A Legitimate Question

Why did they play Volpe over Jose Caballero in the playoffs?

Aside from saying that Brian and Boone are incompetent morons. That's a given. I'm trying to get my head around their thinking from a financial standpoint because, as we all know, the bottom line for the Yankees is the Bottom Line. 

Volpe was hurt and they knew it, even if they did not understand the severity of it. That said, clearly he was a lesser version of a player who was already a lesser version of his "potential".  

Despite this they played a hurt guy over his superior replacement during the playoffs. 

Why? 

I get playing him all year if he's your guy but, and I'm talking financially here, doesn't Hal make more money if the team advances?  

Once the Yankees get past the trade deadline that's all the money they are going to spend on players for the year. So, financially, isn't the next goal to maximize their value? 

You know, WIN? 

Advancing in the playoffs means both additional attendance and TV revenue. Beyond that, the Yankees get to live live off of the "Historical Value" of a championship team.  Bobble heads, caps, jerseys, bringing them all back for a "special day" etc. 

So again, this isn't about an owner and a GM not bringing in the pieces to win, that's a separate issue, this is about failing to put your best team on the field from the players you already have. 

It doesn't make sense... financially.  

It doesn't even effect Volpe's value long term because the team could just say the benching was due to injury and the surgery in the off season backs that up. 

So for the last time... why?  What could possibly be the reasoning? 

Cash on Volpe: “I think the injury probably contributed to the performance season that he would end up having more than we would have thought based on our intimate involvement with him and our medical staff and how that played out."

Huh? 

Lemme get this straight, in an A.I. way... 

So, we're told now that Anthony Volpe will probably miss opening day, rehabbing from shoulder surgery on the tweak that wrecked his and the Yankees' 2025 season.

Excuse me, while I process this... 

Apparently, the Yankee Brain Trust will soon gather to plot a course for 2026. The team will consider Jose Caballero and/or Oswaldo Cabrera as SS placeholders, while Cashman prays for the sudden maturity of George Lombard Jr., and combs the scrap yards and recycling bins of The Damned.

Volpe should return in May, raising a question for the storied franchise: 

Now, what?

For three hard years, we've wanted Volpe to become a great Yankee. And - honestly - I think something is in there. The guy is a fighter and a solid teammate. But we're heading into winter with four basic Volpe memories:

1. Strike one.
2. Strike two.
3. Strike three.
4. Return to dugout. 

The Jersey Giants have Cam Skattebo. 

The Yankees have Anthony Scattered Boos. 

Detect the flaw in Anthony Volpe's batting strategy

 

 Is it...

a) Hands too high
b) Elbow too straight
c) Too many bats.

Turns out, Volpe played hurt. Should we thank him?

This week, Anthony Volpe - the Jersey boy, the former future-Jeter, and the forever chemical in the Yankee bloodstream - went under the knife to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, an injury that happened last May 3 and fostered the worst year in his athletic career, if not his life. 

So, what are we supposed to think about Volpe? Three possibilities...

1. He's a tough kid, a gamer, who played in pain.

2. He's an idiot, who didn't disclose his injury to coaches.

3. He's a victim; the team knew he was compromised and ruined him, by sending him out night after night. 

Obviously, it's all three. 

Volpe played in pain, a page from the John Madden School of Gonad Tweaks. Unfortunately, MLB isn't the NFL, and while he was filling the role - and protecting his job - he was also killing this team. 

On May 3, when Volpe dove for a ball and felt his shoulder pop, he was hitting .233. That followed a month of April, when he hit 5 HRs. (Note: On trajectory for  a Chisholm-esque 30.)  

Here's what's weird: Right after the injury, Volpe sorta improved. He hit .246 in May, his best month of 2025. (But he hit only one HR.) Then, the floor dropped out.

In June, he hit .205. 

In July, .172.

In August, .191.

Worse, his fielding degraded. There was a stretch when he couldn't seem to throw to first, and folks were remembering Knobby. 

When you realize that one fukking measly extra Yankee win in 2025 - just one! - would have... 

a) won the AL East
b) brought a first-round bye
c) won home field advantage in the playoffs.

