

These problems have been on display for nearly the entirety of the 2021 Yankees’ nine games and 85 innings. The Yankees’ four wins have been provided by a Jay Bruce two-run bloop single, a Jordan Montgomery gem, a Gerrit Cole gem and a Rougned Odor RBI bloop single. Without those two bloop singles, the Yankees might only have two wins right now. Thankfully, the Yankees were able to win on Sunday and salvage the third game of the series against the Rays, though it’s hard to be happy or in a good mood following the win because they did everything they could to lose the game and because the rest of the weekend was so bad.

2. At Brian Cashman’s end-of-the-season press conference last October, he openly said, “The Rays are a better franchise right now than we are.”

Well, they still are. The Yankees did nothing in the offseason to make themselves better, let alone make themselves better than the Rays. Maybe over 162 games the Yankees will have a better record than the Rays because they may fare better against other opponents, but head-to-head, the Rays are still better than the Yankees, and it’s not particularly close.

The Yankees were able to avoid Tyler Glasnow in this series, and they still only one won game, needing an Odor blooper to fall in in the 10th inning of the series finale. That’s not encouraging.

3. It’s nice that Odor provided the go-ahead hit in the 10th inning of his Yankees debut. But when it comes to Odor, the simple fact that he’s a Yankee is an embarrassment for the Yankees. Odor was unable to make the Rangers in spring training, a team that’s expected to finish in last place, and a team that owes him $27 million. That’s a lot of money. The entire Yankees infield of DJ LeMahieu ($15 million), Luke Voit ($4.7 million), Gio Urshela ($4.65 million) and Gleyber Torres ($4 million) will make $28.35 million in 2021. So the Rangers essentially owe Odor one season of the Yankees’ infield, and they would rather pay him to not play for them even though they have no expectations for this season. The Rangers are going to be very, very, very bad, and if they thought Odor could help them in even the slightest, at that amount of owed money, you bet your ass they would have kept him.

Since 2017, Odor is a .215/.279/.418 hitter, and statisically one of the worst everyday players in baseball over that time. The Yankees owe him nothing. Nothing as in $0. The Rangers are paying his entire salary, so in that sense, it’s like why not have Odor on the team? At least he can run into one every once in a while, which is more than you can say about Tyler Wade. That doesn’t change the fact the Yankees didn’t add a single left-handed bat this offseason or change the dynamic of their offense from being completely right-handed, so now they are forced to pick up players like Jay Bruce and Odor off the major league scrap heap and hope that maybe the magic of putting on the pinstripes will tempoarily rejuevanate their careers. Most likely it won’t, and they won’t get another job in baseball after their time with the Yankees like Kevin Youkilis, Travis Hafner, Brian Roberts, Richie Sexson, Kendrys Morales, Andruw Jones, Vernon Wells, Dustin Ackley, Ike Davis and many others, but that’s the hope.

4. The problem with having players like Bruce and Odor is Aaron Boone loves to divide the right-handed hitters in his lineup. If you were to play for the Yankees tomorrow and you’re left-handed, no matter your ability or skill level, you’re batting in the top two-thirds of the lineup, most likely sixth (since Aaron Hicks automatically bats third). So that’s where Odor found himself on Sunday.

Boone decided to break his lineup into thirds on Sunday, using left-handed hitters as the grocery sticks to separate them. Hicks would bat third and separate Aaron Judge (second) and Giancarlo Stanton (fourth), Odor would bat sixth and separate Gleyber Torres (fifth) and Gary Sanchez (seventh) and Brett Gardner would bat ninth and separate Gio Urshela (eighth) and DJ LeMahieu (first). So Odor who wasn’t good enough to be a Ranger, appearing in his first real baseball game of 2021 was immediately inserted as the 6-hitter on the Yankees, one spot ahead of Gary Sanchez and two spots ahead of Gio Urshela. This came a week after Boone batted Bruce fifth, the same Bruce who was moments away form either opting out of his contract with the Yankees or being cut by them before Voit tore his meniscus. Boone’s lineups rarely ever make sense. The lineups this season have made no sense at all.

Boone clearly builds his lineup based on favoritism. It takes Sanchez months of otherworldly production to move up in the lineup and less than a week to move down. It took Torres two years and two All-Star appearancees to move out of the bottom third of the order. Frazier opened the season as the No. 9 hitter behind Bruce. Meanwhile, Hicks is cemented into the 3-hole, and is always in the top third, and he along with Judge and Stanton never get benched for underachieving.

5. That’s mainly because Hicks continues to bat third. Hicks gets treated as if he’s Bernie Williams. The difference is Williams was a career .297/.381/.477 hitter who hit 287 home runs, a postseason legend, the heart of the order for four championship teams and a borderline Hall of Famer. That’s Williams’ number 51 in Monument Park. Hicks is a career .234/.331/.400 hitter, who has hit 89 career home runs, has been a postseason disaster and is being forced into the heart of the Yankees order because he has collectively had one good season in his nine-year career. (I don’t mean one good season out of his nine, I mean parts of a few seasons, totaling the amount of one season.) The closest Hicks will ever get to Monument Park is by playing on the other side of the wall from it like he does each home game.

Hicks isn’t good. He has moments where he is, but any player given the amount of plate appearances and chances Hicks has been given in the middle of the Yankees order will do something productive once in a while. Even Chase Headley would do something every once in a while because he played every single day.

