Are the Yankees cursed by the AL's blanket mediocrity?

Since late May, when the extent of the American League's sickly "pennant race" became clear, the Yankees have been groping toward a postseason that was all but guaranteed. 

Even now, plodding through the dog days of August, they still possess the AL's 2nd best record, and no matter how badly they disappoint, it's hard to imagine them falling from a wild card race that resembles a Tee-Ball participation trophy. 

If they face one problem, it's that sub-.500 teams like Baltimore - with whom they open a three-game set tonight - remain in contention. In a normal time, the O's - three games underwater, and having traded their cornerstone catcher - would be texting hotties in the stands. Instead, they're tied for the final wild card slot. 

Thanks to the AL's mediocrity, the Yankees yesterday could put Max Fried on the 15-day injured list, a move similar to what the Dodgers do each year, parking players in bubble wrap with the hope of having them for October. One thing about injured players: They can't get hurt. (Note: This discounts Giancarlo, who can tweak a gonad while blowing his nose.)  

You probably expected me to piss and moan Fried's bone bruise. Sorry to disappoint. No injuries rattle me anymore. Between now and October, we'll see some humdingers. Fried will merely miss five or six starts, mitigated by the return of Carlos Rodon and the fact that he was only pitching five innings, which made Fried's games feel like glorified bullpen starts. It's the long-term we should mourn. Fried is in the second season of an eight-year contract that should have been signed by Carl Pavano. For the next years, whenever a free agent hits the market, Food Stamps Hal will grab his fanny pack and hide. 

For two months now, the Yankees have treaded water. Giancarlo Stanton is a punch line. The Yankees can point to Kyle Tucker's miserable season in LA, but the OF they preferred, Cody Bellinger, hasn't done much. In Toronto, the Yankees faced ascending players in a young lineup, while our rising stars have struggled. 

Anthony Volpe was a swing and a miss. The Martian, thus far, is a swing and a miss. Spencer Jones looks increasingly like a swing and a miss. Ben Rice is barely hanging on, we keep squandering great starts by Cam Schlittler, and it's too soon to assess George Lombard Jr.'s bat. 

AL slop is the gift that keeps on giving. The Yankees can sit on the league's wild card shit pile and try to run out the clock. But everybody knows it, everybody feels it: This team sure doesn't look like a future champion. 

Fried is fried.

 Placed on 15-day Injured List with a bruise on his elbow. 

We need a savior.

It's time for the Yankees to accept the reality about Jazz Chisholm.

Somewhere around East 161st Street, Mamdani should erect a giant bronze plaque that says:

WELCOME TO THE BRONX

BIRTHPLACE OF HIP-HOP

RESTING PLACE OF JAZZ

Of course, I refer to Chisholm, the saddest jazz in modern culture. 

Jazz Chisholm's plummeting career

In 2026 - a year of wars, heat domes and A.I. slop - we have witnessed the decline and fizzle of one Jazz Chisholm, morphing from MVP candidate to human pop-up machine, and the last Yankee you want to see with a game on the line. 

With his nearly every appearance, the YES happy talk machinery suggests that THIS could be the AB that saves Jazz's season and ends our ongoing national nightmare. Then he hits a pop fly. 

Moral: Never tell an open mic you plan to hit 50 HRs next year. 

So now, in these doggiest of August dog days, it's time for the Death Barge to finally accept a stark Jazzy reality: 

Jose Caballero should play 2B, not just against lefty starters, but every single fukking day. Not because he's an all-star. But because he grinds.

Cabby is Chaos, a walking stick of dynamite. He annoys pitchers, catchers, managers, umpires, juju gods, beer vendors and basically everybody being paid to attend the game. If he gets on base, he's gonna run, though he gets thrown out one-in-four times. And nearly every Yank rally - what few we see any more - there's Caballero, in the middle of the scrum, doing something that pissed off the opposition. 

Yesterday, his 8th inning single scored the go-ahead run and left him caught in no-man's land, between first and second. If Chisholm had not stopped momentarily at third, Cabby's run-down heroics would have produced a tack-on run that won the game in nine innings. 

