The great opening weekend. The sweep of Houston. The rise of Luis Gil. Anthony Volpe's hitting streak. Giancarlo's comeback. Juan Soto. The magnificent Aaron Judge...
Yep, 2024 had its moments. Some nights, you even believed the megadrought had ended, and this was our year. Brian Cashman's trades had finally turned our way. This time, the Yankees were for real.
Yep. And it almost outlasted the month of June.
Well, it's over, folks. Let the record show that, by the 28th of June, the legendary '24 Yankees were done ruling over the AL East and had begun peering over their shoulders at Boston in the wild card race. The last time they won a series, June 12, Miami was underwater, Hunter Biden was awaiting his fate, and the Celtics still faced a tussle from Dallas.
Back then, a hundred years ago two weeks ago, Stanton was being touted as an all-star, Anthony Rizzo was starting to hit, and Gleyber Torres was showing signs of cogency. Remember? Way back when? Back when the world was young? When there was hope?
Now? Well, what's remarkable about the '24 Yankees is their ability to be hopelessly out of games by the 4th inning. In this way, they pay homage to great Yankee disappointments of this millennium: Once they fall behind, the game is over. Each night, they recreate their bullpen from scratch, via busses from Scranton. Their infield is an overturned jigsaw puzzle. They have two hitters - Soto and Judge - in a sea of GIDPs.
Technically, I suppose this still qualifies as a slump, rather than a collapse. They could still break out, win five straight, maybe flip Baltimore back into 2nd for a weekend. Trouble is, the O's were always this year's emerging team, and now that they're in first, it's hard not to see the Yankee operations shifting from rescue to recovery.
What happens this weekend in Toronto could reveal how catastrophic this collapse will be. The Blue Jays are a tomato can. They spent the last month talking about a July sell-off. Even Vladimir Jr. could go. They were the perfect salve for the nicked-up Yankees, ripe for a sweep, and last night, they had us pinned to the mat by Inning No. 2.
Yeah, '24 was fun, while it lasted. Consider the rug pulled, the silverware stolen. This was an all-or-nothing season, and now, it sure looks like the latter.
I wonder... will any of us live long enough to see another Yankee championship?
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28 comments:
Dreadful.
But we still get to watch Rondon go out there every 5th day and get his ass to handed to him.
For the life of me, I just do not understand why every year we have to sit around with obvious holes in the lineup and freaking wait for the infamous “trade deadline” to shore up weaknesses.
Is there some unwritten law? What am I missing?
Make some damn moves! Dump Torres, shake things up. Adding Davis the answer? Ha.
We had a great start, now flushed, but not to late.
Do something!!
"will any of us live long enough to see another Yankee championship?"
If I was a betting man, I'd say "HELL NO".
Every year now, the dream of Yankee management seems to be to lay claim to the title for the greatest, most historically infamous disaster ever. Currently, the title still belongs to the hubris obsessed idiots who rammed the Titanic into an iceberg a hundred years ago, whilst trying to set Atlantic crossing speed records through ice floes in pitch darkness. Yanks got pretty close in 2022. This year could be it! Have y'all got your life vests on? Remember, women & children first. If this be the end, let us die like men.
It's all just as predictable as any Titanic disaster. Torres should've been traded YEARS ago. Stanton & Rizzo should've been RETIRED/PUT OUT TO PASTURE. The kids should've been brought up from the minors. But nothing was done.
Even now, there are more moves to be made. Rodon, let's hope he puts together a few good starts. Then, trade the bastard for prospects. He's not going to make it here. That's obvious. Trading him might give him a chance to do something positive somewhere else. But you watch, nothing will happen.
Part of the problem is the Yankees tend to add guys who don't know how to win and there is no one on the coaching staff who can teach them.
Hammer - Yes trade Rodon. Sell him as a Sonny Grey super talented guy who just can't play well in NY. Oh, and this time, try to get an actual return!
Starts looking like the September 1964 collapse of the Phillies in June...