And then you think of Volpe shitting the bed all summer, thinking he was doing us a favor... well, fuk me. 

The problem was magnified by the collapse of the Oswalds - Cabrera and Peraza - the pair that once-upon-a-time might have replaced Volpe and solved the problem.

The loveable, always-smiling Oswaldo Cabrera broke his ankle on May 12, sliding into home. He was hitting .246 with one HR, but holding down 3B defensively. You had the feeling, it was his position to lose. (I also had the feeling that Oswaldo could play SS, if need be.) Then, snap, he was gone. 

Meanwhile, the perpetually grimacing Oswald Peraza was a folding into a stone cold Triple A flunky. He'd once compared favorably to Volpe, but his bat and glove had disappeared. Peraza, hitting .152, was dumped off to the Angels at the trade deadline for a handful of magic beans. (Something called "Wilberson de Pena" and "future considerations.")  He finished the year at .164. 

My god, WTF happened to Peraza? Three years ago, he looked like a future everyday SS. By August, he was a DH/1B, a pug boxer in a flophouse gym.

Ah, but now we're getting into management, which is a lost cause. It's like Democrats complaining about Kash Patel: Nobody in power is listening, and the angrier we get, the more they giggle.

If Brian Cashman had done what he does best - that is, combed the recycling bins and found a veteran SS -the Yankees could have allowed Volpe to heal and - who knows? - we might still be playing. 

One victory. Just one.

So... in case you're scoring at home, a recap:

Nobody cares what we think. Management bet on a nicked-up Volpe, and that's Chinatown, Jake. The fans booed Volpe in his final appearances, trudging back to the dugout after another strikeout. He might be done in NY. What a sad image. What a terrible outcome. And what a colossal fuckup! 

If there was such a thing as accountability, somebody would lose his job. Ah, but that's another subject for a cold, dark winter. 

The leaves turn in Loser City.

 

The night is bitter

The stars have lost their glitter

The nights grow colder

Suddenly you're older—

So it's over at last, not only the season but the postmortems.  

The Yankees didn't win it all—something most of knew would happen.  They didn't return to the World Series, either, something most of us also expected, nor did they win the division, or a hundred games, or do anything else of note.  

Without the extended extended-wild card system putting the Top 40 percent in the playoffs, the Yankees season would have quietly ended weeks ago—and not much the worser.

The team couldn't win when Judge was hurt or slumping. They couldn't win in the postseason when Giancarlo took a year off, even though Judge came through. Well, hey, that's a tiny variation!

The shortstop we all knew couldn't hit or field well enough to start for a winning team, had another wretched year. Fortunately, for our general manager, he got hurt as well, so that baked-in excuse will keep him in the Bronx until he goes the way of all Gleyber.

The washed-up first baseman we got cheap did no better than the cheap, washed-up first baseman he replaced.  Our catcher of the future looked like our every catcher of the recent past.  Jazz ended the year yawning openly and staring in perplexity at his glove. 

The pitching staff, starting and going, was threaded with huge holes.  So what's new?

What did surprise me, at least, was how the Mets collapsed as well, not even making the playoffs. That will bring changes, at least, but so much else remains the same.

What do we have to look forward to?

The local football teams are already a combined 2-10. Once again, the Jets have brought on a coach wound way too tight for the vicissitudes of New York City.

The Giants seem to suddenly have hope, due to their quarterback with the splendid name of Jaxson Dart. Dare we foresee a 2030s where he is stepping out with our shortstop-of-the future, Dax Kilby, the Mantle and Gifford of their time? The Ax Brothers??  Maybe, "The Ax Men"???

Well, maybe. More likely they'll both flourish elsewhere—as those two QB discards from NYC, Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones, are doing right now. (Have our football teams been taking pointers from Cashie and friends?)

What else is there after football?

The Knicks made the conference finals for the first time in almost 25 years, and promptly fired their coach. (The Liberty, providing more proof that the women are catching up to the men, fired their coach, too, one year after winning their first ever, WNBA title.)

Here it is only mid-October, and the Rangers have already been shutout three times at home and are the verge of a new NHL record for that. 