Cabby's having a moment.

Turns out, the Yankees won anyway. 

But time has run out for Chisholm. He's mired in a deep, dark and dreadful drought. At 28, and facing a new contract, this should have been his career year. Instead, he has one foot out the door, and the December ownership lock-out cannot come fast enough. Maybe next year he'll go 50-50. This year, he should be watching and waiting for maybe one last chance, with no guarantee it will ever come. Yankee dreams die hard. This one is over.  

Game DREAD - ø8/ø∂/2∂ – Aaron Boone is the best manager on Earth *

 

Can they do it???

I'm not talking about "following the Knicks" anymore and winning it all. That's not possible, even with the best starting rotation in baseball...something I never thought I would write about any Yankees team.

I'm not talking about winning the division—also impossible—or even making the playoffs anymore (Highly unlikely, and what would be the point?)  

This is not only the dullest Yankees team I have ever seen, but also the most shamefully sloppy, uninterested, and unlikable—a hard combination to pull off.

No, I'm wondering if the 2026 Yankees can manage to break the club record for the lowest batting average in its history. 

Impossible, you say? 

Think again, my fine-feathered friends. Sure, the 1968 Yankees did set a record for the lowest team batting average since 1900, hitting just .214 in that "Year of the Pitcher." 

But but but...in the Year of the Pitcher, pitchers could still hit. The '68 Yanks' pitchers hit .090 in 450 plate appearances. Sure, that's a good number for Heliot "Charlie Hustle" Ramos (currently at .063), but well below what any potential DH at the time would've hit.

Take away the number 9 spot, and those 1968 Bombers hit .224. 

Could the 2026 Yanks, currently batting .230, challenge that mark? Or even go after the all-time, post-DH low of .216, achieved by the 2022 Oakland Athletics? Will we see history in the making???

Well, let's compare:

C: After a month of relatively hot hitting, Austin Wells still trails Jake Gibbs by 33 points (more words I never thought I would write), .213-.180. Also...can Wells top Gibbs' mark of 29 RBI in 450 PA? Currently, Austin is at 17 RBI in 279 PA.

1B: The Mick, in his last year, battling an array of injuries, any one of which would have killed Giancarlo Stanton dead...and still among the league leaders in most categories, while playing 144 games at first in those pre-DH days. Will ANYONE on the 2026 Yanks play 144 games?  

Maybe—maybe Ben Rice, now at 118 games and .251. The Mick ended up at .237. Anyone care to bet Rice is not below that at the end of the year? But wait! We also have the NL's slugging champ, Garcia, now with 1 HR and 2 RBI in 41 PA. Sigh.

2B: Jazz: .214. Horace Clarke, the watchword for Yankees futility, in the worst season of his life....230. Also, led the AL in putouts and assists at second. Mr. "The Ball Is Stuck in My Glove"? Leads AL second sackers in errors, with 8. 

Jazz also has 140 strikeouts. Hoss had 46 that year. Of course, with non-pitchers, the 1968 team had a total of 783 strikeouts; with pitchers, that number was 958. 

The 2026 team? 1123 whiffs, with a quarter of the season still to go.

SS: 1968: Tom Tresh, on his last legs, hitting .195. The whole gaggle of Yankees shortstops in 2026 tops this...though if you gave me a choice between the physically ruined Tresh and Mr. Volpe...

3B: 1968: Bobby Cox, in his one and only full season as a player, hitting .229, with 41 RBI. Ryan McMahon, 2026: .217, with 31 RBI to date. And...now beginning to make disastrous, game-losing plays in the field!

OF: 1968: Roy White, the team's best hitter by average, at .267; Joe Pepitone (.245); Andy Kosco (.240), Bill Robinson (.240. 2026: Cody Bellinger, the team's best hitter by average, at .259; Trent Grisham (.223), and the cast of thousands: Spence and The Martian, Stanton, assorted infielders, The Heliot, and Aaron Judge—still with the third most plate appearances for any Yankees outfielder, still tied for second on the club in home runs, with 17, in his 59 games.

