1. I’m still not over what happened in Games 1 and 5 of the World Series, and I don’t think I will ever be. The Yankees could have had a 3-2 series lead going back to Los Angeles for Game 6. At worst, they should have been down 3-2 going back to Los Angeles for Game 6 with a chance to do to the Dodgers what was done to them 20 years ago in the ALCS.
A lot has come out over the last nearly two weeks from the Dodgers’ side suggesting they may have completed the collapse given their fatigued pitching staff and the momentum the Yankees would have boarded their cross-country flight with. At the same time, a lot has come out over the last nearly two weeks from the Dodgers’ side suggesting they knew exactly how to beat the Yankees and avoid every losing to them: play hard and execute fundamentally. Two simple ideas that should be givens for any major-league player and any major-league team, yet two simple concepts that are foreign to the Yankees.
2. The Yankees thought they were talented enough to win on talent alone against a team equally as talented as them. They were sloppy in both the ALDS and ALCS, but their talent won out and they went a combined 7-2 in those two series because of the great disparity in talent. As soon as they faced an opponent of equal or better talent than them in every fact of the game, they were exposed as the fundamental disaster that they were for most of the 2024 season.
3. “We had a struggle with our baserunnning this year. We were a bad defensive team, without a doubt, at times this year,” Brian Cashman said last week. “But we also, when you add it all together, we were a really good baseball team that earned the right to win the American League and get all the way to the World Series.”
That quote from Cashman is everything that is wrong with these Yankees. While admitting the team’s glaring weaknesses, he turns around and tells you how good the 2024 team was. A team that needed an AL Central-only path to reach their first World Series in 15 years and then got the shit beat out of them once they got there. A year ago, Cashman was unhinged in telling the media the 2023 Yankees “were pretty fucking good” despite going 82-80 and missing the playoffs. So why wouldn’t he think a team that got their ass kicked in the World Series isn’t “really good.”
With those words, Cashman confirmed my suspicion that the Yankees’ front office was overjoyed with simply reaching the World Series and getting that weight off their shoulders. Everyone associated with the Yankees was just happy to be there. Everyone except Juan Soto, who was the last Yankee sitting in the dugout staring out at the field watching the Dodgers celebrate, while his teammates had already retreated to the clubhouse to listen to their manager tell them how proud he was of them losing the World Series.
4. The moment the Yankees clinched the ALDS over the Royals, Aaron Boone was officially coming back, and I believe even if the Yankees had lost their first-round series to the Royals, he would have been back. The man was brought back after 2023 when the team posted the franchise’s worst record in more than 30 years. Did you really think ownership and the front office was going to decline his option for 2025 after the team reached the World Series, especially since reaching the World Series was clearly the equivalent to winning the World Series for ownership and the front office.
On the same day Cashman told you how good the 2024 Yankees were, he also said, “I’m a big Aaron Boone fan. I think he’s a great manager and we’ve been luck to have him.” A few days later the Yankees announced Boone would be back. The pennant guaranteed Boone would have his option exercised, and exercised it was.
5. “The manager’s job is so impossible,” Cashman said last week. “It’s a very hard job to do. It gets harder in the postseason, because ultimately whatever you do either works or doesn’t.”
Poor, Boone. What a hard job he has. There were tens of thousands of people on social media in real time saying Luke Weaver should pitch the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series after going five up, five down on 19 pitches the previous inning and after having not pitched in six days. The same amount of people in real time questioned why Tommy Kahnle got the eighth inning in Game 5 if Boone was willing to go to Weaver in that inning anyway. I thought an impossible, hard job was being a brain surgeon. I don’t think the same tens of thousands of armchair major-league managers who know more than the actual major-league manager of their team could in real time make more sensible decisions than someone about to remove a brain tumor. Now that I know how hard and impossible Boone’s job of putting his players in the best possible position to succeed is I think I will cut back on my criticism of him.
6. “Aaron is a steadying presence in our clubhouse and possesses a profound ability to connect with and foster relationships with his players,” Cashman said after exercising the option.
