So much to unravel. Last night was a microcosm of the back half of the year. 2 games under .500 the final 78 games of the year. Twice shooting ourselves in the foot vs Cleveland yet overcoming on talent alone. Fucking up in 2 games of the sweep and getting outclassed the other 2. Once again, key players either shrank during crunch time or were too hurt to participate. Now our best player heads towards FA at an age and size that makes a long term deal dicey. Precarious position to be in for sure.
The beginning of the off-season has to come with a leadership change. Hal needs to tap into his inner George lest he gets left behind in his own city. If he can’t run the franchise like the Yankees should be run, he should walk away. The Yanks should never give a shit about salary caps and dumpster dives. They’re the fucking Yankees. If you don’t want to spend prospect capital then spend actual capital to improve the team til the kids are ready. But this half ass shit is getting us nowhere.
Brian Cashman has been good at handling the management edict, but his time has run it’s course. These savvy under the radar moves almost always blow up in our faces because it takes either growing up in the system or having already had the experience of being a prime time player to succeed here. His signature off-season move was to get JD and IKF and both were corpses by the time the POs roll around. The Bader trade bore fruit as he turned into a monster in the POs and we dealt from our starting pitching depth. We dealt for a cubs reliever who hadn’t tasted anything of competitive baseball as a big leaguer and he blows out his elbow. The kid we dealt was nails the final month of the year. We deal for Beni and he breaks his wrist once he starts to get going. We deal for an injured Montas and are surprised he stayed injured? And what is the infatuation wi the A’s? Every time we get one of their star pitchers, they turn into puppy poo. We passed on Soto, and with the haul Washington got and how he played in SD, that’s not a mission critical misstep. Not getting Castillo hurts, but the cost AND the fact that our pitching was good already, is not too bad of a thing. But beyond an injured Bader and Beni, we didn’t add anyone of impact who swings a bat and this includes last off-season when the Yanks craved offense. Time to rework things here and stop slapping lipstick on a pig. Escalate your internal budget, fire Boone, and see what Cash can do when he can outspend the entire league. Otherwise, get rid of Cash and bring in someone who’s got experience building a title winner on a budget