Is It Just Me?

 Has no one else noticed this pattern, now the norm for at least four seasons:

The Yankees start out like a house afire and we can't imagine anyone catching up with them. It's gonna be a great season.

As soon as the calendar hits May, that all comes to an end and they are among the worst teams in baseball for two months, maybe three.

In mid-July or August, they remember how to play this game again and then make a run into the playoffs, which ends with them losing to some team that in April we wouldn't have believed would have had a chance.

Sound familiar? It's back again.

After losing two of three to the Mets this weekend, the Yankees are three games out of first place, which wouldn't be all that concerning except that they were three games AHEAD just a couple of weeks ago. Tampa Bay never loses, and the Yankees rarely do anything else lately. Today they managed to blow a three-run lead in the ninth inning. That's not easy to do against a team that's in last place and 12 games off the lead in the National League East.

There are three factors at play here:

1. Aaron Judge is not being Aaron Judge. This is the least concerning of the trends because it happens occasionally and then he goes off on a tear where Babe Ruth wouldn't have been able to keep up. I'm not worried about Judge per se, but the team does as well as he does, and that's also been the case for years now.

2. The rest of the hitters aren't exactly filling the void. Except Ben Rice, who has emerged as a legitimate star this year. But Trent Grisham isn't last year's Trent Grisham. Austin Wells was never the Austin Wells we were promised. Jazz Chisholm is trying so hard to hit home runs that he's NOT hitting home runs, or much of anything else. I don't even want to discuss Ryan McMahon. Spencer Jones can't be blamed because he wasn't supposed to be here yet, but he doesn't have even one home run so far, and that's supposed to be what he does. 

3. The bullpen sucks. Especially the "closer." (See: 3-run lead, ninth inning.)

There were needs at third base, catcher, and center field this offseason, and there should have been an upgrade in the bullpen. Instead, Brian Cashman et al chose to run out essentially the same team as last year's, with the loss of Luke Weaver, who killed the based-loaded-nobody-out rally yesterday, and Devin Williams, who tried his best to give the Yankees the game today but couldn't quite accomplish it. Not his fault.

Max Schuemann? Really?

No progress was made. The big accomplishment of the winter was getting Cody Bellinger back. And he wasn't going anywhere.

So go into hibernation, Yankee fans. Tune in starting July 15. Things ought to get going around then. 

Looks Like the Yankees are Taking This Postseason Off...

 ... so I'll do the same. Wake me if something happens. So far their big plan is to have the exact same team as last year, minus a few relief pitchers. 

Sorry. I'm so sleepy.

Yeah, That Was Bad

 It's possible that on the day I die, the one thing I won't regret is that I will no longer remember the 2023 New York Yankees season. The general manager called it a "disaster" and he was being generous. Yeah, the kids came up and made it kind of fun to watch the last couple of weeks, but all the problems that were present last offseason (and the one before that and the one before that) were not addressed and are the exact same issues that are supposedly being discussed even as the detested Houston Astros continue to play baseball games that count. Ouch.

Aaron Judge would be fine if he could just avoid playing in Dodger Stadium forever. Gerrit Cole, however difficult he is to watch sometimes (tons of pitches, diva behavior) is still an elite starter. Gleyber Torres made large strides in the second half at the plate, and still sometimes looks distracted in the field.

Those are the highlights. The lowlights are everything else.

There is still no starting centerfielder, left fielder or third baseman for the Yankees going into 2024. The starting rotation does not have a reliable second starter, forget a third, fourth or fifth. (Yes, Clarke Schmidt looked good. Let's see him do it for a whole year.) Nestor Cortes needs to be the 2022 Nestor Cortes, and we haven't really seen him pitch much since then. 

The Miami Marlins used to have a really good player called Mike Stanton. Anybody know where he is these days?

We've been promised "major changes" before. What we got was the previous year's not-terribly-successful team with a new coat of varnish. If that happens again, Hal Steinbrenner's going to find out what happens when people DON'T show up at the rate of 40,000 per night.

I'm not one who blames Aaron Boone for everything. I think he's a perfectly serviceable major league manager, given that the analytics department makes the bulk of the calls and he's only there to answer questions before and after the games and deal with the players, who appear to love him. He'll be back and that's okay with me.

