“Just dealing with some crankiness,” Aaron Boone said rather nonchalantly about Aaron Judge on Feb. 18, 2020. “I guess a little soreness in the shoulder.”

That was the start of spring training five years ago.

“I feel like it’s a pretty minor thing,” Boone said of Judge back then. “Probably in the next couple days, start ramping him back up.”

Judge showed up to spring training with a nagging injury from the past season.

“We did put him through a battery of tests,” Boone said. “He had the MRI.”

“It was kind of what his shoulder has always been,” Boone said in regard to the MRI results, which made it seem like Judge’s shoulder hasn’t always been in the best of conditions.

“It probably started a couple weeks ago, when I first got down here,” Judge said. “I’ve been hitting since early November, and working out since early November. Once I got down here, hit on the field, hitting outside I just felt a little soreness up in the shoulder.

“Nothing alarming, nothing that I was like, ‘Hey, we need to really check this out,” Judge continued. “So I said, ‘We got plenty of time going into spring training. Let’s take it slow these next couple days, make sure everything’s right, and then kind of go from there.”

“I don’t anticipate it will delay the start of the season,” Boone said. “We will treat it very conservatively.”

Not even two weeks later on March 1, Boone told YES that Judge is going through “testing” to find out why his shoulder is still bothering him. The injury Boone described as “minor” and the one Judge thought didn’t need to be checked out had not progressed in 12 days.

Two days later, Brian Cashman referred to the injury as “pec area” after it had originally been called a shoulder injury.

“They are optimistic that it’s a muscle, but it’s premature,” Cashman said. “I know he feels much better and optimistic.”

Later that week, Boone said the injury “shows signs of healing” even though no one seemed to know if it was a shoulder injury or pec injury or muscle injury.

“I wouldn’t say [surgery] is off the table,” Boone said about the unknown injury, but you wouldn’t want to go to that right now especially if the bone is healing.”

Suddenly, it was bone-related.

Finally, two weeks later on March 20, the Yankees announced that in addition to Judge dealing with a fractured rib, he was also suffering from a collapsed lung. It took 31 days from Judge’s shoulder “crankiness” for the Yankees to announce a complete diagnosis.

Judge suffered the injuries diving for a ball in September 2019 and somehow it went undiagnosed for six months. This came after the ‘Next Man Up’ season of 2019 when the Yankees completely overhauled their entire medical and training staff. Here we are five years later and not much has changed with injuries still being handled and diagnosed with Google searches and WebMD visits.

On top of the odd approach to diagnosing and treating injuries, the Yankees’ continued lack of care for creating depth on their roster has compounded the issue that has been a staple of Cashman’s roster building for a decade.

It’s unfortunate Giancarlo Stanton continues to deal with injuries to both elbows that he dealt with last season, which went untreated from the end of the World Series until the start of spring training. It’s not unfortunate Stanton is injured again, since Cashman himself said a little more than a year ago getting hurt “seems to be part of his game.” But did Cashman prepare for the inevitable Stanton injury? Of course not! Why would he? Why build roster depth and invest in proven major-league talent when you can take a chance on Austin Wells being the hitter he was from the end of April until the end of August and not the hitter he was in March, April, September and October? There’s no need to spend anymore when you can pray Anthony Volpe finally takes a step forward after 1,290 plate appearances. There’s no need to do anything when you’re banking on Paul Goldschmidt to turn back the clock a couple of years, DJ LeMahieu to turn it back five years and for Jasson Dominguez to be a generational talent. (Well, so much for a LeMahieu revival as he was injured more than a week ago and no strategy or timetable for his return have been given.)

“Dealing with it at the end of last year, I thought we were in a good place,” Cashman said of Stanton’s elbow problems. “Three weeks before camp it came up.”

Except it didn’t come up three weeks before camp. It came up last year, like you just said. Guess what else came up last year? An elbow injury to Gerrit Cole that kept him out for the first half of the season.

