by EJ Fagan
July 6, 2024
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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.
Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.
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The Yankees just blew a game to the Red Sox. It’s easy to blame Clay Holmes for giving up a big home run in the 9th, or Tommy Kahnle for a big home run in the 10th, but that’s the cheap way out. The Yankees only barely scratch away 3 runs in this game because the Red Sox couldn’t field a bunch of routine ground balls.
The Yankees offensive woes aren’t a one game problem. They are a roster construction problem. The Yankees are, once again, playing like the worst team in major league baseball. Since the start of their last series against the Red Sox on June 14th, the Yankees are 5-14, good for a 26% win rate. That’s despite Juan Soto and Aaron Judge playing like MVPs, plus solid performances from Austin Wells, Ben Rice and Trent Grisham during the span. Judge’s hitting coach is right.
Yet, the Yankees still can’t score runs. A bunch of Yankee hitters aren’t just playing poorly; they are hitting absolutely pathetically. Alex Verdugo, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, Jose Trevino, Oswaldo Cabrera and Anthony Volpe all have sub-.600 OPS's since June 14th (some sub-.500).
The Yankees are going through the same second half roster collapse that they went through in each of the last three seasons, and would have in 2018 and 2019 if not for a few miracle call-ups from Triple-A.
This is a pattern with root causes. And I think blame lies squarely on Brian Cashman’s shoulders.
My critique of Brian Cashman is essentially unchanged from last offseason. Cashman has his strengths as a GM. However, he has a fatal flaw that will forever doom the Yankees to mediocrity: he is terrible at developing young hitters.
Ben Rice is such a breath of fresh air. He looks like a real hitter: he works the count, hits the ball all over the field and takes his walks. He doesn’t have the tools to be an MVP candidate or something, but I’d bet on Rice hitting pretty well in the majors league for a long time.
Ask yourself: when was the last time the Yankees drafted and developed a Ben Rice? Any major league hitter who spent most of their time in the Yankees system, came up with the team, and hit? Think about it for a second.
There are two answers: Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez in 2017. Before those two? Brett Gardner. That’s it for twenty seasons.
Take a look at the 2024 Red Sox roster. This is a team that let Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts leave for little return. Yet, the roster includes home grown, above average hitters in Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, Connor Wong and Triston Casas, plus several other solid supporting hitters. Oh, and some guy called Rafael Devers.
The 2024 Red Sox have managed to assemble a bigger stable of real major league hitters in one year than Brian Cashman has in two decades.
Because Cashman has been unable to develop young hitters, he has been forced to patch together a roster with veterans and waiver wire pickups. Alex Verdugo, Jose Trevino, Trent Grisham and J.D. Davis were all cast off by their teams. DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo are past their prime. Oswaldo Cabrera and Jahmai Jones are barely major league players.
That leaves Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, the young player group of Ben Rice, Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe as productive players, and whatever you think Gleyber Torres is worth.
No one should be surprised that this motley group of hitters is collectively bad. Other than Judge and Soto, they are barely distinguishable from the typical player on Oakland or Chicago other than their salaries.
It is impossible to build a winning roster in 2024 without developing young hitters. A bunch of young hitters. Brian Cashman may be the worst general manager in major league baseball at doing so. He is the problem.
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If they want to move on from Brian Cashman, my choice would be Jeff Luhnow, the architect of all those great Houston Astros teams over so many years. Most of those Astros teams were made up of mostly homegrown talent that came up through that organization, great scouts that Luhnow hired, a great player development system that Luhnow put into place, and then great coaches at the big league level once those players reached the majors. A team does not have to "tank" like the Astros and Orioles supposedly did in order to build a great farm system of players. The Pirates and the Marlins supposedly "tanked" too, but have not built teams capable of winning their division and advanc…
Conner Wong actually was not home grown. He was one of the players the Red Sox acquired from the Dodgers in the Mookie Betts trade along with Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs.
The Red Sox, in building a formidable farm system, were aided by a lot of first round draft picks they obtained as a result of multiple last place finishes. The Red Sox were in a pattern for a while of going form "worst to first", then first to worst", then "worst to first" again, then back to "first to worst" until several consecutive last place finishes up until last season. That's a lot of high draft picks as a result of last, or near last, place finishes.
During…
The horse is already out of the barn. Cashman should have been canned 10 years ago. Do any of us realize what it would take to revitalize and rebuild the farm system? It would take years and it would require a complete house cleaning. Scouts, minor league managers and coaches, a new GM of course, new major league coaches and a president of baseball operations that would be making the major decisions with an agreement from the start that Hal would have zero say with the exception of major $$ commitments to free agents. Does anyone here given the last 15-20 years really believe this is going to happen while the cash registers at the Stadium keep ringing? We hav…
One big problem with firing Cashman. Hal will hire his replacement.