Perspectives: The Yankees Might NOT Get Better

by Paul Semendinger

November 16, 2023

***

It's been quiet on the Yankees front in regard to acquiring players, sure it's early, but my big fear is that it will remain this way through the off-season. It will be quiet. Too quiet. (Note - the Phillies have made numerous moves already, just as a point of comparison.)

Sure, the Yankees will make some moves, but they'll be more of the Harrison Bader type - a guy who might be okay rather than the Juan Soto type of deals. I don't think big changes are coming for many reasons among these are the comments from the general manager (upsetting an agent and possibly demonstrating that the Yankees might not be the team that players truly wish to play for), the owner stating that he doesn't feel a team needs to spend $300 million to win, and both where they basically stated (or hinted) that the team, while it didn't do what it was supposed to in 2023 is nonetheless basically strong. When one says, "We're pretty ^%$#@ good," that doesn't necessarily state that big changes are necessary or coming.

The Yankees have question marks all over the place:

1B - Will Anthony Rizzo rebound?

SS - Will Anthony Volpe Hit?

3B - Who's On Third? (I Don't Know)

LF - You Got a Left Fielder? (Why)

CF - Because (Oh, he's centerfield)

C - Do the Yankees have a catcher who can hit?

DH - Is Giancarlo Stanton washed up?

SP - Who, besides Gerrit Cole, can be counted on to deliver even league average pitching for a full year?

MGR - There's a lot of questions here

GM - Here too

In order to make the Yankees contenders in 2024, the team has a ton of work to do. Thus far, they haven't done any of it.

And that's not a good sign.

When I started wondering about left field last year, I was told, time and again, that I was jumping the gun. "They'll do something, it's early," I was told, over and over. But, in the end, the Yankees never did address left field. Ever.

I also started seeing articles in the media this week saying things like, "Maybe the Yankees need to sit out 2024", and "One big star isn't going to make a difference." It's starting to seem as if some writers are already carrying the Yankees' water for them. It seems like the excuse making is starting already. This is not a good sign.

Brian Cashman built this team. It's a flawed team. It's a very flawed team. When you do such a bad job (see the many question marks listed above), it takes a lot to fix it. The only way for the Yankees to fix all of this for 2024 is to spend a ton of money. I'm not sure the Yankees have that type of big play in their arsenal any longer. I actually don't think they do. At all. It's going to take more than a couple of mid-level signings. It's going to take a ton to turn this team around. I am not sure they can, or will, do it.

And, again, some members of the media are already writing articles saying that the big acquisition approach isn't the best one for the Yankees. And, they're correct - to a point. It's going to take acquiring a bunch of very good to great players, not just one. Cody Bellinger, if he even comes to the Yankees, does not solve the problems alone.

The Yankees dug a deep hole. A very deep hole. This was their own doing and there is only one way out...

***

Hal Steinbrenner has repeatedly said that it shouldn't take a $300 million payroll to win. Unfortunately due to the hole created by his general manager, it's probably going to take even more than that to make the Yankees contenders in 2024.

Cutting corners will not work. Yet, cutting corners has been the Yankees way for a long long time.

***

Great organizations also are always a step ahead of the competition. The Yankees continually seem to be steps behind everyone else.

Great organizations are proactive. The Yankees, for years, have been reactive.

My fear is that this is who they are and that they are unwilling and unable to change. Hal Steinbrenner is who he is. Brian Cashman is who he is. I don't think the Yankees are happy they didn't make the playoffs, but when they look at their revenue figures for 2023, I'm sure they're quite happy.

In short, I suspect they're doing very well in the financial ledger. I also fear that's what matters most to all of them.

***

Think about this, Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman are angry because the media and the fans are frustrated by their approach. Rather than looking at themselves and the decisions they have made (and the public images they portray) they have criticized the media and (at least indirectly) the fans. "They're all wrong!" they protest (one protested with profanity).

(Meet the Yankees of today - "You cannot have a beard, but it's okay to use profanity at reporters.")

The people who run the Yankees never seem to be self-critical and understand why the fans are so frustrated.

***

And yet, through all of this, the Yankees keep getting high attendance figures.

Remember the narrative that the fans wouldn't support the team if they didn't win? It's another lie. The fans have supported this team.

The Yankees have one World Series victory since 2001. The fans surely are not coming out to see a championship winning team. At all. If this hasn't been the longest re-build in team history, I don't quite know what it is.

***

The Yankees have been long on excuses, and short on results for a long long time.

***

Then, the other day, Brian Cashman got into a war of words, of sorts, with the agent for Giancarlo Stanton.

Stanton's agent didn't have the kindest words to say about Brian Cashman or the Yankees' organization and approach. This is far from the first time we have heard about this.

Remember, Cashman's handling of some of the Yankees' greatest talents, the legends of this era, hasn't been good. Bernie Williams wasn't happy. Derek Jeter. Aaron Judge. Is it possible that Andy Pettitte left the first time because he wasn't all that enamored with the team? (I don't know that, I'm asking the question.) Brett Gardner, after a long career, simply disappeared. Why is it that so many former Yankees seem to have such a problem with the team? What is the one constant throughout?

Now, Stanton's agent basically said that playing for the Yankees isn't necessarily the best thing for a player. Imagine that. Wasn't this what I was asking weeks ago? I also alluded to this idea in the summer of 2022 before Aaron Judge decided to come back. It's a reason I wonder if Gerrit Cole will opt out. One only need look at the treatment Cashman and the organization affords its stars and questions come up. Big questions.