Brian Cashman has been a very good general manager for a long time but appears to have been in a baseball coma for the past three or four years. The team's been going downhill and he doesn't seem to notice. It was only by the grace of the Boston Red Sox, of all people, that this year's squad didn't finish in last place in their division. The toughest division in baseball, by the way, had three teams - THREE - enter the playoffs and nobody made it to the second round. So don't tell me about that anymore.

Should Cashman be fired, or does this fall on the Steinbrenner family and their (ironic) aversion to change? It's a good question. Cashman will be back, and the Steinbrenners aren't going anywhere, so maybe it doesn't matter. Changes on the field need to be made. Does anybody in this organization have the guts to make them?

I'll get back to you in 2024. Whether I get back to Yankee Stadium is another question. We'll see.

Deadline? What deadline?

 What a disappointment. And yet, in a sick, twisted way it makes sense.

The fact that the New York Yankees, a team in desperate need of upgrades at third base, first base, left and center field, whose all-star right fielder has to DH because his injury from two months ago still hasn't healed, did NOTHING at the trade deadline (and don't talk to me about the middling reliever they got for a prospect) speaks volumes. It's the way this team has operated for years, and there's no indication management even wants to change that.

In order to keep the Yankees beneath whatever arbitrary luxury tax deadline they're probably pennies under at the moment, they couldn't add significant salary. Because god forbid they don't make as much profit in the future as they do now, which is a ridiculous amount. Imagine how much they'd be making if they had a winning team.

That meant there would be no major trades unless the Yankees could rid themselves of a large salary like that of Stanton, Carlos Rodon (whose minuscule sample size means he might still find himself), Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, Frankie Montas, Harrison Bader or... I could go on... and that wasn't going to happen. There weren't even real impact players on the market, unless you count the two Paleozoic pitchers the Mets were unloading, and even they weren't going to help the Yankees score more runs, which is the real problem.

Yankee fans wanted to see some indication that management cares, and they didn't get it. We wanted to see people leave who aren't doing any good. We wanted to see players enter who might. Even if there was no trade, we wanted to see representatives of the farm system we've heard so much about like Pereira, Peraza, Wells and Spencer Jones rather than the walking wounded of Stanton, Rizzo, and LeMahieu.

The front office and Aaron Boone will tell us there've been injuries, and there have. The problem is the Yankees keep telling us they've healed when they clearly haven't. Judge isn't Judge yet. With the Yankees last in the standings and fading in the wild card race every day, he should take the rest of the season off, have the surgery on his toe and come back ready for 2024. LeMahieu should have gotten his foot fixed last offseason and didn't, and he's clearly not the same player. Rizzo had the neck issue after a collision at first base and insists he's fine. He's clearly not. Stop telling us players are ready when they're not. This season is shot. Give the club and the fans a shot at 2024. Let the kids play.

Bader and Luis Severino will be gone by next season. That's fine. The same is true of Donaldson, and that's great. Wandy Peralta might or might not be back. We're told Nestor Cortes is almost back, and we'll see which version of Nestor we get, same with Jonathan Loaisiga.

But the point is that this season is no longer the issue. This year has been botched, never more than it was at the trade deadline, when fans expected change and got nothing. The focus now needs to be on the future, so we don't have a succession of trade deadlines that are just as deflating.

Does Brian Cashman have to go? Maybe, if the Yankees are willing to hire a GM who isn't a slave to the analytics department and the luxury tax. You can't keep Stanton, Judge and Cole on the roster and stay competitive under the luxury tax. Since you're not getting rid of them (or Rodon) the tax has to be paid.

Does Aaron Boone have to go? Also maybe. I'm not sure he's been a major reason in the decline of the team over the past four years, but if his job really is to answer questions at press conferences after losses, well, the fans are tired of seeing his face and hearing his voice. You're not going to let the man manage the team, so maybe you need someone who's better at keeping the angry mob at bay.

Make no mistake - this was years in the making. The same team, give or take, has been trotted out since 2019 and the decline has been steep and swift. An overhaul was clearly needed. It didn't come.

Focus on next year and the years after. This year is over. And Kenyan Middleton isn't the answer. 

The Boston Unplug

 It wasn't even a massacre.

I didn't have high hopes with the Yankees limping their way into Fenway Park this past weekend, and as it turned out, I was overly optimistic. But it you think those three games happened the way they happened because Alex Cora is a genius and the Red Sox are a powerhouse, I invite you to look at the standings. They're still in last place, three games over .500.

