Since the day the Yankees traded Andrew Miller and received Clint Frazier in return, I have been fearful Frazier would get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees. Between the Yankees’ full roster and lineup, owed salary to established and veteran players, potential trades for starting pitching and Frazier’s own injuries, there has always seemed like too many obstacles in his way of becoming an everyday player for the Yankees.

This was before Frazier decided to pull his disastrous public relations stunt, dodging the media earlier this season following a forgettable Sunday Night Baseball game against the Red Sox. And this was before a roster number crunch made him the odd man out for the acquisition of Edwin Encarnacion. There might not be another team in baseball willing to send down a former first-round pick, who’s now 24 years old and batting .283/.330/.513 with 11 home runs and 34 RBIs, but the Yankees are.

Frazier doesn’t belong in Triple-A. He has nothing left to prove in a league in which he batted .305/.388/.562 in 54 games last year. He’s proven his former draft worth and has displayed the “legendary bat speed” Brian Cashman has raved about since the moment the Yankees traded for him. Unfortunately, for Frazier, the Yankees don’t make roster decisions based on performance.

Frazier’s injuries as a Yankee coupled with roster depth limited his chances to play in an everyday role with the team. Outside of a minor ankle sprain earlier this season, which he valiantly wanted to play through, Frazier has been as close to an everyday player for the Yankees as he’s ever been and he’s performed. He’s played both corner outfield positions (granted, not very well) and has hit everywhere from third to eighth in the lineup. Even in his last game before being sent down on Sunday, Frazier was the cleanup hitter. There were times when he was the best hitter in the lineup, surrounded by a long list of Replacement Yankees, and times when he single-handedly won games with his bat. He was finally (mostly) healthy and on his way to his talent ceiling in his fourth season with the organization.

The Yankees decided to not address their starting pitching issues in the offseason and again recently and now it’s going to likely cost Frazier his Yankees tenure, barring a truly significant injury to Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Hicks by July 31. Even then, Frazier remaining a Yankee might have to come at the cost of significant injuries to two of those three. Brett Gardner would likely go back to an undeserved everyday role after one injury with someone like the unworthy Mike Tauchman becoming the fourth outfielder.

The Yankees gave Gardner a one-year, $7.5 million deal the second free agency opened this past offseason, betting on a soon-to-be 36-year-old coming off the worst season of his career. His seniority and now contract are blocking Frazier from a roster spot in what should be his last season with the Yankees and in baseball, and the Yankees aren’t putting the best possible 25-man roster together or thinking about their future because of Gardner’s presence. A .234/.319/.392 hitter over his last 206 games and 869 plate appearances is sending Frazier to the minors. A late-game defensive replacement is keeping Frazier off this team. It’s not the first time a career resume, history with the team or owed money has been the deciding factor on a roster spot on a team claiming to trying to win the World Series every season, and it certainly won’t be the last.

The Yankees are about to having a starting outfield of Judge, Stanton and Hicks with Encarnacion as the primary designated hitter. There’s no place for Frazier with that setup and no place for him with the team committed to Gardner no matter how long his cold streaks last and how many of them he has. Frazier had his chances with the Yankees, not many of them, and was either injured playing the game hard or demoted for a more established and much older name. Now it looks like he’s out of chances with the Yankees’ inability to address their starting pitching issues in either of the past two offseasons or as recently as two weeks ago.

There’s a good chance Frazier won’t wear the pinstripes again. At least not at this point in his career. Maybe the team will trade for him again in 10 years when they need a right-handed power bat in the lineup to take away the roster spot of their 2029 version of Frazier.

Every sign points to Frazier being moved within the next six weeks and my biggest fear coming true: Clint Frazier is going to get a full-time major league opportunity and realize his potential with a team other than the Yankees.

***

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

Back on April 16, James Paxton dominated the Red Sox for eight shutout innings. The game was at the height of the Replacement Yankees era when the team needed pitching to keep them in games, so their makeshift lineup wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting. Paxton was brilliant, allowing two hits and a walk with 12 strikeouts over 110 pitches.

The following day, I wrote, “That’s the James Paxton the Yankees Traded For” in response to his first big start as a Yankee. I raved about him accepting and welcoming the pressure that comes with playing for the Yankees and his “We want to beat Boston every time” line to the media. I finished by writing the following:

I certainly don’t have to worry about Paxton’s mindset, and after Tuesday’s start, I don’t have to worry about his performance, knowing he has that level of dominance of him.

