If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then the Yankees have gone insane. They’ve entered each season for the past decade with the same philosophy and have expected to win it all. Instead, for the fourth straight year, they watched the opposing team celebrate on their turf. It’s the same formula, year after year, generating the same outcome.
The Yankees took an identical route this October as they have every postseason under manager Aaron Boone. They look unstoppable for one round, then inevitably get outsmarted by a better all-around team the next. They constantly make critical mental and on-field blunders that make fans facepalm in disbelief, while their big bats go silent in the biggest moments. It’s nothing less than a clown show.
They were embarrassed on the field against the Rays, but no level of embarrassment will force their hand. The front office sees nothing wrong with their process because they win 90-plus games and make the playoffs every year. This team isn’t built to win it all; it’s built to manufacture a quota.
The Yankees have lost their standard
The Yankees’ moniker has been World Series or bust for most of the past two decades. But after winning only one championship in the past 25 years, you lose the right to say that. Players may say that standard still exists, but they don’t know what that standard is.
When Hall of Famer CC Sabathia joined the Yankees in 2009, he was surrounded by past and present legends.
“When I first came, it was Ron Guidry, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Rivers, Willie Randolph,” Sabathia said on New York Sports Minute Show. “It was not only the core four, it was those guys too. You knew what the standard was.”
The Yankees no longer have a surplus of legends in the room to enforce the standard of excellence they once set. Today, the roster features two players with a World Series ring, Max Fried and Cody Bellinger. The rest are Aaron Judge and his accompanying cast, who still haven’t proven they’re winning players.
That reality showed mightily in the postseason. When the lights were bright, the Yankees committed four errors in the ALDS. They also posted their lowest hitting marks in a multi-game playoff series in their 124-year history.
Opposing teams no longer fear the Yankees like they once did. Now, their game plan is to let them beat themselves, and it keeps working. The Dodgers set the blueprint against this team in 2024, and the Yankees still haven’t figured out how to fix it. Dodgers infielder Chris Taylor said making the Yankees shoot themselves in the foot was key to their 2024 World Series victory.
“They were pressing, it was like one thing after the next,” Taylor said on On Base with Mookie Betts. “All we gotta do is put the ball in play.”
This Yankee team acts arrogant like they still have what the teams from the late 90s and 2000s had, but they have no track record to back it up. It hasn’t just been a failure, but embarrassing losses every year that make this team easy fodder each October.
This era needs to end
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has had 34 consecutive winning seasons, with Boone at the helm for nine. While impressive, fans view this as a participation trophy. It’s all about championships and legacy.
Are the fans spoiled compared to the 29 other teams? Yes, but they aren’t oblivious to the team’s historic legacy, nor are they blind to the financial juggernaut that they are. There is no excuse for this team not to reach the top of the mountain with how much they spend. The problem is that they play an undisciplined brand of baseball driven by the people running the show.
Nothing illustrated the organization’s years of incompetence more than the recent playoff series against the Rays. First, the team gave Giancarlo Stanton his first at-bat since April in the ninth inning of Game 1, trailing by one run. Then the nail in the coffin for many on this era of Yankees baseball. With the season on the line, Boone went with the worst leadoff hitter in baseball, Trent Grisham, because he felt like it. Grisham went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, including one that ended the season in Game 3.
Years of mismanagement over the past six seasons have only made the failures more glaring. ESPN could do a whole docuseries on what has gone wrong each year, and it still wouldn’t tell the story of how far behind this team is on the game’s trends.
The Rays and Milwaukee Brewers, who could likely meet in the World Series, prove that the Yankee way isn’t correct. A team doesn’t need infinite funds to win; it needs a good roster. The Yankees can outslug teams in the regular season, but those hitters become inefficient in the playoffs. This team needs balance, not nine straight all-or-nothing hitters who rely on the three true outcomes.
Combined with the countless failures, the biggest may be wasting Aaron Judge’s and Gerrit Cole‘s prime years, both of whom will likely end up in Cooperstown.
What do the Yankees change?
The easy answer for the masses is to let Cashman walk as his general manager contract ends this winter and move on from Boone, who has one year left on his contract. This is a lot easier said than done, though. With the looming lockout, it’s hard for owner Hal Steinbrenner to do it internally.
The players love Boone and praise him for his efforts. American League Cy Young Award frontrunner Cam Schlittler praised his manager after the season-ending loss. “Boonie’s been amazing,” Schlittler said to Gary Phillips. “I know every guy in this locker room stands behind him. I don’t see a reason why that needs to change.”
No matter how much hate Boone receives, if the players stand by him, then Steinbrenner will too. There’s a case for this being Boone’s best-managed season too, which fans don’t want to hear. The fact is, Boone led a team with no Judge for 96 games, Fried went on the IL twice, no Bellinger for a month, with no Gerrit Cole or Carlos Rodon to start the year, and still won 93 games. Not to mention, the Yankees also had holes at third and catcher all season. It was a great regular season, but a really poor postseason overshadows everything.
Where to go from here?
So, will they burn it all down? The short answer is no, but they can change the team’s mentality. Right now, the clubhouse is in a bubble of all rainbows and sunshine, with bad news trying to pierce through it. They live in an unreality that keeps criticism out, and it shows when they hit a rough stretch: they play soft and lousy.
This organization denounces the grind that is the 162-game season. That’s why every year is the same story. A hot start turns into a summer swoon and then wraps up the year with a good September heading into October. The team needs players or coaches to be the bad cop. They need to enforce the grind and build a culture that loves the game. Once the switch flips, some players can’t turn it back on and coast to the finish line.
That’s where the issues are, and the blame falls on Cashman for getting players like Grisham who don’t play smart, or on past players like Josh Donaldson and Joey Gallo. Responsibility lands on Boone too, for not enforcing what it means to play for the Yankees. Their whole system needs a recalibration of how it evaluates players’ guts and guile.
The captain, Judge, made it clear after the season ended that change is needed. Judge knows time is running out to cap off his legacy with a ring, and now all the pressure is on Steinbrenner to make that fantasy a reality.
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