No, the Red Sox didn't massacre the Yankees this weekend. If anything, they were the hand that pulled the plug on the Yankees' life support. This team has been less than stellar for at least three years now, evidenced by the fact that they've trotted out the same team (give or take) for three years and gotten pretty much the same results.

There will be a time in the season when these guys look invincible. It will NOT happen while Aaron Judge nurses his toe (an injury that came as a result of a game-saving catch). But it'll happen, if it hasn't already. And the rest of the time this will be a mediocre team, losing games because they score a run or two in the first inning and then take the rest of the game off.

I'm not suggesting this is about motivation. I don't think any major league player goes out on the field with the intention of doing just okay. Those screaming that Judge or Rizzo should "fire up" the team, or that Aaron Boone is too nice, are missing the point. The sadder truth is that these Yankees ARE playing up to their ability and these have been the results. 

This team might make the playoffs as a wild card. They might even survive the first round if they're in any kind of shape in October. But they're not a "championship-caliber team" as Hal Steinbrenner likes to say. They haven't won a championship or been in a World Series in 14 years. Don't expect that to change in 2023.

Radical changes need to be made and some money needs to be sacrificed. The jettison of Aaron Hicks was actually a good sign: They ate the salary and got rid of a player who wasn't helping. They need to do the same with Josh Donaldson, who is poison in the clubhouse and a crater in the lineup. Yeah, he's hit a few home runs. But he's done nothing else.

There needs to be a real impact bat in the middle of that lineup. The idea that we're waiting out Giancarlo Stanton's next whole week of being a monster is ridiculous. The rest of the time he plays - when he plays - isn't worth it. 

DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo suddenly look old and tired. The pitching is being held together with Scotch Tape. Changes need to be made and the trade deadline is still more than a month away.

This isn't a massacre. It's euthanasia.

The Post Mordem

 It's important to remember the good times.

When the Yankees were good this past season, they were very good. And Aaron Judge had a season for the ages, capped by a 62nd home run that felt like catharsis. 

Then there was the rest of the season, and then, inevitably, there were the Houston Astros and their infuriating ability to make the Yankees look like someone's AA team. A four-game sweep that felt like it was at once a seven-game sweep and a one-game playoff. The Yankees just didn't show up. Even Judge looked like a ghost, and in the the sense that it could have been his last appearance in pinstripes, maybe he was.

But after all that disappointment came a "joint press conference" with Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman.

I'm not one who thinks that Boone is the main problem here. He works with the roster Cashman (and by extension, Hal Steinbrenner) gives him. Sometimes his lineups and in-game decisions can be puzzling, but by and large he's not the obstacle standing in the Yankees' way.

Until recently I was a big Brian Cashman supporter. I think he doesn't get enough credit for making savvy trades (except for pitchers) and finding scrapheap players who suddenly blossom into amazing talents (see Cortex, Nestor). I think he's a very smart man and he'd really like to be remembered someday for the championships he brought to the Bronx. 

Both Boone and Cashman gave the impression that they thought there was nothing fundamentally wrong with this team, that injuries had done them in. But that wasn't true. The first half was an extended hot streak this team has been having for three years. It always ends and they regress to their true selves, a .500 team. Or worse.

But Hal Steinbrenner, while thankfully not inheriting his father's hair-trigger temperament and blustering incoherency, also didn't get the old man's passion. Say what you want about George Steinbrenner, and I do, but he wouldn't accept losing. Sometimes he was borderline psychotic after a loss, particularly in the playoffs. The phantom fight in the elevator? That was George.

Hal is a businessman who has inherited his father's prized possession and doesn't really know what to do with it except make money, which seems from the outsider's perspective to be the only priority. Not spending over the luxury tax limit is an obsession. 

The problem is Hal has also inherited Yankee fans, and it's on us to teach him what that's about. If Judge does not return - and I'm getting a bad feeling about that - Hal will pivot, make some noises about "letting the kids play," (which would be fine with the right veterans in the clubhouse) and not support them. Expect the Opening Day lineup in 2023 to look very roughly like this:

Harrison Bader CF

Anthony Rizzo 1B

Brandon Nimmo LF

Giancarlo Stanton DH

DJ LeMahieu 2B

Josh Donaldson/Oswald Perazza 3B

Oswaldo Cabrera RF

Isiah Kiner-Falefa SS

Jose Trevino C 

Bench: Rortvedt, 4th Outfielder, Backup infielder

The pitching will be the same roughly, without (thank goodness) Aroldis Chapman and (not as thank goodness) Zach Britton, Miguel Castro, Jameson Taillon and maybe with a 5th starter who could be gotten for Gleyber Torres. I'm guessing Aaron Hicks will be gone for a bucket of Gatorade with the Yankees paying some of his salary. There'll be a new name or two in the bullpen.