I don’t hate Hicks. I hate how Boone uses Hicks, trying to make him something he’s not. If Hicks batted seventh or eighth or ninth (ninth is where he should be), I would have no problem with the way he’s used and would rarely even need to comment on his performance. As long as he were to stay healthy (which is his biggest challenge) and play good defense, his offense wouldn’t matter, like any 9-hitter. When you bat third, especially for the Yankees, everything you do in the batter’s box is magnified and Hicks has done close to nothing in the batter’s box as the No. 3 hitter.

6. When Scumbag Domingo German was sent down after his awful performance in the second game of the series, I thought the Yankees had finally come to their senses that German is not a good pitcher, just like he isn’t a good person. In his stars, he has pitched seven total innings, allowing seven earned runs, four home runs and 14 baserunners. Remember when his nine scoreless spring training innings were being praised? It’s almost as if meaningless games in March against mostly minor league players don’t mean anything.

The Yankees didn’t come to their senses. Boone said before Sunday’s game that German would most likely be called up the next time the Yankees need a fifth starter. How is he the first option? Unless Deivi Garcia is hurt and we don’t know about it (which you can never count out when it comes to the Yankees) then he needs to be called up the next time the Yankees need a fifth starter. German has already cost the Yankees two games this season. Two more than he should have ever been allowed to.

It’s a disgrace the Yankees kept him on the team following his actions and stuck by him through his suspension, but they can finally rid themselves of him and not lose anymore games because of him. Letting him start another game for the organization is unfathomable.

7. If Kluber is going to get injured, he’s going to get injured. There’s no preventing him from injury, and even if there were, the Yankees would be the last team in the world to know how to do so. Kluber needs to pitch. He needs to pitch as much as possible because it’s the only way he will ever come close to resembling the pitcher he once was. And at $11 million and as the No. 2 starter entering the season, the Yankees better start letting him pitch.

The same goes for Taillon. Yes, he had two Tommy John surgeries. There’s no way to prevent him from needing a third or suffering some other injury. Pitchers get hurt. That’s what they do. Throwing a baseball overhand isn’t a natural motion, and repeatedly doing it at high velocities and torquing your elbow to make the baseball spin in different ways will never end well. Right now, Taillon is healthy. As healthy as he’s been since 2018. He needs to pitch. There doesn’t need to be some unproven slow progression of a pitch count to keep him healthy or an unproven innings limit to keep him from further injury. The Yankees can get four innings from two of their starters each time through the rotation and destroy their bullpen. Especially when their fifth starter (Scumbag German) only gave them seven inings over two starts and when you don’t know what you’re going to get from start to start from Montgomery.

8. At Boone’s press conference to open spring training, he was asked if he sees Clint Frazier at the team’s starting left fielder. Here’s what Boone said:

“I do. Clint has obviously come a long way in every aspect of his game and certainly earned his place last year when obviously nothing was given to him. He had to earn everything really the last couple of years … Last year really proved he was ready to grab an everyday role on this team.”

I never believed Boone. The last time the Yankees had played (2020 postseason), Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder. Despite posting a .905 OPS, single-handedly carrying the offense when Judge and Stanton once again missed extended time and when Sanchez and Torres couldn’t hit, and improving his defense to the point he was named a Gold Glove finalist, Frazier rode the bench for both games against Cleveland and the last three games of the ALDS against Tampa Bay. Of the Yankees seven playoff games, Frazier started two of them as Boone started and played Gardner over him. So Frazier “proved he was ready to grab an everyday role with the team” so well last year that he wasn’t an everyday player in the postseason.

The last time the Yankees played Frazier wasn’t the team’s starting left fielder, so how did he suddenly earn the job during the offseason? Were there real, meaningful games over the last four months no one is aware of?

9. The second Gardner re-signed with the team I knew Frazier was screwed. I never believed Frazier would actually be the team’s “everyday” left fielder in 2021. He might play at that position more than any other Yankee this season, not because he’s cemented as the “everyday” player for that position, rather because of injuries. When the Yankees’ outfield is completely healthy like they currently are (since Judge is back playing), Boone will continue to inexplicably sit Frazier play Gardner. He did it in the 2020 postseason, so why wouldn’t he do it again in the 2021 regular season? Nothing has changed since then.

Gardner played over Frazier the last two days, and that trend isn’t going to end. Boone wants Gardner to be his left fielder and any time Gardner does something like make a great catcher or sneak a double in down the line, it’s going to get him more of Frazier’s playing time.

10. The Yankees are 2-4 against the Blue Jays and Rays. They can’t play the Orioles and Red Sox every day, and right now they wouldn’t even want to play the Red Sox. The Yankees now play the Blue Jays (3), Rays again (3) and Braves (8) over the next 10 days. Three difficult opponents, all with postseason aspirations.

I don’t expect the Yankees to change who they are or fix the issues that have hindered them this season and the three previous seasons since they aren’t issues that can be fixed and their roster is what it is for now until Voit and Luis Severino return. I thought maybe this season would be different and the team wouldn’t start off the year in such a discouraging way and hover around .500 for more of April. I was wrong, and I’m mad at myself for thinking 2021 would be different when the team is the same as it was the last four years.

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

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