I dunno. This is going to be one hell of a competition.

Oh, also? That 1968 team won 83 games and finished in the first division of a ten-team league. 

I wonder if the 2026 Yankees can finish in the top seven of this year's pathetic AL.

 

 

Will private equity ruin the Yankees? A thumb-sucker from NY mag

 Are we doomed?

Baseball Needs a "Return Policy"

If, anytime within 30 days, a player a team traded for does not perform as advertised, the team should be able to void the trade and get their players back.  

I'm looking at you San Francisco. We should be able to return Ramos.  I don't want hear this "No backsies." crap.  

Is Boone desperate enough to do something right?

Is Cashman desperate enough to let him?

Bench fucking Helios, or just give him his release. What a dumb trade, in a series of incredibly dumb trades. Bring back the Martian. At worst, it's a wash, and we don't have to see Helios' shitty beard anymore.

Let Rice play first. Garcia can DH until Judge or Stanton or both come back, then bench the guy. I'm tired of seeing his shitty beard, too. It turns out, he can't hit here. He hit pretty well somewhere else, but somewhere else is not here. Putting Rice back on the field might help him snap out of his incredibly bad funk, too.

Boone says he wants to "shake up" the lineup. Great. Put Jones in center, put Jazz in the toilet, put Grisham in right and bat him ninth. Cantrun II also can't hit.

Luis Gil has started pitching again, in High A. He might be a useful bullpen lugnut in a couple/few weeks. (Hard to believe he was Rookie of the Year just two years ago.) 

Give Tim Hill a fucking rest already. The guy's arm is falling off and you can see it in real time. Boone is an idiot. Matchups, my ass. Just use someone who can do the job and isn't running on fumes.

And let's get rid of the shitty beards all the way around.  Devin Williams is gone. Pee Wee was right.

"A boy has more self-respect when he's clean shaved."

Aaron Judge is throwing. Yank fans are throwing up. It's time to sound the alarm.

It won't be long, they say. 

In a week, maybe two, the Captain will start swinging a bat. From there, who knows? Live practice? A rehab in Scranton? The return of the cavalry... 

Let's say Food Stamps Hal, seeking to optimize his (and Apollo Global Management's) investment, bring Judge back on Sept. 11 - (the tabs will crap pinecones) - to start a three-game set against the Mets. 

That's 24 games from now. 

Twenty four. Too many. They won't make it, at least, not still in 2nd place. 

The Yankees are playing .500 ball, despite the strongest rotation they've seen all year. 

The starters cannot last another 24 games. You can't keep running pitchers out there, knowing if they give up two runs, the game is over. 

Something's gonna blow. 

The rotation cannot hold.  

They say Cody Bellinger is a week, maybe 10 days away. (Would he miss his Bobblehead Night, Aug. 21?) But are we talking about the Cody Bellinger who is batting .259 with lollipop power? And which Giancarlo Stanton will return - (assuming he ever does?) Will it be the Giancarlo whose swings defy the laws of physics, or the old guy, pushing 37, who can't run or open a bag of Fritos?

This is it. Hell Week. The dog days. Our worst stretch of 2026. Nobody is hitting. We botch plays in the field. And we're squandering great starts. Two weeks ago, the Blue Jays looked like a garage sale. Yesterday, we made them look like contenders. Today, they're going to sweep us. Does anybody on this team have a spark?

It's time to break glass. Sound the alarm. This is a full-blown emergency.

 

The State of the Yankees

 

So What Is The Message?

 After about 1 week in the major leagues, it is becoming clear to Yankee viewers that George Lombard is the best player we have at any position. 

The best of the rest is who, exactly?  The .218 sulking teenager,  with bad hands and no brain, named jazz;? The 40 year old Goldy ( time has eroded him )?  The rapidly deteriorating Ben Rice ( I think he feels the demotion from first base as a severe criticism of his defense).  

 Any handful of our .215 hitters? 