Two years ago, they compiled the most points in the NHL. Last year, they didn't make the playoffs. This year, they are chasing some of those amazing, 100-year-old-plus, non-scoring records that we were told the Yankees kept breaking earlier this season.

After the Rangers, well, there are the Devils and the Islanders. The names seem vaguely familiar, but indelibly attached to other decades, in the distant past, like the monikers of six-day bicycle racers, and silent movie stars.

The Nets? They have reached the black hole of sports in their Goniff Arena, beyond the reach of any meaningful comment whatsoever.

That great beginning

Has seen a final inning

Don't know what happened

It's all a crazy game...

Sure is, especially here in Loser City.

Oh, I know that Doug K. is right, and New York is not "Loser City" when it comes to most of my fellow citizens (Though maybe we should wait to see how this election turns out.) .

But it is Loser City, all right, when it comes to our ridiculously over-subsidized, over-indulged, overpriced, under-performing, under-engaging, generally awful, hopeless—and indifferent—sports teams.

Yes, yes, I know: I have no idea what it's like to live in Kansas City, Miami, Cleveland, Wherever the home teams have fled or just plain stink, year in and year out.

At least, in those places, the fans don't have to put down major money just to hear some front-office gibbon like Lonn Trost or Randy Levine or Brian Cashman tell you that you've never had it so good.

The road gets rougher

It's lonelier and tougher...

But not for the nepo magnates who run our teams. They are surrounded by huge, comforting piles of money, and courtiers and fawning "reporters" from the sports media they largely own, telling them all the time what a great job they are doing.

Well, time to get watching our other local clubs make Brian Cashman and the Yankees look good by comparison. No doubt, another five months of watching losing like that, and we'll be chomping at the bit for Opening Day. 

Really, there is nothing to say about the '25 Yankees, and I am sick of saying it.

Seven points re: the Yankees.

1. They do not practice fundamentals. Beneath them. 

2. They have squandered Aaron Judge's greatest seasons. 

3. Their farm system is far more depleted than they admit.  

4. As long as the Mets lose, they face no consequences for failure.

5. Hal fears being yelled at by Cashman. 

6. Because they own their own media, they never face real criticism. 

7. They will not win a world series in this decade.

All We Need Is a Lighbulb for His Mouth

 Above Average's post inspired me...

Like his doppelganger, I wonder if putting Cashman in that cranium-squeezing device might bring him (and us) relief...

It can't hurt.

An Above Average Haiku Tuesday – ØHAL, ØPAL, & ØSEEDY

IT SURE SUCKS AND BLOWS

THE SEASON CAME TO A CLOSE

LOOK AT THESE . . . BOZOS !

How could the Yankees lose? Didn't they hit the most HRs of any team?

The Dodgers and Mariners might end up grappling in the World Series, but let's take comfort in knowing that the Yankees - with three players whacking more than 30 HRs apiece - won baseball's true title: 

The regular season Team Home Run Derby. 

Neither Trent Grisham (.235) or Jazz Chisholm (.242) chased the batting crown, but both contributed to the most important Yankee stat: Homers. Grisham hit 34, Jazz hit 31. 

But with the exception of - say - Aaron Judge (and maybe Cody Bellinger), whenever a Yankee player strode to the plate this year, they were swinging away!

So went the '25 Bronx Bombers - MLB's Three True Outcome all-stars. 

First in HRs. (274)

First in walks. (639)

Third in strikeouts. (1,463)

(They finished first in slugging percentage [.455] and tenth in batting average. [.251])

In the recent postseason, the Yankees had six players - Judge, McMahon, Volpe, Bellinger, Chisholm and Rice - tie for the team lead in HRs... each with one (1). As a team, they finished sixth in HRs, tied with Detroit. 

As of this posting, they are fourth in '25 postseason strikeouts (with 66 out of 235 ABs).

Look... I get the Yankee HR thing. The franchise is synonymous with sluggers - Ruth, Gerig, Mantle, Maris, Jackson, Judge. One year, when old George tried to win with speed, I recall Whitey Herzog saying the Babe would be spinning in his grave. 