Well, not even two months later, I’m worried about his performance.

Paxton still has that level of dominance of him, but we have only seen it twice this season: the April 16 game against the Red Sox and his following start on April 21 against the Royals. Paxton pitched 14 scoreless innings over those two starts with 24 strikeouts as those were the only two starts of the season in which he went at least six innings. His other eight starts?

His other eight starts have been a disaster. OK, seven of his other eight starts have been a disaster since there was his return from the injured list on May 29 against the Padres when he threw only 66 pitches over four shutout innings and was treated more like an opener in that game. Outside of his April 16 and 21 starts, Paxton hasn’t gone six innings in any other start. Actually, forget six innings, Paxton has failed to go five innings in five of his 10 starts as a Yankee.

Last year at the trade deadline, I called James Paxton “blah” and in the same category as Chris Archer and Michael Fulmer, pitchers who I didn’t think were worth trading for since they wouldn’t really make the Yankees that much better and certainly worth giving up high-end prospects for. It was hard to find anyone who shared my perspective. His raw stuff wasn’t the reason I referred to him as “blah”, it was his combination of injuries and inconsistency. When Paxton was on, he was among the best pitchers in the world, but he was rarely on in consecutive starts or for any reasonable stretch of time. We have seen that now with the Yankees as well.

My biggest problem with the Yankees acquiring Paxton was the fact he has never pitched more than 160 1/3 innings in a single season and is good for at least one injured list trip per season. I wasn’t necessarily worried about his overall performance since I knew he would dominate at times and also lay some eggs at times. I was worried about his health, and rightfully so, as he landed on the injured in the middle of his seventh Yankees start, and now says his knee injury is something he will have to pitch through and deal with. After his starts against the Red Sox and Royals, I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about his performance, but he’s been hit around by teams like the Orioles, Giants, Blue Jays and Mets and has provided no length, so now I’m more than worried.

After the Yankees won the first game of the Subway Series doubleheader on Tuesday, I figured they would sweep the day. Paxton against the soft-throwing, left-handed Jason Vargas? That’s about as good of a matchup as you can ask for if you’re the Yankees. But Paxton gave up a double, single and three-run home run to open the game and was eventually pulled in the third inning. He put nine baserunners on in 2 2/3 innings and allowed six of them to score. His line: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR. It was his shortest effort of the season and the most earned runs he’s allowed in a game as a Yankee. As he left the game, Michael Kay said, “Not Paxton’s night.” But when is it going to be his night again outside of those two April starts?

The Yankees need Paxton to either be great or give them length. If he’s going to be a five-inning pitcher, something the Yankees have too many of, then he needs to be great for those five innings. If he’s not going to do that then he needs to give them length. The combination of underperforming and going less than five innings isn’t going to work. It’s not just Paxton either, it’s who the Yankees’ rotation has been through 41 percent of the season. The Yankees have now played 66 games and their starters have pitched six innings in 25 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. Paxton has been a problem, though he’s just part of the problem. But given his stuff and ability, he shouldn’t be part of the problem.

The Yankees chose to pass on Dallas Keuchel, who would have offered them durability and length at just the cost of money. Instead, they will have to address their starting pitching performance and depth issues through a trade, considering they are out of in-house rotation candidates, which will likely cost them both money and prospects. And with the way the trade market has historically played out, the Yankees are about six weeks away from upgrading their rotation.

Even if the Yankees do upgrade their rotation, Paxton is still going to be a part of it and he’s still going to be counted on. We’re nearly halfway through the season, and overall, Paxton has been the guy I feared the Yankees trading for aside from a pair of starts against the Red Sox, who are .500, and the Royals, who have the worst record in the majors.

He needs to better. He has to better. He hasn’t been the James Paxton the Yankees thought they traded for.

***

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

The ownership and front office of the Yankees should regret the decision to pass on Dallas Keuchel. They should regret it the same way they should regret not trading for Justin Verlander by the September 1 deadline in 2017 only to have him single-handedly beat them in the ALCS, and the same way they should regret cutting payroll by $50 million the season after they came within one win of the World Series. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Yankees regret either of those decisions, and I don’t think they will regret this one either.