This would be okay if we had 7 more of George's quality to bring up.  But our minor leagues are full of waste paper.  If Volpe and Dominguez weren't there, even a 50 year long Yankee fan couldn't name a single position player of interest from A ball to AAA.  Our best prospect is  probably ranked 85th by MLB assessors. 

And the drought continues.  If a starter gives us 6 innings and 0 runs, it isn't enough.  Because if the opposition gets a run, we will eventually lose in extra innings.  12 strikeouts per game is now a minimum for the Yankee line-up.  We can't advance a runner and, if we are given a free pass ( balk, passed ball etc.) no one will hit more than a 120 foot lazy fly ball to left field.  We have more guys thrown out at the plate than we have runs. Or so it seems.

We have a Manager who is about as bad as you can find.  Sending Garcia on a mission to steal second?  He can barely outrun Stanton.  Putting that same line-up out there, every day with the same instructions ( " Go for the solo Home run"?.  No one can bunt.  Our base running is pathetic.  We make plays without baseball mitts having any role.  And Jazz is always one inch too short, or one foot length too slow. 

The only reason to watch any Yankee game is to see George play, and to see how long our starting pitcher can keep us in the game. 

So what does all this tell you?  What is the message?

 There are no moves to make at the player level ( want to give up more 18 year olds for another Heliot Ramos)?

It is either new management or continue to eat dirt. 

We are going for the dirt option. 

Game Dread – º8/15/2º2ºSUX – AT LEAST THE PITCHING HAS BEEN SOLID !

 

Still, they continue.

The 2026 New York Yankees season began around the same time the first wagon trains started heading out over the Western plains. Since that time, the Yankees have played some three or four hundred thousand games, in some of which they have even scored.

Like the early pioneers, many Yankees have been felled by various ailments and hazards: snake-bite, the pellagra, throwing balls, chasing balls, catching balls, diving for balls, swinging at balls, crashing into a big electronic sign, and trying to run out of the batter's box.

Over the two hundred years or so since the 2026 season began, at least one American League team has been eliminated, meaning that the Yankees still have a chance to make the World Series, much as the Donner Party had a chance to make California. 

Some insist that the Yankees' ongoing, 2026 campaign is just a myth or a mirage, and that no team could play so badly for so long and survive. But others maintain that the team is still out there, somewhere, making its way toward its final destination, whatever that may be. 

There are also old-timers who say that making one's way across half a continent at the pace of an ox's walk was more entertaining than an average, 2026 Yankees' games. But this sort are dismissed as win-greedy malcontents by the team's management and its servile media, who insist that they don't know how good they've got it.

As in any good Western, the Yankees' wagon train has been joined along the way by dubious characters who appeared out of nowhere and seem determined to sabotage its progress, while beloved supporting characters such as that apple-cheeked Volpe kid have been left to expire by the roadside.

Not to worry. The 2026 season is expected to continue for at least another millennium or two, at the end of which we are reliably assured that the Yankees will be gliding through the Canyon of Heroes in shiny new cars, festooned with confetti by their adoring fans.

  

Uh-oh. Remember that collapse we've been awaiting? It's here.

People, I stand before you - humbly and furtively, billiards unholstered and flag hoisted to the autumn wind - to speak darkness unto light, pain unto pleasure, beer unto wine...

The end is near. 

For the Yankees, things are about to go blooey. 

Not trying to scare you. (Actually, yes, I am.) Last night's giveaway in Toronto barely masks a cold reality: 

The Yankees have squandered a playoff-worthy set of starts, because their defense and hitting is more rancid than a mystery-meat burger on the U.S.S. Abe Lincoln. 

Consider our starting pitchers over the last nine:

Last night: (Cole) 6 IP, 2 earned runs. 
Aug 13 (Fried): 5 IP, 1 earned run.
Aug 12 (Warren): 4 IP, 5 earned runs.
Aug 11 (Weathers): 5.2 IP, 1 earned run
Aug 9 (Schlitler): 7.1 IP, 1 earned run.
Aug 8 (Cole): 7 IP, 2 earned runs
Aug 7 (Fried):6 IP, 0 earned runs
Aug 5 (Warren): 5.1 IP, 3 earned runs
Aug 4 (Weathers): 6 IP, 0 earned runs

Nine games. Fifteen earned runs. Less than two per game. 