The Yankees are supposed to lead Creation in HRs. This season, they hit about 80 more than their AL East torturer, the Blue Jays. But if you live by the HR/W/K continuum, you die by it, as well. 

The Yankees lost to Toronto because the Blue Jays relentlessly served singles into the outfield and, with the exception of one game, they didn't botch plays in the field.

So, as the days grow shorter and the winds turn colder, another slugging Yankee team has gone home, and the banjo hitters play on. I wonder if, in our lifetimes, the Yankees will figure out what everybody else knows: It's the little things that win rings.

The Home Run Derby happens in July. Nobody cares about it in October. 

Post Mortem: Two Quick Fixes

El Duque’s all too accurate foretelling of the Yankees off season plans the other day left me empty and angry. Is there no way out of this morass? 

In the past I’ve suggested they bring in a Feng Shui expert like Marie Kondo to help remove all objects that block energy and don’t spark joy – principally Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman, and Gleyber Torrez. Went one for three.   

OT: Did anyone else catch the look of disgust on lifetime cheater A.J. Finch’s face after Gleyber’s at-bats in their win or go home game against the Mariners?  

Fun times.

Bonus: Who else here knew that the Tigers were going to lose the second they saw Tommy Kahnle enter the game? 

--

I’d like to see a similar purging of the team’s negative crap but as the post Rufus shared proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the real problem is Hal and he ain’t going nowhere.

So what’s a mother to do?

It doesn't matter how desperately the Yankees need to change all management, Brian and Aaron Boone stay. Sigh.

This year they tied for the best record in the AL and last year they made The Series. 

Boone stays.

BTW there’s a nice article on a potential replacement in Shelly Duncan in today’s Yanks Go Yard. 

Wishful thinking. 

So assuming that Hal and Pals ain’t going anywhere let’s look at some doable moves…  

Volpe Needs To Be Gone  

We all know this but here's the thing... This might be possible. Doesn’t matter how much the front office believes in him.  He is being booed off the field. The only thing he is elite at is getting undeserved at bats.  

It’s gotten so bad that when he makes a slightly above average play he is praised in the broadcast booth like he’s Ozzie Smith. Like we should take a picture of it and put it up on our refrigerator. 

Bottom line, he is openly despised by a large portion of the fan base. Gleyber level stuff.  

But the real reason? The REAL bottom line. 

While the Yankees are not in the business of winning championships they are in the business of selling merch. Volpe no longer does that.

This is a life size cutout of Anthony Volpe. According to Fathead (the official MLB licensee)

“Crafted with attention to detail, the Anthony Volpe size cutout captures the essence of the player in action. Its sturdy foam core construction ensures durability, while the vibrant print brings the athlete to life. This isn't just a decoration; it's a tribute to your passion for baseball and the New York Yankees. Let your fandom shine with this unique piece that celebrates the energy and excitement of America's favorite pastime. Elevate your space and show your support for Anthony Volpe and the Yankees in a big way.”

The player in action? It looks it’s capturing the essence of him watching a third strike right down the middle of the plate.  

The first run sold out. There won’t be a second.

The Yankees will move on.  

Jazz Needs To Be Gone 

More than his errors in the field, the boasts that fail to be backed up, and his horeshit demeanor, Jazz can be summed up by one act, The Yawn. 

Hopefully his “historic” 30-30 year will have some value in the trade market. Hopefully more value than his limited edition Next Stop bobble head. Can’t wait to see the next one. 

GENERAL MANAGEMENT TIP #1 - Trades 

The Yankees should only trade for guys in the minors or proven winners. The Red Sox added Bregman and turned it around. Likewise Springer with the Blue Jays.

No more trades for Marlins or  Rockies. The team should only acquire players who have winning in their DNA.  They are better off with a lesser player who knows how to win than a 30-30 guy like Jazz Chisolm who clearly does not.

GENERAL MANAGEMENT HOT TIP #2 - Free Agents 

No more future HOF players who come here for their final year(s).

No explanation needed.