Do you know why the Yankees love Boone and love “playing for him?” Because there is no accountability. Who doesn’t love a boss who doesn’t care about performance, production or results? Boone is the boss everyone in every job in every industry dreams of.
Boone doesn’t hold his players accountable because he isn’t held accountable by Cashman, who isn’t held accountable by Hal Steinbrenner, who doesn’t hold anyone accountable because the Yankees aren’t something he purchased because he achieved extraordinary wealth after a lifetime of hard work and smart business decisions.
After 2023, Steinbrenner said the season was “unacceptable” and then didn’t fire a single employee. Cashman has blown through more than $3 billion of payroll over the last 15 years while producing one embarrassing World Series appearance. Boone has a litany of performance-related excuses for his players after every single game and those players spend all season talking about tomorrow until there are no more tomorrows and then they talk about next year. Boone mentioned already looking forward to next year in his statement after being retained.
6. “I think he’s a really, really good manager,” Cashman said. “I think we’re lucky to have him.”
If I had a dollar for every sarcastic congratulatory text I received from friends who are fans of rival teams when Boone’s 2025 option was exercised, I could buy the Yankees from the Steinbrenners and re-sign Soto myself. That’s the first indication you know you aren’t “lucky” to have the manager you have of your favorite team: when everyone who isn’t a fan of your team is happy he’s still the manager.
7. All of those same friends have also chimed in to let me know Soto would be signing with their team, whether it’s the Dodgers, Mets or Phillies. They all think the best hitter in the world will be wearing their team’s uniform in 2025. There’s nothing for me to say to rebut them since I think they are right. When I watched Soto sitting in his pinstripes in the dugout looking at out the Dodgers, I think that was the last time I will see him wearing a Yankees uniform.
Since the moment the Yankees traded for Soto I have repeatedly written how I will walk away from the Yankees and baseball if he is not a Yankee for 2025 and beyond, and I’m holding to that. If Soto isn’t a Yankee for 2025 and beyond, I won’t be around to watch. I will learn an instrument or a new language or do whatever people who don’t watch baseball daily from late-March through October do. If the team that makes more than any other team can’t sign the player who is expected to make more money than any other player, then what’s the point?
We know what the Yankees are without Soto. They are the 2023 Yankees. An 82-80, postseason-less team. Without Soto, the Yankees are nothing. The guy just hit .327/.469/1.102 in the playoffs with more walks (14) than strikeouts (9). Nine strikeouts in 14 games against the game’s best pitchers. Aaron Judge had that many strikeouts by Game 2 of the ALDS.
8. Watching Soto this season has been like sitting in first class on an international flight with a cabin, personal bathroom and all-you-can-eat-and-drink options. I don’t want to go back to sitting in the last row of economy in a middle seat next to the bathroom. That’s where Yankees fans were while being forced to watch Jake Bauers, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Billy McKinney, Willie Calhoun, Aaron Hicks, Franchy Cordero and Greg Allen as outfielders in 2023 before the trade for Soto. I’m not going back to that.
If Soto leaves, so will I. It was a good three-decade-plus run as a Yankees fan. But I’m not about to sit around and listen to Steinbrenner and Cashman tell us how they made a competitive offer as Soto holds a press conference at some other stadium in some other city. I’m not going to sit around and watch Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo and Clay Holmes be re-signed and settle for a wrong-side-of-30 Pete Alonso. Because that’s what’s going to happen if Soto isn’t re-signed. The money allocated for him is going to have to be spent somewhere.
9. The Yankees just proved they’re not good enough to win a championship with the roster they had, including Soto. They aren’t re-signing Soto away from winning it all. They are Soto and more away from doing so. And with Boone coming back, they are Soto and a lot more away from negating the detrimental impact Boone has on winning.
10. There’s an expectation Soto will sign during the Winter Meetings a month from now. I don’t know if it will happen that early, but I hope it does. I just want it over with. I want to know if he’s going to be a Yankee for the rest of his career or if I just freed up three-plus hours a night from late March through October every year for the rest of my life. I want to know if I need to worry about what other pieces they are going to sign or trade for to end their championship drought or if I need to choose between Spanish or Italian and the guitar or drums.
Last modified: Nov 11, 2024