After the egregious mistakes of Verlander in 2017 and the drastic decrease in payroll in 2018, the Yankees reset their luxury-tax number for the most impressive free-agent class in history. While the disappointing endings to the previous two seasons stung, the Yankees were about to enter the first real season in their current window of opportunity to win a championship and they had set themselves up perfectly to potentially build a dynastic roster. The Yankees were expected to combine their inexpensive core of position players of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar with one and possibly two 26-year-old generational superstars and give their rotation a boost with a 29-year-old, left-handed strikeout machine. But they didn’t. They passed on all three, settling on much more cost effective options and once again creating a super bullpen, a bullpen they failed to utilize properly in the postseason, the time of the year they built it solely for.

Hal Steinbrenner cited the future need to pay the Yankees’ homegrown core as the reason for not signing any of the Top 3 free agents and his excuse was full of holes. If the Yankees weren’t willing to sign the 26-year-old Bryce Harper or 26-year-old Manny Machado or 29-year-old Patrick Corbin, why would they suddenly be OK with signing Judge, Sanchez, Torres or Andujar at older ages? If the Yankees didn’t want to give out long-term contracts for players into their mid-30s, then how were they going to give any members of their core long-term contracts?

It’s become nearly impossible to believe Hal’s “championship goal” sales pitch because he’s done nothing to prove he’s doing everything to achieve that goal. Are fans supposed to believe the organization’s disastrous Brian McCann-Jacoby Ellsbury-Carlos Beltran offseason more than five years ago was their way of showing they care rather than just a failed attempt to recreate the CC Sabathia-A.J. Burnett-Mark Teixeira offseason which led to a championship? Are fans supposed to think acquiring Giancarlo Stanton was the same as going all out in this past free-agent class when Stanton was essentially handed to the Yankees and his salary was offset by the subtraction of Starlin Castro, the trade of Chase Headley and the Marlins picking up some his tab? The Yankees are making more money than ever before and somehow their payroll isn’t higher than ever before and somehow they aren’t chasing players who will only cost money. Hal has been a broken record when it comes to preaching player development and building a team from within with a strong farm system, yet here he is, failing to go after players who will only cost money and won’t dismantle the team’s farm system.

I understand the Yankees’ decision to pass on Dallas Keuchel during the offseason. He’s on the wrong side of 30 and every important metric to the left-handed groundball pitcher is trending down. It didn’t make sense to give the 31-year-old a multi-year deal when he’s pitching more like a 38-year-old, and when you couple his declining performance and big-money demands with his attachment to a first-round draft pick, he never made sense for the Yankees with the way they currently operate.

But everything changed when Keuchel went unsigned past the draft. He was no longer attached to a first-round pick and he was willing to except a prorated version of the qualifying offer he turned down from the Astros for the rest of the season. The Yankees could get Keuchel as a four-month rental and solidify their rotation with a durable, left-handed arm, and all it would cost them is cash. Somehow, they passed again.

The Yankees have played 61 games. Their starters have pitched six innings in 23 of them and have provided 21 quality starts. That’s not bad, that’s atrocious. The disappointing starting pitching has led to the super bullpen being overused, and as the Yankees’ biggest strength, the super bullpen isn’t going to be so super come October if it keeps needing to get 12-plus outs per night. Keuchel might not be what he was as the AL Cy Young winner in 2015 (20-8, 2.48 ERA) or as an All-Star in 2017 (14-5, 2.90 ERA). The Yankees only needed him to be what he was in 2018 (12-11, 3.74 ERA) and they might not have even needed that kind of performance. They need quality innings and length from durable, experience starting pitcher and Keuchel is exactly that.

Now the Yankees will have to hold off the Rays for 101 games with the injury-prone histories of Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and CC Sabathia, the innings limit of Domingo German and the inconsistent performance of J.A. Happ. Maybe they will get Luis Severino back at some point this season and he will be his usual ace self, but counting on the face of the Yankees’ current and future rotation following shoulder and lat injuries is a major risk. If any of the current five members of the rotation should get injured or need to miss a start, which is a certainty, considering Sabathia’s knee-related missed starts are planned, the options are using an “opener” combination of Chad Green, Nestor Cortes, Luis Cessa and David Hale or getting spot starts from Chance Adams or possibly Jonathan Loaisiga if he gets healthy. The Yankees have no starting pitching depth, though not many teams do, and they had a chance to acquire depth for only money: the thing they make more of than any other team.