Damn. We shoulda won at least seven.  

Instead, the Yankees went 5-4, thanks to a leaky pen, a shaky defense and an incredible dearth of hitting.  

We shoulda paced Tampa and pulled away from Boston. Instead, the Yankees burned through some of the season's best starts, their hold on the wild card increasingly greasy and weak.

People: This cannot hold. 

Soon, as Scotty once said, the dialythium crystals are gonna break, the matter/anti-matter pods are gonna come together, and the whole thing, Captain, she's a-gonna go!

This week, we play eight against Toronto and Baltimore. Suddenly, those lineups look flush with young and ascending talent, while we seek to coax the MLB minimum from Heliot Ramos and Ryan McMahon. One of these days, our starting pitching is gonna blow up.  

People, this is the fulcrum point of 2026. 

And the dam looks ready to go. 

Holy Christ on a bike, this team sucks

I can't watch game replays, I can't watch MLB.com condensed games, I avoid the MLB channel's Quick Pitch show, but I still sometimes watch. I just have to turn the channel when the Yankee game rolls around.

Heliot...Helium...Harriet...whatever his name is, is terrible. The Martian is a better option. 

Garcia is okay. Everyone makes an error now and then. And he hits at least as well as Goldie, maybe better. I'm too dispirited to look.

What the fuck is wrong with Ben Rice? Jesus. So much for the MVP.

Grisham is still batting first. He shouldn't be batting at all, these occasional spurts of home runs are not good enough. And he's too slow. Boone is an idiot.

Jazz sucks. 

This team sucks. Aside from the pitching, which has been fantastic. But if a starter can't give up even a single run to avoid a loss, what good is it?

I honestly don't know how the position players go out every day and humiliate themselves like this. 

The Lombard effect wore off awfully damn fast.

Canadian Game Thread – Can Coleºguard us against a loss tonight in Toronto?

 

The Yankees have become a team of Wayne Tollesons

 You know what's sad? I mean - beyond the national debt, or Caitlin Clark, or Count Binface, or electric shock gloves, or the reflecting pool, or that explosive diarrhea from bad lettuce, or - oh, fukkit - practically everything. 

What's truly sad is that Cody Bellinger leads the Yankees in hitting, at .259. 

Yeahp, two-five-nine. That's Don Slaught territory. That's Wayne Tolleson. That's a hopeless, toothless, run-resistant number, which optimizes shutouts and allows no sense of late-inning, or late-season, heroics. Every game, every strikeout, every squandered opportunity, feels like a microcosm of the Yankees, if not the floundering state of humankind, in this decade of the Donald. (Slaught, of course.)   

Two-five-nine. That's Lyle Overbay. That's Eduardo Nunez. And game after game, inning after inning - that's us.  

I know, I know - this is the modern era, and we're not supposed to give a Mexican whit about clunky old batting averages. It's a dead, horse-and-buggy stat, right? We value the OPS, or the OBP, or BABIP, or WAR - whatever makes whatever point you're trying to advance. 

But once upon a time, we dumbasses simply divided the number of ABs by the number of hits, and that was how we knew Rod Carew was not human. That's how we celebrated Don Mattingly when he retired (career BA: .307) and mourned when Mickey Mantle fell short of his greatest goal, a career BA over .300. (He finished at .298, a source of great sadness.) We used that ridiculous stat to dismiss Travis Hafner and marvel at Wade Boggs. (Who, btw, looks frighteningly bulked up in a photo shown on YES this week. WTF?)

Two-five-nine. That's our top BA among hitters with a qualifying number of at-bats. Eliminate the filter, and only two Yankees - George Lombard Jr. (8 games, .276) and Ali Sanchez (34 games, .271) make the cut. 

Two-fifty-nine. And that's from a guy currently out with an injury. 