Why would a star want to come to the Yankees when he gets treated poorly, not by the fans with high expectations who bring passion, but by the organization? Like it or not, Brian Cashman speaks for the organization. And what he says doesn't inspire confidence in me. At all.

Think back to Old Timer's Day. Which great Yankees stars from the past were there? How many were missing? Where was Reggie Jackson? Dave Winfield? Rickey Henderson? Rich Gossage? On and on and on... Why is it that year-after-year so many great Yankees are absent? Are they all busy that weekend? Always? They're busy every single year?

When one takes a step back, it seems that there is something clearly wrong.

Bottom line - playing for the Yankees, for many reasons, isn't the dream we as fans think it might be. It's not. What the Yankees used to have is the fact that they won. They don't have that any longer. The Yankees also used to be big time players in free agency and trades - always. If they didn't win, they at least went all-in. They don't win any longer and they don't go all-in any longer. None of this is good. None of this.

Why would a player with multiple options on where to play want to come to the New York Yankees? The fact that Hal Steinbrenner gives all of this his approval as his team's legacy gets tarnished, possibly beyond repair, is beyond me.

The Yankees might not get the big time players because the big time players might choose to play for a franchise that respects them in ways the Yankees don't seem to. If I were a player, and I heard these comments from Stanton's agent, I'd shy away from playing for the Yankees. Absolutely. And I suspect none of this is particularly new.

What all of this does to the franchise and team isn't good. At all.

***

By the way, as we know, Yoshinobu Yamamoto's agent is...

Giancarlo Stanton's agent.

I don't see a way that Yamamoto signs with the Yankees. Brian Cashman burned that bridge.

For years I hear people criticize Scott Boras. People say, "I wouldn't want to deal with him."

Is it possible that agents say the same thing about working with the Yankees?

***

I keep reading this false notion that Stanton's agent did a bad job because he'll damage the market for Yamamoto if the Yankees aren't players for him. There is this old tired idea that the Yankees are needed to drive up player salaries. This is a false narrative that is provably wrong. Look at the highest players in the game - which of those negotiated with the Yankees? Very few. Very very few - except the ones who play for the Yankees.

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/rankings/

Players don't need the Yankees to get paid tons of money. They don't need to come to the team and they don't even need to negotiate with them.

There are so many false narratives that the Yankees have put out for so long that so many just repeat as if they are facts - when they are not.

Another false trope is the notion that teams ask the Yankees for more in trades than they ask of other teams. On its face that makes no sense. Why would a team take a lesser package in a trade just to hurt the Yankees? If any GM did that, he or she should be fired, immediately. "We could have had player X, but you settled for Y because... why?"

Yet this nonsense gets repeated year-after-year.

The Yankees are baseball's most popular team. They always draw the highest attendance across the sport (or close to it). This is even more so when the Yankees are good or great. The Yankees fill up rival stadiums. No GM is going to take a lesser package from another team just to mess with the Yankees.

Maybe, instead, the other teams don't like dealing with the Yankees. Maybe that's where the problem is.

The Yankees didn't just hurt their chances to get Yamamoto, they hurt their chances to get any of the big free agents.

***

Also - all of this, "Stanton wants to finish his career with the Yankees" stuff that so many write, is pure nonsense. Why would he want to stay? I asked this long before this latest "controversy" came up.

***

The other night, I sat through the MLB Manager of the Year television show. I don't usually watch those shows, but that's not the point I wish to make here.

For an hour, they showed clips of the best managers doing their things... clip after clip of the managers who were up for the award.

Not once did they show a clip of a manager in the corner of his dugout blowing bubbles. Not once. Yet this is what the Yankees fans get to see game after game.

Some managers manage, some managers blow bubbles and spit out sunflower seeds. The Yankees have the latter.

In so many ways, in so so so many ways, the Yankees are so far from what they used to be that if it wasn't so sad and discouraging, it would be laughable.

Truth be told, if Saturday Night Live took the same clips of the managers and inserted some real footage of Aaron Boone's bubble blowing into those clips, people would laugh because the Boone clips would look like a joke. People who don't know better would think it's a farce. It's hard to imagine that that is the image the Yankees portray through their manager.

And this is the manager Brian Cashman chose and that he and Hal Steinbrenner re-hired and will be bringing back in 2024. They have to know that this is what he does, how he manages. This is the image he portrays and has for years. As such, they seem fine with it.

These are the Yankees of today.

***

During that manager show, there was a graphic showing all of the players on the Tampa Bay Rays that were injured. They won a lot anyway.

In his presser, Brian Cashman used injuries as an excuse for the Yankees' lack of success, as he does every year. It's tough to use that as an excuse when you build a roster full of fragile players, yet he does anyway.

Bottom line - winners get things done, losers make excuses.

The Yankees make a lot of excuses.

***

For all the optimism some have about this off-season, I'm coming to the conclusion that when the winter is over, the Yankees are going to be looking like a team that stood relatively pat and seem content to hope that things turn around better for them in 2024. We'll be hearing the following, "If they players are healthy, we'll be good..."

If that's the case, 2024 will be the year the bubble finally bursts. It's been coming for a long time.

It didn't have to be this way...