The best we can hope for is a total collapse for the rest of the season. Maybe then HAL will fire Ca$hole and Bonehead.
Rodon and Torres are emotional wrecks. CashHole's not doing anyone any favors by hanging on to them - like staying in a bad marriage "for the sake of the kids".
ML know one is taking Rondon unless they pick up
half his salary and Hal ain’t gonna do that.
Rodon was fine until he was not fine.
Gil was fine until he was not fine.
Cole is not fine.
It's just not fine...
The Master would say that if you have a good starting pitcher every day you will win a good share of your games. We don't right now...
They need to get rid of all the head cases. The clubhouse has defeat written all over it. And, change the manager, change the culture.
Oh absolutely, need to do big time house cleaning here. (Which is why it ain't happening.)
I don't know that no one would be interested in Rodon. When (and if) he turns it around, this guy would certainly help some team get over the hump, possibly bring a championship. Texas Lawmen last year had an ex-Yankee reunion and won the World Series. Rodon might be as good as Eovaldi or even better. And Eovaldi was even better than Montgomery, who was even better than Gunslinger Chapman. I forget who the other chap was. Weren't there four ex-Yankees on that team?
Anyways, if I was a GM, I'd be very interested in Rodon. Would take a chance on trading 3 or 4 prospects.
Great thoughts, Hammer. And the ex-Yankee you were thinking of was probably Ezequiel Duran, who hit .276 with 14 homers, while playing everywhere on the field. Do we need a guy like that? Nah!
This year, Duran's slumped a little, to .256, and the Rangers—one of those pesky teams that actually has a good farm system—sent him down. But never mind. They've found a very capable infielder to replace him in Josh Smith, who's hitting .298, with 7 homers.
Where did Josh come from? You guessed it: your New York Yankees.
Who did we get for Duran and Smith? Why no less than Joey Gallo! What a GM we have.
And yes, as many of us here thought at the time, Gleyber should've been gone once he recovered—a little—from his dreadful, 2020 and 2021 seasons. There were times in 2022 and 2023 when we MIGHT have got somebody to bite.
No more. He's worthless in terms of trade value.
And as mentioned here, it is ridiculous that our coaching staff has zero ability to react to other teams reacting to our success. That's what a coaching staff does. If they can't do that, they should be fired. Now.
Hoss - who do you believe would be a suitable replacement for Boone?
Would it be one of the Benchies, such as Ausmus or Rojas or do you think there is someone outside of the organization that could step in and turn this car around?
Asking for . . . my sanity . . . .
I'm not concerned right now about Cashman and Ownership.
That will not change any time soon.
But Boone could get the Boot - and I too believe that the time is ripe to change the culture
(and I'm not just talking about the Dannon)
@ Doug K., Did I not say, when they brought in Matt Blake, how is this guy going to get his pitchers through those tough innings, get those tough outs, get them through bad stretches? Why would the New York Yankees hire an inexperienced coach? And if he had no coaching experience, why wouldn't they hire someone with professional experience, someone who had won a World Series? No, this Metropolitan Opera House had to go and hire the glee club director of Timbucktoo to be their new vocal coach.
You could tell last year that it wasn't working out with Rodon. He turned his back on Blake on one mound visit, if I recall. An obvious sign of disgust. They should have turned to a new pitching coach this year. Someone much more experienced. Maybe someone who had won a championship or two during a major league career.
But it's their ball club. They'll do whatever they wants to do.
@ AA, Any one, and I mean any one, would be better than Boone. I have to think that he's lost this team. They won't respond to anything he does.
Whoever they bring in has to be his own man and stop obeying Cashman's every directive. A GM should not be managing the team. Installing a puppet manager avoids those hard decisions that a real manager has to make. Like benching all of these unproductive old hitters and demanding some young long relievers for the bullpen. If the GM won't make moves that have to made, a manager with a backbone has to do it for him.
Like Kenny Rogers sang, you've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.