Speaking of players past thier prime I’ve noticed a pattern when watching the YES broadcasts.  They do bumpers that show a photo of player who played for the team they are playing that day and then a photo of them playing for the Yankees.  In pretty much every one of them the Yankee photo shows an older, slower, version. Doesn’t make them bad per se but it’s interesting that it’s never the other way around.  

 --

Volpe for anything.  Jazz has real value.  Bullpen help plus a high end minor league player? Whatever, getting rid of both of them is addition by subtraction.  It's a start. 

The Yankees will be worse next year.

To the right, see them empty yellow boxes? Four, in 14 years. Despite spending twice as much as most teams, the Yankees those years failed to qualify for the expanded playoffs, which are practically Little League participation trophies.  

By this time next year, it'll be five misses in 15. 

First, they're gonna stick with Volpe. They'll say he played 2025 hurt. George Lombard Jr. won't be ready, and they won't wanna spend big on a free agent SS. So it'll be Volpe. And he'll suck.

They'll re-sign Trent Grisham. The Mets or Dodgers will outbid us for Cody Bellinger, prompting a panicked Hal to bestow an 8-year, Aaron Hicks-level deal upon Grisham. And  he'll suck.

They sign some aging 3B to a Josh Donaldson contract. And he'll suck.

Gerrit Cole will return in July. He'll be pushing 36. He'll suck.

Aaron Judge will face nagging injuries that reduce him to 90 games and 30 HRs. He'll still be great. But without him, they'll suck. 

The Yankees' off-season strategy for 2026, in brief.

1. Wait for the Dodgers and Mets to sign the top two or three free agents on the market. Finish second in the bidding on each auction.

2. Collect the table scraps, aging stars past their prime, and overpay for them.

3. Chase the "White Whale," Cashman's annual pitching target, buy trading a package of young players; explain that none were actual prospects, but that the Yankees cleverly outmaneuvered other teams into thinking they are.  

4. Leave at least two gaping holes in the lineup, with the understanding that the front office will "make some deals" at the August 1 trade deadline.

5. Repeat, over and over, until the YES announcers have memorized  it, that none of the young players who were traded were actually ever part of the franchise's plans.

6. Watch the Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Rangers, Nets, Islanders, Liberty and - is there a NY Cornhole team? - everybody else to implode. 

Wisdom from the interwebs

🤬

Late to post it, but saw this on the interwebs (which one of you wrote it?):

Hal Steinbrenner is the problem. 

The rot in the walls. The soft-spoken accountant running a cathedral like a regional bank. The man who inherited an empire built on ego, obsession, and fire — and turned it into a moderately successful real estate holding with a ballpark attached. He doesn’t love baseball. He never did. And that’s why the Yankees have become what they were never meant to be: ordinary. Yankee Stadium is now just a wine and cheese factory with a baseball field in the middle. .

The proof isn’t subtle. It’s printed in Inside the Empire. 

@BobKlap

 asked Hal, point blank, if he loved baseball. And Hal — the owner of the most storied franchise in American sports — couldn’t answer. He stammered, deflected, meandered through a vague soliloquy about “responsibility” and “the business of the game,” then pivoted to talk about finances. That’s not love. That’s contempt disguised as composure. Every fan in New York felt it immediately: he’s not one of us. He doesn’t burn.

George knew. That’s what makes this all so tragic. The old man saw it coming. In his later years, he was so unimpressed — so disgusted — with Hal’s temperament that he originally gave control of the team to his son-in-law, Steve Swindal. George thought Swindal had his drive, his hunger, his fight. Then came the divorce, and the plan unraveled. The team reverted to Hal — the one Steinbrenner who never wanted it. And from that moment, the fire went out.

Under Hal, the Yankees have become the picture of high-functioning mediocrity. A 94–95 win machine that dies the same polite death every October. Six postseason appearances in seven years. One pennant. Zero titles. Boone’s been here eight seasons, the longest-tenured Yankee manager in the championship era without a ring. Every man before him — Huggins, McCarthy, Stengel, Houk, Torre, Girardi — delivered glory. Boone delivers process. He survives because he mirrors Hal: polished, calm, unthreatening. Leadership by sedation.

