The Yankee luster is gone.
A few days ago, a popular Clubhouse Cafe patron, Pete, offered this writer an unsolicited take on the Yankees. Pete expressed frustration about the state of his team. He asserted that Aaron Boone is not qualified to be a major league manager. What’s more, Pete isn’t happy with Brian Cashman’s job as the Yankees’ general manager, and he wasn’t complimentary about Hal Steinbrenner either. The Yankees aren’t good enough to win a championship, he said, a 180-degree turn from a few months ago when he told me this is the year for the Yankees to win championship No. 28.
Who can blame Pete for being frustrated? It has become a country club atmosphere where losing and lack of effort are tolerated. The Yankee brand that George Steinbrenner built has become a run-of-the-mill franchise. Nothing special. The good ol’ days are long gone. It’s a mediocre franchise at best.
The buck stops with Hal Steinbrenner, and he doesn’t get it as a Yankees owner. When his father George bought the Yankees, he said it was like owning the Mona Lisa. It did whatever it took to win and live up to a proud standard. Unfortunately, his son doesn’t share the same view. Hal doesn’t seem to get worked up about losing or approach winning as the most essential thing in his life. Like most baseball owners, he is worried about making a profit.
What Hal doesn’t understand is that the Yankees are judged by excellence. It’s his responsibility to run the team that seeks excellence rather than oversee malaise.
He isn’t a baseball fan like his father. He rarely goes to the games, and it’s doubtful he knows most of his players outside of Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole. He inherited a wealthy franchise and has no idea what it takes to sustain excellence. He would rather keep Cashman than hire someone new because he has no idea who to hire if it gets to that point. He would rather keep the status quo even when change needs to happen.
What about Cashman? He has been a long-time problem. For starters, when evaluating talent, he gives too much power to his yes men, Damon Oppenheimer and Michael Fishman, rather than utilizing Brian Sabean and Omar Minaya, who are part of the Yankee front office. He makes awful trades, player development has been lacking, and the team hasn’t addressed pitching. He builds his team based on what analytics tells him rather than discovering how good players are. Moreover, players strike out too much because Cashman emphasizes hitting home runs rather than putting the ball in play.
Is it any wonder why the Yankees haven’t won a championship and made a World Series appearance since 2009? No.
Cashman has been operating the Yankees since 1998, and at some point, he must better adapt to today’s game. His worst mistake was firing Joe Girardi, a successful manager, for a puppet in Aaron Boone. Boone follows Cashman’s orders on which players to play in a given game, including the relievers to keep on the bench. That’s not how a manager should operate.
Boone is happy to do what Cashman tells him to do since he is getting paid well for it, and he gets a chance to manage the Yankees even though he is not qualified to operate a major league team. Boone’s bobos will cite his 573 wins, two 100-win seasons, and five straight seasons of making the playoffs until last season. However, his supporters conveniently fail to acknowledge that the Yankees haven’t made it to the World Series and that Boone has overseen two collapses. In 2022, after a 61-23 start, the Yankees finished 38-40 and then got swept by the Houston Astros in the ALCS. In 2023, the team finished 26-43 to miss the playoffs after a 36-25 start. It seems to be happening again this season: the Yankees are 14-23 after a 50-22 start.
Boone’s problem is that he is not a disciplinarian. He does not hold people accountable like Girardi did, and he does not lead when there is a crisis. Sure, he is excellent when players are producing, but you can say that about just every manager. However, a manager stands out when he knows how to lead when the players need it, and I have yet to see this from Boone during his tenure here.
The Yankees winning three in a row may quiet critics, but fans and the local media should know better. That’s why I think Pete is right: I’ve seen nothing about the Yankees to believe they can win it all this year, and that’s been the same story in the Bronx for the last fifteen years.
Excellence starts with the team’s brain trust. But rather than excellence, malaise is there for everyone to see.