The Yankees know Cole’s age. They know his decreased strikeout numbers and velocity. They know what they saw on those MRI results a year ago. And they still took him back after he opted out. Maybe the Yankees were always going to take him back if he opted out, or maybe they took him back to keep as many names as they could in their effort to entice Juan Soto to re-sign. No matter the reason, it was a regrettable decision in real time, and now that Cole is going to be out until the middle of the 2026 season, it looks like idiotic.

Last year when Cole went down, Luis Gil won the job to replace him in the rotation. The oft-injured Gil hadn’t pitched in the majors in two years, but was awesome in his first full season at age 26, winning Rookie of the Year (despite leading the league in walks). Between injuries and performance, Gil’s stock would never be higher, so it made sense for everyone to agree putting him in a deal for one year of Kyle Tucker was worth it. The Yankees balked at the Cubs’ ask of Gil and kept him. He’s now hurt and expected to miss half of the season.

“Thankfully, as long we handle it right, we’ll get him back sometime in the summer,” Cashman said of Gil.

Not a whole lot of trust in thinking the Yankees will handle Gil’s lat injury properly. Six years ago, Luis Severino went down with a lat injury in spring training. The Yankees let him start to ramp up before doing an MRI to see how his injury was progressing and he was re-injured. Cashman said in hindsight the team should have imaged Severino again. Apparently, Cashman won’t let that happen again with Gil.

“Being a starter he has minimum of six weeks no throw, Cashman said. “They’ll re-image, re-MRI it during that rest period.”

That’s good. But it’s not all good, as Cashman then decided to get flexible with the six-week no-throw period that has been recited countlessly of late.

“Is it six weeks, is it seven weeks, is it eight weeks?” Cashman asked as if he were playing “How Old Are You Now?” after singing “Happy Birthday”.

“You’re talking about three months you’re not going to see him,” Cashman said. “That’s unfortunate, but that’s also part of the existence of pitching.”

Yes, that is the existence of pitching, and that’s why when you have the opportunity to trade it for a superstar bat in its prime, like Tucker, you do it.

“You can never have enough [pitching],” Cashman said, “and hopefully we have what we need.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, Marcus Stroman and either Carlos Carrasco or Will Warren isn’t all that you will need. Fried has a history of elbow injuries, Rodon has made 30-plus starts in two of his 10 seasons, Schmidt already had a back issue this spring after missing half of last year with a lat injury, Stroman pitched to a 5.88 ERA and put 131 baserunners on in 75 innings over his last 16 starts last season, Carrasco has a 5.02 ERA in 547 1/3 innings since the start of 2019 and Warren put 44 baserunners on in 22 2/3 innings with a 10.32 ERA last season.

This isn’t pessimism, this is realism. Everything written to this point has been fact, either a quote said by a Yankees employee or a stat produced by a Yankees player. If it paints a dark picture of where the Yankees stand with a little more than two weeks until Opening Day it’s because it is a dark picture. The trustworthy part of the Yankees’ lineup is Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm. The trustworthy part of their rotation is less than that. At this rate, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver shouldn’t be allowed to throw another pitch in spring training.

The Yankees’ win total has plummeted from 92.5. to 88.5. Despite all of these issues, I still like the over. Despite all of their issues, I still think this Yankees team is a playoff team. It’s not because I think they still have a well-made roster without Cole for the entire season, without Gil for half of it and without Stanton until who knows when. It’s not because I believe in Volpe’s bat or think Goldschmidt will experience an MVP-like resurgence because he puts on the pinstripes or because I think either Oswaldo Cabrera or Oswald Peraza will become a trusted, everyday major leaguer. No, it’s because the American League isn’t very good.

For years now, the Yankees have operated under the idea of why use our vast financial resources and unrivaled revenue to build the best possible roster when the other 14 teams in the AL aren’t building the best possible rosters they can? The Yankees know they don’t have to be the best team in the AL to consider their season a success. They just have to be better than nine teams in the AL. Even with all of these injuries, they still are.

Good enough to make the playoffs? Yes. Good enough to win the World Series? Not without an inordinate amount of luck. But that’s good enough for the Yankees since that’s what they believe is needed to win in October anyway.

