We launched 2026 with concerns at catcher, shortstop, third base and centerfield. Six months later, none of the problems has been resolved. Next week, the Death Barge must face its supreme nemesis, the Redsocks, who have owned us in this Trump-dominated millennium.
Excuse me if next week doesn't look like a replay of the last 17 Octobers, a lineup of future YES Anti-Classics, to be beamed into our homes like reruns of Glee.
Keeping with the questionable legacy of Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman, the Yankees are once again limping to the Babadook finish line of a forgettable season.
Is this some hallucination? PTSD? Is it an A.I. projection? Should we be counting fingers? Will we soon see a sideline report from Tilly Norwood? I always assumed The Matrix was just a movie. Was it, in fact, a glitch in The Matrix?
How else do you explain this...
Aaron Judge has a tweaked calf. WTF is it with calves? Who tweaks a calf walking to the dugout? His fractured rib rehab lasted seven games, ending when he homered. Now, should we even root for his fast return - and the 0-12 that probably comes with it?
Giancarlo Stanton is a full-blown punch line, bordering on Louis C.K. cringe, as the Yankees publicly ponder his return as a pinch hitter. This is insane. Guy can't run, can't field, and won't have swung a live bat since April. But he might play in the postseason? That is batshit, bull-goose looney, Randall McMurphy, Cuckoos Nest nuts.
Once again, as in Groundhog Day, we're hoping for the magical transformation of Anthony Volpe. Guy's a Kleenex that sticks to your fingers when you throw it away. They now say Volpe could play 3B. Why not? Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario sure can't.
George Lombard Jr. arrived as the next Jeter and has devolved into the latest Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Two months in, we still don't know what we have.
Our bullpen is flat-out exhausted, as every Yankee victory of late seemed to require Boone to use Blackburn, Headrick and Bednar - all of whom show signs of cracking.
Back in March, we saw these problems. Clear as a bell. We just figured they could be addressed. We had Hal's inheritance. We had a farm system. We had the trade deadline. We had options, we failed, and we're supposed to celebrate Cashman's work?
I'm sorry. I suppose we should rejoice over making the postseason. Look at the Mets. Look at the Jersey Giants and Jets. But really, who here does not look at the 2026 Yankees and see the cracks?
Go ahead, owners. Come winter, lock us out! You'll be doing Yank fans a favor.
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16 comments:
All things considered (not the NPR show), it's amazing we won this many games. The non-action over the winter, the lame trades at the deadline, the fantastically underperforming infield, the injuries, the leaky bucket bullpen, Boone's usual ineptitude...we should've been a .500 or less team, and probably would have been if the rest of the league, minus Tampa, was even close to above-mediocre. Actually, almost all of the AL teams are so bad, I question whether the Rays would have looked this "good" if those teams had just been historically average.
We managed not to win in a year that will go down in history as a massive pile of shit. The only good teams are in the NL, and it's not like there's a milliion of them.
Agree with JM - it's a wonder we won this many. Then again, the league is mediocre now. Hal's plan it so look just good enough. If we hit it big, great, but not a big deal.
La plus qui change....
I agree with 13bit’s agreement with JM.
But there is one additional thing to consider…..
You cannot run it back out there if your gosh-darn legs don’t work.
But you can if your brain is busted.
And boy howdy is Brian’s brain Busted.
Thanks for listening.
“Hey!we lost last year! Let’s run it on back out there!“ you see the flaw to this strategy, right?
Once again I must agree with Bitty-13.
I do see the flaw in that strategy....
"In every dream house a heartache.
And every step I take.
Brings me closer to Heaven."
Bob Marley, on the subject of running it on out there:
“You running and you running
And you running away
You running and you running
And you running away
You running and you running
And you running away
You running and you running
But you can't run away from yourself
Can't run away from yourself
Can't run away from yourself
Can't run away from yourself
Can't run away from yourself
Can't run away from yourself”
As to the Yankees' 2026 season, it's living on borrowed time.
"You run and you run to catch up to the sun, but it's sinking
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death."
Like the last several seasons, but even worse this year, watching the Yankees games remind me of that old Twilight Zone episode where Dennis Weaver wakes up every day in a cell waiting to be condemned to death by a judge in court. Likewise, every game is the same: Good pitching only to be sabotaged by few hits, way too many Ks, maybe a few HR and walks, players out of position and lousy strategy by an incompetent manager.
All too true, Duque. And this whole, endless, frustrating season rested on the yearly lie Brian Cashman tells himself: that he actually built a crackerjack team, a helluva team, able to win it all...only to see it derailed by the sort of crapshoot bad luck that happens in playoff baseball.
It's not true. As an actually great GM, Branch Rickey, liked to say, "Luck is the residue of design."
It's not that the Yankees don't win every year because some astonishingly bad break happens to them. They don't win because they never address the obvious flaws in the team that keep them from being favored in the first place.
And actually, JM, the reason they have won 90 games is not hard to discern. It's because the 2026 Yankees had their best starting pitching in a generation—since the 1998-2000 Super Teams—along with an okay bullpen...
Don't take my word for it. Baseball reference ranks NYY at the top of "All pitchers" in Wins-Above-Replacement, with 13.1; Cleveland is next with just 6.0. Our starting pitching is at 10.4 WAR; the next best is Detroit, at 5.5.
Even our relief pitching is tops in the AL by this measure, at 2.7 compared to 1.9 for the White Sox.
For all non-pitchers? Boston is tops at 10.4 The Yanks are 6th, at 1.0—or just barely above league average.
In fact, I should expand upon this in a post...
All too true, Horace. As commented on a billion times here during the roster construction aegis of Cashman, he doesn't have the ability, despite a large yearly payroll, to build a sensible and manageable 26-man roster. Or a 40-man roster, for that matter. Every year he builds a team with substantial flaws. One year the lineup is too right-handed, the next too left-handed. Too many DHs, or too many first basemen. No third basemen developed through the system in more than a generation. Ditto for a good catcher (at least any they keep instead of trading away for an injured pitcher or an over-the-hill position player). Cashman never faces any responsibility as a GM, so he papers over the problems rather than address them properly. Unfortunately, this will never end until Hal sells the team completely. Most of us won't be alive to see that. The Yankees organization is less competent than the vaunted but incapable NY Giants pass rush (1 sack).
Yeah, but aside from that...
You're right, Hoss. The pitching was our only bright spot, which must be the result of a Cashman mistake. Everything else kinda sucked, from intentional actions/non-actions.
Horace, that's a good idea. But also almost a waste of time. We all intuitively know what the numbers and data will say. We've seen it with our own eyes and, unlike a lot of the media, won't be gaslit into believing that the Yankees management is top-notch and successful.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay. I sleep all night, and I work all day.
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