The Yankees will likely address their starting pitching need between now and the July 31 trade deadline, but it’s going to come at the cost of a trade. They won’t be able to fix their problem with their bank account, they will have to further dismantle their farm system, which has taken a big hit over the last two years with trades for players and pitchers like David Robertson, Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle, Sonny Gray, Brandon Drury and Zack Britton. The Yankees might be able to land a pitcher with better abilities than Keuchel, but chances are they are going to land someone with equal or lesser ability at a much greater price.

The Replacement Yankees did their part in April for keeping the team afloat until some of the regulars could return. The Yankees kept it going in May by climbing past the Rays for first place in the East and proving to ownership and the front office how good this team could be once Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Didi Gregorius, Severino and Dellin Betances return. The players have lived up to their end of the bargain by proving their worth as a World Series contender in need of a starting pitcher to avoid the wild-card game for the fourth time in five years. Ownership failed them again by passing on Keuchel. The players should be used to it by now. The fans certainly are.

***

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

I need to know who owns the Yankees’ lineup card, the scheduled days off calendar and the bullpen decisions. Like Reggie Dunlop badgering Joe McGrath to find out who owns the Chiefs in Slap Shot in order to save the franchise, I’m trying to save the Yankees’ season, the first season in their current window of opportunity to win a championship.

It was bad enough Brett Gardner was batting leadoff every game for nearly the first month of the season, while DJ LeMahieu was clearly the right choice at the top of the order. It got worse when Gardner batted third and then fourth in consecutive games in Tampa in the middle of May with first place on the line. On Wednesday night, Gardner was in the lineup, batting ahead of Gio Urshela, who has been one of the Yankees’ Top 3 or 4 hitters this season. The injuries to Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge have forced Gardner into the lineup more than the Yankees planned on him being as a 35-year-old coming off the worst season of his career. I get that he has to be in the lineup with Stanton and Judge still out, but he doesn’t have to bat in the lineup where he has been or continues to be. I understand it’s unfair to overly criticize Gardner since he didn’t offer himself a one-year, $7.5 million contract the second free agency started, and he isn’t the one filling out the lineup card. But I need to know who is.

The problem with the Yankees lineup doesn’t end there, it only gets more puzzling and frustrating. The Blue Jays didn’t want Kendrys Morales and the A’s didn’t want him either, so the Yankees took a flyer on him with their team decimated by injuries, searching for any sort of left-handed power they could. After his mammoth home run in his second game as a Yankee, which almost reached the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, it seemed like maybe the Yankees were hitting on yet another veteran player on his way out of the league, who was getting a second life after putting on the pinstripes. However, that was the last and only extra-base hit Morales has produced as a Yankee, batting .167/.322/.229 in 59 plate appearances. As a bat-only player, his bat is now gone, though that hasn’t stopped the “manager” of the Yankees from batting him no lower than sixth in any of his starts, and as high as fourth, which he batted on May 22 and 23 and again on Wednesday night in Toronto.

The lineup issue hasn’t been just about Gardner and Morales and it hasn’t only been a thing of late. It’s been a thing all season and it was a thing last season too, especially when Gleyber Torres continued to bat ninth, even batting behind Masahiro Tanaka in interleague play, while carrying the Yankees offensively for weeks at a time. If you’re reading this and you’re a left-handed hitter, if you were to play for the Yankees tonight, you would most likely bat third, fourth or fifth. Your actual talent and abilities don’t matter, just what hand you bat with. The Yankees desperately believe in dividing up the right-handed hitters in their lineup and will put weaker bats at the top and middle of the lineup in order to do so. It’s why Gardner and Morales have batted high in the order in important games and series, and why Mike Tauchman did as well earlier in the season. It’s why Aaron Hicks was immediately inserted into the 2-, 3- and 4-holes upon his return, even though he lacked a significant amount of rehab games and was seeing major league pitching in the middle of the season. It’s why the Yankees will force Didi Gregorius back into the lineup in the same way, likely pushing down Luke Voit and Gary Sanchez in the process. 