The 'baseball crapshoot' is an accountant term for bullshit. The Yankees are outclassed every year. 

Even Derek Jeter couldn’t take it. Many reported that Jeter left the organization frustrated not by analytics or talent, but by tone. He saw what fans now feel — the absence of pulse. The edge was gone. The urgency was gone. Winning had been replaced with “hoping.” The language of hunger replaced by the jargon of restraint. “Get in and give ourselves a chance,” Hal likes to say — the mantra of a man whose life’s work is minimizing discomfort. Jeter was raised under George’s law: losing meant rage, not rationalization. 

Under Hal, it means an insultin social media post 'thanking' the fans.

You can see it everywhere. Ninety-four wins, another early exit, and another press conference about how “anything can happen in October.” Other franchises — Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles — bully variance. The Yankees negotiate with it. They talk about efficiency like that’s a virtue. It’s not. It’s a cope. Champions impose their will. Hal’s Yankees ask permission.

This is what happens when you hand a legacy to someone who treats it like a liability. The Yankees were built to terrify. Now they’re designed to reassure. Hal governs like a man who wants to make sure no one yells at him. He respects the luxury tax the way priests respect Scripture — as if breaking it were a sin instead of a strategy. His father saw that line as a toll to drive faster. Hal sees it as a leash to keep himself from feeling.

He cares more about the bondholders than the Bronx faithful.

Your father is turning in his grave. He didn’t build the Yankees to be a brand. He built them to be a kingdom — loud, impossible, immortal. His ghost must look down at this PowerPoint dynasty and weep. He once said that second place was just “first loser.” Hal calls it “a good season.”

The Yankees’ problem isn’t bad luck or bad players. It’s a bad philosophy — a failure of nerve, a collapse of standard, a drought of love. When the man at the top doesn’t love the game, no one beneath him can play it like it matters. You can buy talent, you can buy tools, you can’t buy belief.

As Jocko Willink says, it starts at the top. It always does. The Yankees don’t lose because of analytics, or depth charts, or the bullpen. They lose because their owner treats greatness like an optional expense. They lose because their culture reflects a man who hesitated when asked the only question that ever mattered.

Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t love baseball. He loves running it responsibly. And that’s the whole story. The stadium still gleams, the food is better, the fear is gone — and George’s ghost is pacing the halls, wondering how his empire turned into an internship.

The Yankees don’t exist to be efficient.

They exist to make other men question their gods.

And until the man in the owner’s box remembers that, the Bronx will stay silent.

Sell the team, you ignoramus coward

Bellinger is opting out? So be it.

Breaking News: According to Musk's Interweb, Cody Bellinger will invoke his opt-out clause and become a free agent, though he loves NY and hopes to remain a Yankee.

Wait... did I get that right...? 

He has cherished his time in New York. Great city. Wonderful food. Hot waitresses. Celebrities. Pulsing discos. Friendly people. And the Yankees - bravo! Lavish clubhouse buffets. Smiling dugout attendants. Witty reporters. Caring radio personalities. Cheerful, happy cab drivers who fill every ride with conversations of hope.

But but BUT... as much as he hates to do it, Bellinger's going to opt out. He's just gotta. If the Yankees want to keep him, they'll have to sign him for - well, let's say five years. That way, it's assured that, in the end, he'll be hitting .183 with no power because - hey,  that's Chinatown, Jake.   

Sad to see him leave. Wish him all the best. We'll always have Paris. Best of luck in the new venture.

Same will soon happen with Trent Grisham, (though in his case, he checked out two weeks ago.)  And Luke Weaver. And Paul Goldschmidt. And Devin Williams. And Ryan Yarbrough. And J.T. Brubaker. And Jonathan Loisiga. (One guy we'll still have, through 2026: D.J. LeMahieu.)

So, here we are, in that limbo of the lost known as late October, with nothing to watch but the door, as Yankees say goobye. Last year, around now, we were preparing for Juan Soto to thank Yank fans everywhere, from the bottom of his heart, for their love and supreme hospitality, as he made the difficult decision to opt out and feed his entourage.  