Giancarlo Stanton began spring training by saying he hadn’t swung a bat for three to four weeks because of pain in both of his elbows. The issue Aaron Boone described as “akin to tennis elbow” has become a little more worrisome than tennis elbow as a day after the Yankees manager said Stanton continued to receive treatment, Stanton was reportedly in New York for evaluation. That report was then somewhat rebutted by Boone who said Stanton’s trip to New York is “personal in nature” and “I’m going to leave it at that for now.” Just your normal, run-of-the-mill spring training injury mystery for the Aaron Boone Yankees.

Whether Stanton is in New York to have his elbows evaluated or not, he’s not in Tampa, he’s not at spring training and he hasn’t swung a bat in a month. Given Stanton’s injury history, it’s hard to feel anything other than extremely shitty about his chances of not missing a significant amount of time this season due to this injury (or is it injuries since it’s both elbows?)

If injuries didn’t seem to always progress from an annoyance to season-altering in the span of hours with the Yankees then I may be less worried about every injury announcement the team makes. And if this were a player other than Stanton, I may be less worried. But I know how it goes with Stanton, and I know how his rehab and recoveries generally go. We’re coming up on the six-year anniversary of a biceps strain becoming a shoulder strain becoming a calf strain during the same stint on the injured list for Stanton. It wouldn’t surprise me if the timetable for his return ends up being post-All-Star break. I’m prepared for that. It’s unfortunate the Yankees aren’t.

Prior to last season, it was Brian Cashman who said Stanton is “going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game.” Sure enough, Stanton missed 48 regular-season games, equating to 30 percent of the season. Last year, the Yankees had Juan Soto to more than make up for an extended Stanton absence. A year later since Cashman made those remarks and a year older for Stanton and now without Soto, the Yankees’ offense needed help for 2025 even if Stanton were to play in 158 games like he did seven years ago in 2018. But in the Yankees’ annual attempt of letting their success hinge on a massive gamble, the first leg of their 2025 parlay is already in peril.

The Yankees are now going to open the season with three trustworthy bats out of their nine lineup spots. They’re going to have a 37-year-old first baseman coming off the worst two seasons of his career and clearly in decline; they’re going to have a 17-percent-worse-than-league-average bat at shortstop; they don’t know who’s going to play third base; they’re going to play a rookie in left field; they’re going to play a sophomore at catcher coming off a disastrous September/October and then they’re likely to frequently use the now vacated designated hitter spot for Aaron Judge, which means more playing time for Trent Grisham, who wasn’t good enough to play over Alex Verdugo in October (the same Alex Verdugo who remains unwanted by the entire league despite supposedly being in his prime at age 29). If only there was a time during the baseball calendar in which teams could buy the rights to proven, unsigned players, the Yankees would be able to take advantage of their vast financial resources to fill holes and add depth to the roster. If only such a time existed.

I have no issue with Stanton being hurt, considering that’s what he does: he gets hurt, just like Cashman said. What I do have an issue with is the Yankees’ lack of depth entering the season. When the general manager openly opines about the annual injuries to an important piece of the team’s offense and decides against defending the possibility of said player getting hurt it’s irresponsible.

Stanton missing 30 percent of 2024 was nothing new. Aside from his first season with the Yankees (2018) when he played in 158 games and played through a lingering hamstring issue, Stanton has missed an unbelievable amount of time. In 2019, he played in just 18 games, and in 2020, he missed 37 of 60 games (and would have missed at least half the season if the season was played in full as he was expected to be out until July). In 2021, he amazingly played in 139 games, but followed that up by playing in only 110 games in 2022 and 101 in 2023. Here is the breakdown of percentage of the season missed by Stanton during his Yankees tenure.

2018: 2%
2019: 89%
2020: 62%
2021: 14%
2022: 32%
2023: 38%
2024: 30%

In total, Stanton has missed 364 of a possible 1,032 regular-season games as a Yankee, or 35 percent.