On Tuesday night, Hicks was given the night off. This after the Yankees had a scheduled day off on Monday and were rained out last Thursday. Between Hicks’s return on May 15 and last night was a period of 22 days. In that time he started 15 games, which means in the last three weeks plus one day, he had an entire week off. Not to mention he had all of March and April and half of May off as well after his unfortunate and odd back injury. Hicks looked lost at the plate in his first 15 games back, batting .204/.302/.259, but that didn’t stop the owner of the lineup card from batting him leadoff (one games), second (four games), third (seven games) and fourth (three games) only. On Tuesday night, Hicks finally looked like the player deserving of a seven-year, $70 million extension, finally looking comfortable at the plate as he went 2-for-4 with a double, home run and walk. He was rewarded by not being in the lineup the next night. He wasn’t even given a full night off as he was brought in as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning, even though there’s no defense for the home runs Zack Britton and Luis Cessa gave up to lose the game. So Hicks was able to play on Wednesday, just not the first seven-plus innings and just not enough to have an impact on the game.

So who owns the Yankees’ lineup card? Aaron Boone has sternly said in the past, the lineup card is his, and you can sort of sense it in his voice that it’s really the only thing he has control over. If I were him, it’s the only thing I would admit to being responsible for. If I were him and I had control over the bullpen and made the decisions he has as Yankees manager, I would pretend I was being told which relievers to bring in as well. But it’s hard to know if Boone really, truly owns the lineup card. If he does own it then there’s a huge problem and he needs to have the responsibility taken away. I have joked in the past that since Brian Cashman is so good at trades and so bad at free agency, the Yankees should have Cashman conduct the trades and have a second general manager handle free agency, the way some NFL teams have a kicker for kickoffs and another for field goals. I think the Yankees need to follow this setup for their manager as well. Boone can be the clubhouse manager since he was hired for his personality and ability to communicate with the players. He can be the one who jokes in the room and keeps things loose with his impressions of the team’s roster. He can go out drinking with the guys after games, set up dinner plans on road trips and lead the card games on the team plane. Then, the Yankees can hire an actual game manager in the dugout because after 227 major league games and another two months of spring training games, it’s clear Boone can’t handle in-game strategy and management. Both the lineup card and the bullpen decisions on Wednesday led to a second straight loss to the Blue Jays who had lost six in a row and nine of their last 10 coming into this series.

If it’s the front office who owns the lineup card, we have a much bigger problem. The Yankees are driven by analytics and if it’s the analytics department recommending Gardner batting first or third or ahead of Urshela or playing against a left-handed starter while Clint Frazier sits on the bench, or thinking Morales should continue to take up a 25-man roster spot and bat fourth when he plays or continue to return players just off the injured list into the top of the order as if they just didn’t miss significant time, then the Yankees need new analytics guys. Any person, stat or formula suggesting the way the Yankees have constructed their lineup outside of the games in which the lineup was nearly all Replacement Yankees can’t be trusted. The Yankees can’t have someone who thinks these lineup choices put the team in the best position to succeed also determining which players the Yankees should target through free agency. Maybe that’s why the Yankees passed on Patrick Corbin for J.A. Happ and why Dallas Keuchel continues to be a free agent, while Yankees starters have accumulated 20 quality starts in 60 games. Maybe it was the stat guys telling Boone to never bat Judge, Sanchez and Stanton back-to-back-to-back outside of Opening Day in Toronto last season. Maybe it was the analytics team who told Boone to go to A.J. Cole in big spots as often as Boone did last season or to let Luis Severino load the bases with no outs in the fourth inning of Game 3 of the ALDS when he had nothing left and then to bring in Lance Lynn in relief of Severino or to allow CC Sabathia to go through the entire Red Sox’ lineup a second time in Game 4 because Boone liked the matchup of Sabathia and the 9-hitter or to continue to bring Jonathan Holder into winnable games, only to have him lose those games.

There’s the idea the lineup and its order doesn’t matter and if a guy bats fifth or eighth isn’t as significant as it’s made out to be. If that’s true then why not have Austin Romine lead off when he plays and why not bat Kendrys Morales second when he plays? Bat Judge ninth upon his return and put Stanton one spot ahead of him at eighth. The Yankees would never do that because the lineup and the order the hitters are placed does matter. But to them, it only matters for some spots in the order and for some players on the team.

