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A DOWN YEAR
Well, the Yankees sure found a way to suck some of the life out us fans so far this year! Currently, our record is 59 wins/56 losses. Because our division is the only division with every team above .500, we are (by .008) in last place 5.5 games out of the lowest-tiered Wildcard and 11.5 games behind the division's leading Orioles. Being close to a .500 team is disgraceful to all spoiled (including me) Yankees' fans! Not only have we been slightly above that mark this year, but we have carried that so-so record since the beginning of last August! Again...disgraceful!!
Fans, reporters, media, and anyone else following the Yankees all have opinions of who to blame for this disappointing team. I've mainly heard chants from the stadium, "Fire Cashman". Boone is and has almost always been another vote of most of the fans to be fired, too. Of course, I have my own opinions and here they are...
First of all, I need to mention that I can typically find one key thing wrong when I opine, but certainly not this time. Most analysts have stated that the Yankees didn't just have injuries this season, but the most key ones collectively in all of baseball. I agree. With that said, it's certainly not the only reason. Besides the High Volume of Injuries that every fan already knows about, here are 4 more reasons I feel we grossly underachieved:
Brian Cashman - Over his ~25 years as GM of the Yankees, Cashman has truly done a lot. Every GM has their own hits and misses (ha, ha). Cashman has proven himself more times than he's failed. The problem is that he's gotten progressively worse, especially over the past few years.
Beginning with his positives, he's found many diamond in the ruff players here and there through trades such as Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, Nick Swisher, Didi Gregorius, and Harrison Bader. He's also signed some key free agents who certainly contributed to our successful years with the likes of CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Johnny Damon, El Duque, Matt Carpenter, Hideki Matsui, and Mike Mussina.
Cashman's notable negative acquisitions over his tenure include some absolute busts such as Frankie Montas, Jacoby Ellsbury (played 4 of the 7 years signed), Chan Ho Park, Nick Johnson (brought back when he was 31 years old and totally washed up), Carl Pavano (perhaps Cashman's 2nd worst signing), and Kei Igawa (Cashman's worst signing of all via a $26 million bid and another $20 million for a 5-year contract in which he pitched only 16 games with a 6.66 ERA).
Now, getting back to my point that Cashman has progressively worsened: For the past couple of years, Cashman has nobly done charitable things for certain causes, but at the worst freaking times! There are a few key days in which a GM should offer full attention to enhancing the team he/she is responsible. One is during the period of the Winter Meetings and the other is during the final days and hours before the annual trade deadline. Instead, we have to see Cashman climb buildings and sleep outside in a sleeping bag - both for charities. Again, I am absolutely not against drives for charities, but I am for an employee (Cashman) to fulfill his/her job especially during the most pressing periods. Accounting personnel in any field are usually asked to avoid taking any time off during month-end periods. Cashman gets paid rather well from the Yankees' organization and certainly well enough to make direct financial contributions in order to avoid such conflicting periods. This latest point is the main reason why I presently agree with those who want to fire Cashman. He's clearly lost interest in his job which, in turn, becomes offensive to the fans who pay money towards the team and spend their personal time watching them. We fans are dedicated and have every right to expect our team's GM to do what's best for our team and, ultimately for us, too.
Aaron Boone - I have never been a full supporter of Boone from the time he was hired in 2018. In fact, most Yankees' fans have not supported him, either. I believe he makes plenty of blunders and head-scratching decisions. I've also heard that some decisions such as making up the lineups are strongly dictated to him - similar to what most teams do these days. There's no doubt that Boone shows passion towards wanting to win. He's also a pro at avoiding bashing any of his coaches or players. He is certainly a showman when it comes to his arguments with umpires, including the one the other day in which he drew a line along home plate to show the umpire how wide his strike zone is and then topped it off my emulating the umpire's arm gestures upon calling strikes. In fairness, Boone has a very good winning percentage (.591) as a manager for the Yankees. Don't just think that the payroll we have supports that record! Read my Cashman review above and the other factors summarized below, and you'll see that Boone has actually been a major juggler trying to attain that winning record! I feel that we could probably find someone better than Boone; but not overly better if the Yankees continue to handcuff the manager from making his own decisions with the lineups and they don't improve the other factors in this article.
The Team's Doctors - While I already cited the injuries as a factor, I must zero in on the doctors for a very specific wrongdoing that has enormously contributed to this year's failures. I can't even begin to express how pissed off I am with the Yankees' Doctors this year more than any other year! One or more of them should have their licenses removed! What the h--l were they thinking when they okayed Rizzo to return after his head and neck were jammed via a collision with Fernando Tatis Jr. during a running play at first base? I get that MLB has a medical examination protocol and supposedly everything tested showed Rizzo as being fine at the time; but, knowing that concussions can sometimes take months to detect, where was the follow-up? Rizzo played baseball from that time (May 28) as if he was 2023's Josh Donaldson at the plate (now, that's insulting)! Did any of our doctors have a clue? Yeah, they had one GIANT clue, Rizzo's hitting did a 180 (almost his average this season by the way). Our doctors are unquestionably Jerks and they could have conceivably cost Rizzo his life. The man is standing within inches of fastballs that are traveling in his vicinity at a rate of 92-103 miles per hour. Rizzo, who typically gets hit often enough when he's healthy, could have easily misjudged a reaction to getting out of the way as accurately as possible due to his recently remarked dizziness and sporadic unawareness! Again...JERKS!!
The Sabermetricians/Analysts - Enough already!! All teams are using sabermetrics. Some are overusing them. The Yankees seem to be one of those teams that are overusing them. Yet, in my opinion, the Yankees' biggest failure in using sabermetrics this year has been related to them being more wrong that they're right. Any fan can tell you that! Yet, we keep doing it over and over again...yup, the definition of insanity. We need to lure one of the sabermetricians from the Tampa Bay Rays!
Now that you've (hopefully) read my long-winded article, you know our biggest fix would be to fire Cashman. Not just because of what I wrote in his summary, but also because of the other portions. He is ultimately the guy who is supposed to monitor the performances of the manager, doctors, and sabermetricians. Cashman has been with our organization since the mid-80s. Even George thought highly of him and was involved in making him our GM ~12 years later. Hal Steinbrenner also supports Cashman. In fact, this past year, he committed a 4-year contract with Cashman, which support him for another 3 seasons! Hal is typically a stickler for honoring contracts, although he finally okayed the release of Aaron Hicks.
This past season, the Yankees brought back Brian Sabean, who they should have never let go! He won 3 World Series as a GM of the Giants, a team that didn't always offer an overly open check to players. He has been very respected for identifying talent (he had a lot to do with drafting Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, and Tim Lincecum) and also has the ability to find his own diamonds in the ruff from other teams. In the Giants' organization, he was later promoted to Executive VP of Baseball Operations. Currently, his Yankees' role is merely, Executive Advisor to...drum roll...Brian Cashman. Let's do it! If Hal is so against ridding himself of Cashman, then let's park him with a role that buries him in the background enough to let Sabean call most of the shots.
