Hal Steinbrenner plays the long game.

 

The temptation is to say that Hal just doesn't get it. That he doesn't understand the Yankees' legacy of sustained excellence. The need not just to win but to dominate, year after year. To raise up or bring in the biggest and the brightest stars.

But I don't believe that's true. I think that Hal Steinbrenner knows all about the Yankees' history. He could hardly not, growing up under George. He just doesn't care.

There is, in fact, a whole brand of sportswear saying just that: Hal doesn't care. But that's not completely right, either. Hal cares all right. He just doesn't care about us.

The hard truth is we're exactly who Hal wants to get rid of, as he continues to convert the Yankees from a traditional sports team to a luxury lifestyle destination.

For years now, the Yankees have done everything they could to spurn passionate fans like us, who are obsessed with silly things like winning and quality baseball, in favor of the high rollers who come to the Stadium to impress clients with the free lobster tails and seat waitresses. Under this business model, it makes no sense for the Yankees to do things like risk signing high-priced free agents, or to construct a championship-level from within, which they will simply have to pay for later.

Take a look at how the Yankees have operated under the reign of Hal. Every single strategy they've pursued has been about making their business more exclusive and expensive, and not about widening the fan base or making the team better. 

While the Yanks took their "pursuit" of Juan Soto to sadistic lengths this fall, over the past few years they have consistently failed to sign or even seriously consider going after any number of free agents—Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, Freddie Freeman, Cody Bellinger, and Yoshinobue Yamamoto, to name a few—who could easily have taken them over the top to win repeated, world championships.

While the Steinbrenners spent decades lobbying for a second new stadium heavily subsidized at the taxpayers' expense, they hiked prices to extortionate levels, banned cash in the ballpark, and lopped off some 10,000 seats available to the general public, in favor of more luxury suites and accommodations.

While Hal Steinbrenner has called the team's existing payroll—far from the highest in baseball now—"unsustainable," he has still refused to replace general manager Brian Cashman, despite the fact that Cashman, in his record, 27 seasons as GM, has proven himself abjectly unable to construct a championship team of his own.

Could this be because Hal understands that, down the road, getting rid of a homegrown, championship team could be even more difficult and expensive than discarding passing stars such as Juan Soto? Could he have understood this witnessing Cashman's efforts to dump the "Core of Four"? (Or "Hive of Five"?)

All indications are that the Yankees never intended Juan Soto to be more than a rental. That, like some small-market club desperate to keep the fans coming, they threw away four highly promising, young pitchers for that one-and-done opportunity. It seems clear that they always intended to let Juan walk, and placate the fans with their next, ultra-cheap superstar, "The Martian"—much in the same way that Soto's team of origin, the Washington Nationals, brought him up to distract the fans from the departure of Bryce Harper.

But even so—even with a potential world championship on the line—the Yanks let Jasson Dominguez molder in Triple-A for much of this season, while Verdugo flopped about the outfield. The reason? They were concerned that, five years down the line, Dominguez might be able to file for free agency a season earlier.

He may look like an idiot and sound like an idiot. But the truth is that Hal Steinbrenner always has his eye on the long game. 

He has no intention of running the Yankees like a big-market franchise—even if he is in the biggest market of all—and he has no intention of running it like many small-market franchises, relying on smart baseball men to keep fielding young, dynamic teams. 

The Yankees, under Hal, are not interested in winning a championship, and they are not interested in rebuilding. What they want to do is exactly what they have been doing, which is "contending"—not for a ring, but for the 40-percent of the majors that now makes the playoffs.

This accounts for so much of what the team does, such as putting more and more of the team's games on streaming services instead of its YES channel. Hal and the Yankees understand that traditional television—even cable television—will soon be gone, and they're happier than ever to fill up YES with infomercials on things such as golfing and tennis (more sports of the well-off!), rather than providing great Yankees game for the fans.

It is also tempting—I know, I've fallen for that temptation!—to think that, somewhere down the line, the Yankees will surely pay for this callous, soulless strategy. That they have now "handed the town over" to the Mets. That servicing only the rich and famous will come back to bite them in the bottom line. 

When, exactly?

In 2008, the Yankees drew the second-highest attendance in major-league history, with nearly 4.3 million fans. The following season, they opened their new, smaller ballpark. They have never drawn as many as 3.8 million since. 

This is a team quite willing and able to kick a good half-million fans to the curb. They don't care because they don't have to. Because they have remade themselves into the very essence of modern, publicly subsidized, corporate sports mediocrity.

Think they can't get away with this indefinitely? I have three words for you: New. York. Knicks.