Throughout my life, in contract decisions, I've almost always sided with the players. We always learn what they're making, and nobody ever reports on the incomes of the Steinbrenner family. It's the players who get hit in the head, crash into walls and tweak their gonads running to first. The owners can hide in their luxury boxes, so they don't even need to mingle with the smelly, grumbling hordes. So, yeah, I sided with the players. 

But - damn - I dunno anymore. When you're making $30 million a year, you're taking home a paycheck of more than a half million per  week. I'm not sure that makes you a working stiff, or somebody who gets to be adored, as he thanks us for our love and loyalty, as he heads for greener pastures.

The Yankees have Judge through 2031, (when he'll be 39.) We have Fried and Rodon, Cole and Giancarlo, and then whomever comes and goes, loving their moments in the Big Apple until the day their opt-out clause takes effect.

Don't mean to pick on Bellinger. He's what they might say is "one of the nicer ones." But I'm soooooo tired of hearing how they love NY and wish they could stay. 

So long, Belli. Click the door on your way out. See you in the Old-Timers game.

Let's be clear: The problem is Hal.

Last time Hal Steinbrenner won a ring for his tiny finger , his dad was dying, the taxpayers were buying him a new stadium, and he wasn't afraid of spending crazy stupid money on the hired help.  

Yep, 2009. A lifetime ago. That winter, Hal signed the three best free agents on the market: CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and AJ "Carol" Burnett. Yankee killers, all. He shot money at them from a firehose. Even then, to beat the Phillies, the Yankees needed a roided-up A-Rod and Johnny Damon. But back then, Hal wasn't afraid to spend the dough, the clams, the skamootz, the sligber, the giddrag... the money. 

Ever since, year after year, Food Stamps Hal has systematically spent just enough for the Yankees to contend for the expanded wild card. That means winning about 85 games and calling it a success. Every year, he marches to the precipice, gazes out at the fiscal landscape, and then retreats. 

And from that moment on, through his supreme lackey, Brian Cashman, Hal does what he does best in life: He poormouths: 

It's too bad, so sad, but as much as we'd love to do it, the Yankees just can't afford to spend any more money.

That's a lie, of course. The Steinbrenners have more money than they'll ever count. 

And tending to the lie is why Cashman has run the Yankees for 28 years. 

Last winter, after the Mets outbid him for Juan Soto - Steve Cohen spending crazy stupid money - Hal signed Max Fried, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt to partially fill the void. Then, as usual, he stopped. 

Left open were gaping holes in the bullpen and at 3B, problems that would haunt the Yankees all season.  

Hal's refusal to budge became glaring in the final days before spring training, when free agent 3B Alex Bregman was seeking a one-year deal from someone, anyone. The Yankees had a history with Bregman, and some of you still gag at the notion of him in pinstripes. (In the cheating scandal, Bregman was not one of the principals.) 

What if Hal had simply gone KPop Demon Hunter for one day and outbid Boston? Bregman this year hit .273 with 18 homers and an .821 OPS - which would have been third on the Yankees, after Judge and Ben Rice. Add Bregman, and Oswaldo Cabrera would have been a fulltime utility man. Add Bregman, and the Yankees would have settled the top of the batting order. Add Bregman, and the Yankees wouldn't have had to trade prospects at the  Aug. 1 deadline for Ryan McMahon. Add Bregman, and they would have won the AL East, and home field advantage. Add Bregman and, who knows? 

Okay, let's not fixate on Bregman: (I admit, it would be weird to see him as a Yankee.)  But last winter, there were plenty of pitchers and hitters on the open market, begging for a big market bidder, when Hal summarily announced that the Yankees were done spending their precious coins. (Of course, he ended up absorbing several salary dumps at the trade deadline, and I wonder if he saved money at all.) 

What the Yankees need is for Hal to do what he father did: Spend crazy stupid money. He has the wherewithal. He has more money than he'll ever know. He can build a roster, and then he needs to add ONE MORE PLAYER - as the Dodgers do every year.

Or - better idea - sell the team to someone who will.  

The Yankees this year - as usual - were one player short. You can blame Cashman and Boone, but really, it's on Hal.