Stanton’s bat has always been there in October. With 18 home runs in 41 games (a home run every 9.6 plate appearances) and a .994 postseason OPS, regular-season Stanton has always received a pass because of postseason Stanton. But the Yankees don’t get a pass. Not when they could have planned for the inevitable.

In the past, extended absences for Stanton during the regular season haven’t been as damaging as expected, and that’s because for a while he was a luxury on the Yankees roster. That’s no longer the case. The Yankees need Stanton for more than just October. They need him to get there.

The good news is the injury to both of Stanton’s arms apparently dates back to last season, and he supposedly played through it when he was destroying the pitching of the Royals, Guardians and Dodgers, so he has played with it and performed with it. The bad news is Stanton and the Yankees had four months to diagnose and treat the injuries and they didn’t, and now a large portion or more of his 2025 season is at risk.

I wish an easy answer to replacing Stanton and giving the Yankees a quality bat other than Judge, Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm existed, but it doesn’t. Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t want to spend another dollar on the 2025 roster (he said as much this weekend), and even if he did, there’s no one worth signing.

I’m prepared for the worst when it comes to a return date for Stanton. I’m prepared for a lot of Judge at DH and a lot of Grisham in the lineup. I’m prepared for a lot of games needing to be won by the pitching staff. I know what an extended Stanton absence looks like and I’m prepared for what an extended Stanton absence entails. Somehow, the Yankees weren’t.

A lot happened with the Yankees over the weekend, all off the field. The team went against their contract extension policy, amended their beard policy, reminded everyone of how much money they are spending on their roster, misevaluated their player development system and vowed to stop playing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” after losses. There was a little good and a lot of bad, which is the way it goes when Hal Steinbrenner speaks publicly.

“After great consideration, we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward,” Steinbrenner said. “It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”

This weekend was the appropriate time. Not last weekend. Not the weekend before. Not last season or the one before that. February 2025: the appropriate time.

While this is a change, it’s not that much of a change. The Yankees still won’t allow long hair and they aren’t going to have anyone looking like Charlie Blackmon or Brandon Marsh. A well-groomed beard is hardly noticeable, so if that’s what it takes for some players to feel good about themselves, then this change makes a lot of sense.

“Winning was the most important thing to my father,” Steinbrenner said. (Notice how he said it was the most important thing to his father, and not himself? We all know increasing the cost of tickets, concessions and merchandise while maintaining the same payroll is the most important thing to Hal.) “If somebody came and told him that they were very sure this could affect us getting the players we want to get … I think he might be a little more apt to do the change than people think, because it was about winning.”

Aaron Boone went on to say that the rule could potentially prevent someone from signing with the team and Brian Cashman cited a non-roster invitee who was hesitant about signing with the Yankees because of shaving. Boone spoke in hypotheticals and Cashman mentioned a player who may or may not exist. Ultimately, no player is choosing to not sign with the Yankees over their appearance policy. Money trumps a beard or long hair.

Money was also talked about extensively by Steinbrenner as he can never help himself from telling everyone how much of his inherited money he is spending on his inherited baseball team.

“Our payroll now is almost identical to last year,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re right at 307, 308. I think then last year we were 310, so we’re right there.”

The Yankees’ payroll should never be the same year over year. It should increase every year. When the prices for tickets, concessions and merchandise remain the same year over year then Hal can keep the payroll the same year over year. But for some odd season, Hal’s revenues keep increasing, while payroll remains the same.

“Should I really need a $300 million-plus payroll to win a championship?” Steinbrenner asked. “Does having a huge payroll really increase my chances that much of winning a championship?”

Certainly, Hal can’t be serious. No, you don’t need the game’s highest payroll to win a championship, but then you need to have one of the game’s best player development systems, and the Yankees don’t have that.

“We have a good player development system,” Steinbrenner said. “Good, young players that have come up.”

He then went on to cite Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Luis Gil. There was no mention of the stalled development of the Baby Bombers from 2018 on, of which only Aaron Judge remains a Yankee. And citing Volpe as a product of a “good” player development system is as much of a stretch as it gets. He has been 17 percent worse than league average at the plate through two seasons, has a .288 on-base percentage and a .667 OPS. He is much closer to being a bust than he is to being an example of a successful player development story.