This is beyond sad. It's past paltry. It's downright embarrassing. If you look at everyday starters, you find six Yankees - Grisham, McMahon, Chisholm, Jones, Wells and Ramos - batting below .225. 

And sorry, folks, but this won't necessarily correct itself when Aaron Judge returns. Last year, on August 12, Judge was hitting .337 and chasing a Triple Crown. This year, his numbers look ghastly - a BA of .248 - in part because he may have played several weeks with a slightly fractured rib - and he now might return with that same ailment.

Two-five-nine.  Where have you gone, Mr. Mattingly, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. 

GT – ø8•13•26 MAX a BILLIONS & BILLIONS & BILLIONS . . .

After 120 games, only three AL teams are out of it

The ESPN dorks keep calling the Yankees shoe-ins for the 2026 post season. Last night, one of them called us "a sleeping giant," because we expect Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton to return and beat the living crapola out of everybody. 

I call bullshit. Nine points:

1. The sad truth is that, heading for the home stretch, only three AL teams - the Royals, Angels and A's - have been eliminated. 

2. The sheer Mendoza Line mediocrity of the AL leaves several certified tomato cans in the wild card chase. 

3. Baltimore, for example, seemed to wave a white flag on Aug. 3, when they traded Adley Rutschman to Boston. They're still only two games out.

4. And last year's It Girl - Toronto - is suddenly hot, winning 7 of 10. They're a measly 1.5 games out.

5. The Yankees rotation - Schlittler, Cole, and Fried - stacks up against anybody. Also, Ryan Weathers has been lights-out, of late.

6. The Yankees also anticipate the return of the Big Three - Judge, Giancarlo and Cody.

7. That would bring a logjam at DH, 1B and the OF. And it could mean streak hitters, such as Stanton, cannot play every day. 

8. But let's not forget the one true Yankee reality. 

9. We are always in a continuum of injuries. The next wave will soon crash. There is no such thing as the Yankees at full strength. Do not unbuckle your seat belts. We are probably a lock for the playoffs. But we should thank the lowly AL for its generosity. 

Bits and pieces

I barely made it to the early innings last night, but Will Warren had one of his terrible starts. And against a crap team, to boot. You never know which Warren you'll get, and that's problematic whether you're a starter or a reliever. So the idea that he can move to the bullpen when Rodon comes back is questionable, to say the least. Of course, you never know which Rodon you'll get either, though it's too often the mediocre one. But he makes too much money to not be in the rotation.

Speaking of playing the money no matter what, Grisham is an embarassment in center. Doesn't he realize that about himself? Good reads and good routes can only go so far to make up for poor wheels. And I don't know that he's so terrific at the first two.

Spencer Jones should obviously be playing center. He's fast, he's good, he can hit. If Boone wants to use Grisham, he should go in right field. There's not much ground to cover there. But between the $22 million and not wanting to humiliate a veteran, Boone will do nothing,  especially after last night's offensive explosion by Grish. This is one of those terrible times when you just have to wish for a hinky hammy, even if it adds a few centuries to your time in Purgatory.

Garcia needs to shave. That beard is awful. One man's opinion. Ramos's is pretty bad, too, and he has shown zip at the plate. The change might do him good.

Last night in the comments, it was noted that Gary Sanchez is having a, for him, good year. Batting .224, OPS over .800. Better than Wells. (Have you noticed that Wells has suddenly started hitting? Not amazingly well, but amazingly well for him.) What wasn't mentioned is that in a blowout a couple days ago, Sanchez came in to pitch late in the game. There's a video out there of him throwing a 37 mph curve with a 213 degree drop, basically a slow pitch softball toss that arced high in the air. It might be the folliest Folly Floater of all time.

I continue to inch my way through the Joe D bio I've been reading, and he was one strange dude. But practical. At the best whorehouse in New York, all the beds had satin sheets, but Joe complained that his knees kept sliding when he was screwing. So they kept a set of cotton sheets for when he visited, known within the establishment as the DiMaggio Sheets. He saved his sliding for the basepaths.