Not terribly exciting, is it?

The only way Hal will get the message is if we send it to his wallet. If the Yankees DON'T pay Judge enough to keep him, if they DON'T at least try to rid us of Donaldson and if they DON'T realistically explore the free agent market, we have to stop going to games. We have to stop watching on TV. We have to make it hurt on the bottom line.

Because that's where Hal lives and that's where he gets his messages. 

I don't think that'll be easy. I've been a Yankee fan since 1966 and rarely miss a game on TV. I go to the Stadium at least once a year and spend on food, but not parking (gave up driving to the Bronx on game days in the early 2000s). It would be hard for me to go cold turkey, especially on the televised games. But then, I've been muting Michael Kay for a number of years so I'd only be losing half the game experience. 

But they had such a great first half. Yup. And it ended in the same way it has ended for 13 years now. And for the third time in six years, at the hands of a team we know has cheated and is proud of it.

It has to end. The plan of attack goes through Hal's bank account. 

We need to be strong and vocal.

It's My Own Fault

 At the beginning of spring training, I wrote, "The new-look Yankees for 2022 are the old-look Yankees from 2021 with a quick sanding and a coat of varnish." And I believed it. Then the season started and something astonishing seemed to happen. The Yankees got off to an historically good start and it didn't end after two weeks, as the hot streaks of the past two years had done. There was talk of breaking the season record for wins by a team. The World Series was an inevitability and the championship merely a formality.

And then it became July.

I should have known better, and I blame myself. This team IS the 2021 Yankees with a paint job and a polish. But I let myself believe because it felt so good. Now it's not quite that rosy anymore.

All the problems that were present in 2021 are back now: A woeful lack of hitting with runners in scoring position, an unreliable bullpen, aging veterans where young players from the farm system could be playing, and hanging over it all is the sneaking suspicion that the one shining light of this year from beginning to now, Aaron Judge, might be in another uniform come next March.

Every team has rough stretches, and that is true. For the 1998 Yankees and 1999 Mariners, those stretches were short and rare. But they didn't last for seven weeks.

The overwhelming concern now is that what we had at the beginning of the 2022 season was the hot streak each of the past two Yankee teams has had, except that it came earlier and lasted longer. And now that it's over, we're getting our old crew back, with the exception of Brett Gardner.

When Judge is not playing there, center field is a problem. What do you know, Aaron Hicks was hurt for a while, and when not hurt, he has been hitting a lot like Tyler Wade. Isiah Kiner-Falefa (a name I actually learned this season) has played the field like Gleyber Torres at short and hit like, you know, Tyler Wade (who is back in AAA waiting for his turn). Gleyber himself was going well at second base for a while and now seems to have reverted to his old self, chasing sliders down and away and not so much hustling to first base on ground balls.

Aroldis Chapman was hurt (shocker) after having some awful outings (shocker #2) and came back to eventually pitch better. We thought his reign as closer was over because Clay Holmes was pitching like Mariano Rivera for a while, but he seems to have come back to earth and you can count the days before Chapman is back on the mound, sweating like a geyser and causing fans' stomachs to do somersaults before giving up a deciding home run to Jose Abreu in the ALCS. Mark your calendar.

Will the Yankees come back and start winning consistently again? Maybe. There are about seven weeks left in the season. They could remember what all that success was like and try to replicate it. Will they give up a 10-game lead in the division? I doubt it. That, at least, should be in the bag and it will keep them out of a three-game wildcard series, which is very good. Will they have the best record in the American League so an inevitable series against Houston will be mostly played in the Bronx? Probably not. The Astros know about consistency. The Yankees know consistency in streaks.

They say the hottest team going into October has the best chance. That could conceivably be the Yankees, but it's not looking great now.

Because the new-look Yankees for 2022 are the old-look Yankees from 2021 with a quick sanding and a coat of varnish.

It'll be a little nerve wracking to see what the 2023 team might resemble.