If the player development system is as good as Hal seems to think, then why doesn’t the team have a starting third baseman? Why do they claim the starting left field spot is up for grabs? Where was the player development system in the postseason when they were starting Alex Verdugo and Anthony Rizzo by choice? The same Verdugo and Rizzo who are still free agents, unwanted by the entire league.

The Yankees have one player on the MLB’s Top 100 Prospects list: Jasson Dominguez. The player who wasn’t good enough to play over Verdugo in left field the last time the Yankees played a real game, but who is now good enough to start in left field without having played any real games since. On Sunday, Dominguez misplayed a fly ball in the Florida sun, the type of play that prevented the Yankees from playing him in October.

Before Steinbrenner cried publicly about his finances again and gave his team the option to grow beards, he and the organization went against their policy of extending a contract before it expired by giving Boone two more years on his deal (that was set to expire at the end of this season).

I understand Cashman has a job for life with the Yankees and that once the Yankees won the pennant last year, the same became true of Boone. So I want to congratulate Boone on getting two more years added to his deal. It’s a well-deserved extension for a savvy in-game manager who’s always upfront with the media and the team’s fan base on player performance and injuries. He deserves to be rewarded. Here’s to two more years after this one and hopefully many more after that!

It wouldn’t be a proper celebration if I didn’t’ list the long, CVS-receipt-like list of Boone’s accomplishments as Yankees manager.

• Only Yankees manager to get a fifth season on the job without a championship (he has now extended the record to an eighth season)
• Manager for the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history (Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS)
• Manager for the worst single-month record in 33 years
• Manager for the worst season record in 31 years
• Manager for the most steals allowed in a single game by the franchise in 109 years
• Manager for the first three-plus-game-series sweep by a National League team at Yankee Stadium in franchise history
• Manager of the first Yankees team to lose five straight home series in 34 years
• Manager for the first Yankees team to not steal a base over 20 consecutive games in 61 years (the best part of this is that is happened in an era when there is a pitch clock and disengagements and pickoff throw limits)

He also used video from the 2004 ALCS as a motivation tactic during the 2022 ALCS, missed the playoffs entirely despite 40 percent of the league getting in the postseason in 2023 and then oversaw the single-worst defensive inning in the history of the World Series in 2024. When you add up his pitching decisions from the 2018 ALDS, 2019 ALCS and 2020 ALDS and factor in the disastrous summer of 2021, the ALCS embarrassment of 2022, the entire 2023 season and the humiliating 2024 World Series, it’s hard not to question why he wasn’t given an extension of more than two years.

Cashman said if Boone weren’t the Yankees manager there would be a “feeding frenzy” for his services, a claim that can’t be substantiated as long as Boone remains manager of the Yankees. And he’s going to remain manager of the Yankees for a long time.

The only thing that rivals the phrase “pitchers and catchers” when it comes to knowing Yankees baseball is back is Aaron Boone holding his press conference to open spring training. With the Yankees’ arms and backstops officially reporting to Tampa to begin the 2025 season, Boone fielded questions from the Yankees’ media contingent for the first time since the Game 5 collapse in the World Series.

On Marcus Stroman still being with the team amid trade rumors.
“The bottom line is, we’re getting him ready to pitch. Those things have a way of working themselves out, especially as we sit here in the middle of February. Cream rises to the top. I feel like it’ll work itself out. Right now, it’s about getting him ready to go be a real contributor.”

I think someone may want to explain the saying “cream rises to the top” to Boone. I think the appropriate saying here would have been “You can never have enough pitching.”

Right now, Stroman is the odd man out of the rotation and rightfully so. The deal the Yankees gave him last year (four-plus years after saying he wouldn’t be a difference-maker at the trade deadline in the middle of the best season of his career) was foolish. Now the Yankees are on the hook for $18 million for a pitcher who can’t be trusted to be part of the rotation and who has never been a reliever. The same pitcher who was never asked to warm up in any of the Yankees’ 14 postseason games.