The unnecessary days off, like Hicks received on Wednesday night, and like Sanchez continues to receive each week, have an enormous impact on the lineup, and unfortunately are never going away. The Yankees believe they have some sort of special calendar or science to navigate through the regular season by giving players extra rest, and that it will help maintain performance throughout the season and prevent injuries. The Yankees haven’t won the division in what will be seven years this season. Since their last division title, they were destroyed by injuries in 2013, poorly built in 2014, blew a seven-game lead in two weeks in the second half of 2015, traded away all of their assets in 2016, had a surprising run to the ALCS before being unable to hit breaking balls in 2017 and played just-above-.500 baseball for most of the second half and nearly blew their first wild-card lead before being embarrassed in the ALDS in 2018. In which of those seasons did the Yankees manage to either sustain their level of performance for the entire season or avoid injuries? At some point this season, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Clint Frazier have all been on the injured list and Andujar was lost for the season. That’s not including the non-regular position players who have also gone on the injured list along with 60 percent of the team’s rotation and their best reliever. Injuries can’t be prevented or avoided. The Yankees haven’t proven they can’t sustain performance through an entire season with extra days off and if they think they can prevent injuries after what’s gone on this season, well then that’s a bigger joke than Luis Cessa continuing to be a Yankee because he’s out of options and the Yankees are scared he will magically figure it out with another organization.

As for the bullpen management, there seems to be no logic or reasoning behind most of the in-game decisions. Holder continues to pitch in any and all situations, whether the game is tied, the Yankees are losing or barely holding on to a lead. He comes in in the fifth inning, the eighth inning, extra innings and every inning in between. He seems to be immune to days off, while Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman have to have days off between outings, and he seems to be the only non-closer who Boone asks to get three outs instead of two. Let me put it simply: Holder isn’t good. That doesn’t mean he can’t have a place on the team, he just shouldn’t be pitching in high-leverage situations ever. If the Yankees are up big or down big early, put him in. If the Yankees have a minimal chance of a comeback, put him in. If the Yankees are up five runs in the ninth, sure put him in and try to end the game, just don’t be surprised if Chapman is forced to warm up and eventually come into the game. The same goes for Chad Green, who after a couple good outings has the Yankees treating him like it’s 2017, and April and May, which included him being so bad he was sent down, never happened. The same also goes for Cessa, who has no role on the team. He isn’t good enough to start, he’s not overpowering or trustworthy enough to be a back-end reliever and now he’s proven he’s not really a long-man either. It’s time to give another team a chance to figure out what Cessa’s “role” is. If the Yankees try to pass him through waivers and he gets claimed, so be it. Maybe another AL team will pick him up and the Yankees can get some of the runs back against him in a future matchup to make up for all the runs he has given up as a Yankee.

The Yankees are always worried about tomorrow with their bullpen, playing for a situation that may come up the following day, but most likely won’t. They threw away the series finale in Kansas City and were perfectly fine with letting Nestor Cortes lose that game, the same way they were fine if Cortes lost the series finale to the Rays a week earlier. When Cortes continued to put up zeros in Kansas City, they went to Holder, who quickly lost the game, erasing the improbable three-run ninth inning the Yankees put together to send the games to extras. They did this because they were worried about overusing the elite relievers and not having them available the following day. How many times over the years have we seen Chapman or Dellin Betances forced into games they have no business pitching in because they need the work after a week-long layoff due to lopsided scores? Put the team in the best position to succeed in the current situation and win the game at hand. Worry about tomorrow when you get there.

To some, this is me complaining about a team that’s 38-22, in first place and holding a one-game lead over the Rays and a seven-game lead over the Red Sox in the loss column. That’s not the case. This is me worried about the team not consistently being put in the best position to succeed and win the most games possible to avoid a fourth wild-card game in five years. In 2015, we saw what could happen in a one-game playoff if you’re matched up against the wrong starting pitcher. In 2017, we saw what happens when you are forced to overwork your bullpen to get to the ALDS and then they’re ineffective when needed in the best-of-5 and best-of-7 format. In 2018, we saw what happens when you have to to use your best starter in the wild-card game and he’s forced to make that additional start in the postseason and then isn’t available until the third game of the ALDS.

It’s hard enough to win the crapshoot that is the baseball postseason when your team is at full strength, completely healthy and your rotation is perfectly lined up. It’s nearly impossible to win when you’re forced to play one game to remain in the postseason and advance, burn your best starter in that game, use your elite relievers, have a day off and then go on the road for the first two games of a best-of-5 series against a well-rested team at home with their ace going. The difference between the Yankees winning the AL East and advancing to the division series without having to get through another stressful one-game playoff and going to that one-game playoff could very well come down to one game this season. The Yankees don’t seem worried about this scenario, but I am. 

Either the Yankees have a manager in so far over his head or they have an analytics team which needs to be reevaluated. Either way, it’s a problem. Yankees fans deserve to know who is really managing the team.

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