Time to fold on Rodon. Cut your losses and move on. I actually liked the move when they got him. Every GM will make mistakes. It's how he responds that differentiates bad ones from good ones. When the Red Sox made mistakes, they'd make trades and move on very quickly. They didn't stew in their own shit for ten years.
That's the biggest reason why this Cashman era sucks. He never ever does any pruning. Everyone who sucks stays until their contract expires. And even if he does get rid of someone, you never know when Cashman will bring them back again. I'm just waiting for Cashman to bring back Gunslinger Chapman III and Gary Sanchez II and Sonny Gray II.
A few of us here, at the end of last year, thought about trading Cole. Man alive, that would've been a smart move. All the signs pointed to moving him: (1) He'd had a career year. (2) He wasn't gettin' any younger and they had missed the window of opportunity to win with him. (3) They didn't shut him down at the end of last year to save some bullets on his arm, so that was a negative going into this year. (4) If the team really needed him, he'd probably turn into Mr. Prima Donna again. (5) They weren't going to win anything this year, so why not get three top prospects for him?
Sure 'nuff, Cole has been out with injuries, has hardly pitched this year, and doesn't look effective when he does pitch.
This is not on Boone. Boone can't hit or pitch...
Well, ranger_lp, on that point there, I have to respectfully disagree with yous. And that's all right. Because if we all thought the same thing, it wouldn't be any fun. We can talk about this like gentlemen.
Boone has made so many stupid moves this year that my brain is so numb that I can't even remember them. Even when they were winning, he was making some incredibly stoo-pid moves.
Recently, with Gleyber Torres continuing to suck, Boone had Torres in the cleanup slot, for some asinine reason. Anyone, and I mean any body else, would've been preferable to Torres in the clean up slot. That Boone does not seem to realize that is ... troubling, to say the least. That is just one of the stupid moves of late. You could fill vast, vast, vast volumes with the mistakes and stupidities of Aaron Boone. He didn't earn his nickname Ba-Boone by accident. (And I understand from my cronies here that calling that man a baboon is a grievous insult to all real baboons everywhere. Okay, I await the slander lawsuits. I'll ask the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss all the suits on the ground that baboons have no legal standing to sue a U.S. citizen. I think I'm good.)
I don't like Boone as a manager. He's not a good field manager, and obviously, he can't rally this team and keep it from going into prolonged slumps.
BUT, that said, I can't see how he's the main problem with this team. Or how any replacement would be any better.
I don't see how any manager could win with this lineup, or these incessant injuries.
I don't see how any manager could put together a better lineup with no farm system.
And I don't see Brian Cashman hiring any manager who won't push the exact buttons he dictates.
A fish rots from the head down. Something has been rotten in the Bronx for a long, long time now, and it starts with Brian Cashman, aided and abetted by Hal Steinbrenner.
Hoss, Oh I'm sure he's not the main problem. Well, he's not the only main problem. But that said, you can't fire all the players. You got to start somewheres. Might as well start with Boone.
Boone doesn't hold his players accountable enough for shitty performances. You think managers like Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, or even Joe Torre would tolerate the lack of fundamentals on this team?
I didn't like Torre as a manager, but I'd hear his advice all the time. How you should try never to make out on a two strike pitch on the outside corner. What that means, of course, is that the batter should look away and protect the plate with two strikes.
Or Dusty Baker's advice that, if you make contact, the fielders have to catch the ball, throw the ball, and make the putout. If you strike out, none of that has to happen.
I don't hear anything like that from Boone. Doesn't appear that he stresses any fundamentals. "Professional at-bat" is probably a dirty word in the Yankee clubhouse.
A few weeks ago, before Stanton got hurt again, I saw him strike out in the first inning on three humongous swings. With runners on base. If I was managing, that guy would've been benched for a month. You can't have that kind of at-bat if you want to win championships. Have to play the game the right way. There's way too little of that going on here. Way too much of ridiculously selfish play like that at-bat. Other players see that, they see that he doesn't get benched, then they do the same stupid things. All because there's no accountability for terrible fundamentals.
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