Either Stroman will be traded with the Yankees paying a portion of his salary to not pitch for them, or they will keep him, put him in the bullpen and use him as a starter if needed, all while preventing his innings clause from kicking in and guaranteeing his 2026 salary. Another feather in the cap for Brian Cashman’s use of payroll.

On Jason Dominguez being the starting left fielder.
“I’d love for him to secure and grab it, and my expectation is that he will. … He’s in a good spot right now. He’s got a good look in his eye, and he’s going to get every opportunity to be that guy. We certainly are hoping he shows us that.”

Boone also mentioned Dominguez needing to “earn” the job.

This month, Boone talked about the possibility of Dominguez being the team’s leadoff hitter. The Yankees put his locker between Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger. I think it’s safe to say Dominguez has the job whether he “earns” it in spring training or not.

The frustrating part about Dominguez now being the team’s starting left fielder is that he wasn’t good enough to play that role the last time the Yankees played games, but with no more games played since October, he’s now good enough to be. And the player he wasn’t good enough to play over remains unsigned on the free-agent market.

On DJ LeMahieu being an everyday player.
“I’m not going to put anything past a healthy DJ LeMahieu and his ability to hit. Hopefully he’s one of those guys that kind of kicks the door in, grabs it and runs with it. We certainly know what he’s capable of, coupled with being outstanding defensively.”

Replace “DJ LeMahieu” with “Aaron Hicks” or “Josh Donaldson” and it reads the same as it did in 2022 and 2023. At least Boone stopped from calling anyone crazy the way he did two years ago in the same seat when he said, “I think you’re crazy to not think there’s a bounce back in there offensively” about Donaldson before Donaldson was eventually released.

It’s likely LeMahieu suffers the same fate as Hicks and Donaldson and is released midseason. That’s more likely than the oft-injured LeMahieu turning back the clock and being a player he was four years ago. Hicks and Donaldson were easy to root against and extremely hard to root for. LeMahieu is the complete opposite. I desperately want LeMahieu to turn back the clock and be his old self because when he was at his best he was awesome.

I’m rooting for LeMahieu. I’m also rooting for Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Peraza and Jorbit Vivas. I’m rooting for someone, anyone to to be a capable everyday infielder for this team in whatever position Jazz Chisholm isn’t occupying.

The infield offense is more than a little concerning. The defense should be sound, and that was the focus this offseason after last season’s World Series disaster.

On the Dodgers’ criticizing the Yankees in the media after the World Series.
“Sometimes, you’re coming off the drunkenness of winning a world championship. Some guys are more inclined to spout off and be a little more colorful than others. Against, that’s their right. They won. Hopefully, we’re in that position and do things a little better.“

“Sometimes, you’re coming off the drunkenness of winning a world championship …” Boone speaking from experience about an experience he has never experienced is something else.

Sure, it was the Dodgers’ scrubs publicly bashing the Yankees, but they didn’t come up with the assessments of the the 2024 Yankees on their own. If utility players and last guys in the bullpen are openly talking about the 2024 Yankees’ shortcomings then you can be sure the household names in the Dodgers clubhouse were as well. Everyone was talking about it. Yankees fans talked about it all season.

I don’t know why Boone or anyone employed by the Yankees was so upset about what the Dodgers said: the truth. Apparently, it means more and is more hurtful to the Yankees for their opponent to publicly discuss it than their own fans and their own broadcasters. The Yankees’ inability to catch fly balls, cover first base and make routine throws as well as run the bases like they’re drunk (which is what their own legendary radio voice said on the air during the postseason) is what led to their demise. If you don’t want to be humiliated on the field and then in the media, don’t put yourself in that situation. Don’t have the type of series the Yankees had in the World Series. Don’t have the type of inning they had in the fifth in Game 5.

Now in his eighth spring training as Yankees manager, Boone’s press conference to open spring training proved he hasn’t evolved in the public speaking aspect of being a manager. Yankees fans can only pray he has changed in terms of in-game management and holding players accountable on the field, so this season doesn’t end the same way as last season.