And now, an IT IS HIGH holiday card... for you, and you, and YOU!

 

Yanks' pursuit of Tatsuya Imai neatly coincides with the 2025 Back Page Race conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. 

If you look out to the right side of the plane, some of you can see flames spewing from the Number One engine. Not to worry. Everything is fine. Still, to ensure your maximum comfort, we will be turning on the emergency BRACE FOR IMPACT sirens. On behalf of the crew, I'd like to take this occasion to thank you for choosing the Yankees and suggest we all assume the fetal position and kiss our asses goodbye...

Folks, it's coming to a head.

The Yankees' longtime hold on New York City. 

Everything depends on Tatsuya Imai. 

By 5 p.m. E.S.T. on Jan 2, Imai - the Japanese starter and best free agent pitcher on the market - either signs with a MLB team or stays in Japan another year.

If the Yankees sign Imai, they will win at least four tabloid covers and almost certainly clinch the 2025 IT IS HIGH TABLOIDS BACK PAGE RACE. 

If they fail, they might still win a cover or two - out of tabloid frustration - but the Knicks could overtake them at the December 31 buzzer. 

If they sign Imai, the Yankees will enter 2026 with yet another year of dominance on the city's tabloids - a streak they have held since we began counting covers in 2019. 

This is the closest race on record. And it will coincide with the destiny of Imai. 

Brace for impact.

Brigadoon is a Mariner now

 He's 35 and will make 6.5 million. During his time with the Red Sox, he had an OPS of .830-something.

May he cavort with Van Johnson and Gene Kelly in his dreams.

The IT IS HIGH files, released and redacted

 dudhd oudl s[ll                                             manager Aaron Boone and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   My                                                                                                                                with a lobster.                                                                                                                                                                   commonly referred to as "a Jabrony"                                                                     large pulsating carbunkel                                                                                             a bag of entrails                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  S                            Gerrit Cole                                                                                                            "Cut me!           

And now, an IT IS HIGH classic: T'WUZ THE NIGHT BEFORE STERLING

 

It's slowly becoming clear: Whatever the Yankees do this winter, it won't be enough

In his 1977 masterpiece, Annie Hall, Woodie Allen dredged up an old joke...

Guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, 'hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken.' The doc says, why don't you turn him in? The guy says, I would but I need the eggs.'

At least for another few days, loyal Yank fans can still dream of waking Xmas morn to find the Japanese hurler, Tatsuya Imai, nestled under the Douglas fur. If that happens, the Gammonites of Gotham will ejaculate blow-hole blasts of praise upon Hal Steinbrenner, as they always do when he pries open his PayPal account. It never matters if they'll hit opening day with a Yangervis and a Zolio, or a Jorbit and a Josh - still absent that one big acquisition that would make a difference. The courtiers will proclaim the Yankees as the AL team to beat, because - well - they need the eggs.

We can wait for Imai to chose his destination. And if it's the Yankees, yeah, let's lift a glass. But here's the dirty little truth: 

If the Yankees do sign Imai, Hal will then close his checkbook and go into hibernation until next August. 

It's the game Hal's played since 2014, when he signed Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann - and still finished second. 

Ever since, he's only been in this for the eggs. 

The winter of 2014 was the last time Hal launched a spending spree worthy of the family name. Five years earlier - about 10 months before his dad's death - Hal signed Mark Teixeira, AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia, and the Yankees won their last world championship of this millennium. Unfortunately, the 2014 surge went sideways. Beltran hit the wall - literally. Ellsbury turned into a wad of Kleenex, and McCann lay dormant until 2017, when as a cheating Astro, he ambushed us in the postseason. 

Mark my words: The Yankees will soon sign someone. But he won't be enough. 

That's because Hal does not need the Yankees to win. He just likes the eggs.

John Mellencamp and John Sterling report a bizarre Christmas infidelity

 

Five ponderings re: the Yankees' signing of Paul Blackman, Blackburn, whatever.

1. The Blue Jays, having signed Dylan Cease, are said to be pursuing Alex Bregman. The Yankees have Paul Blackman, Blackburn, whatever.

2. The O's, having signed Pete Alonso, just traded for Shane Baz. The Yankees have Paul Blackman, Blackburn, whatever.

3. The Mets have signed Luke Weaver. The Yankees have Paul Blackman, Blackburn, whatever.

4. USA is bombing boats in the Caribbean. The Yankees have Paul Blackman, Blackburn, whatever.

5. It's the shortest day of the year. And the Yankees have... whatever.

It's Official: The Yankees Are A Small-Market Team.

 

Word came down yesterday that the Yankees had not so much as talked to Tatsuya Imai, as the window to sign the latest Japanese pitching sensation begins to close. 

Unlike seemingly every other Japanese phenom on the boats on the planes coming to America, Imai openly expressed his desire not to join the Dodgers but to beat them. 

Sounds like just the sort of fearless gamer that we could use, no? 

No. 

It seems that your New York Yankees are not even making their usual, elaborate pretense of finishing second (or third) in the contest for the biggest free agents out there. 

The news that Imai was not a person of interest capped a week in which we also learned that our gutsy relief find of 2024, Luke Weaver, joined what has become a veritable parade of pitchers from the Bronx over to Queens the last few years, including the likes of Luis Severino and Devin Williams.

It's not even clear that Stevie Cohen's Mets are in it for anything beyond the casino. But here they are, repeatedly stealing away even the sorts of key role players we would seem to need to put a roster together.

The Metsies also passed on free-agent starter Michael King...who remained in San Diego with the Padres, for a mere three-year deal. 

King, a former Yankees stalwart, would seem to have been, in today's baseball marketplace, the sort of low-risk pick-up that even nominally contending teams would rush to ink, a proven commodity who has been ready, willing, and able to pitch in almost any capacity over the years: starter, middle reliever, closer.

No.

The vast weather system that is Yankee disinterest looms over the horizon like an upstate New York snow front. 

All but taunting the Yanks, the other day Dani Wexelman, latest in the Cast of Thousands on SNY's Sportsnite—the nightly show itself a vibrant contrast to the cobwebbed YES Network, papered mostly with pink slips and Eurosoccer these days—implored the Bombers to least re-sign Cody Bellinger, saying something to the effect of:

"C'mon, don't you have to take another shot at a World Series before the window closes on Aaron Judge, on Gerrit Cole?"

No. 

The "no" team in the City of No doesn't have to do a damned thing. And they won't.

"Word" now has it that Bellinger's legendary agent is now demanding an eight-year contract for $400 million. I don't know who that word is coming from, but I'd bet my bottom dollar it sis someone whose initials are "B.C." Spreading this kind of rumor is the perfect excuse for not signing a big star. 

Remember the Mets, and A-Rod's supposed demand for a personal assistant? Or just last year, when Soto had to have a luxury box.

It's called "capitalism," guys. You think someone wants too much? You find a way to make him another offer. IF you want to sign him at all.

Not so long ago—well, all right, it is long ago, and seems like longer—Cody's Bellinger's weak-hitting dad made a spectacular, over-the-fence catch to save a World Series game we were in the midst of blowing to the Mets. 

Someone like Bellinger pere, a guy who could play anywhere, was on the roster because that was the sort of invaluable extra we could afford on a world-class team—the world-class team, probably the greatest team ever—that was the turn-of-the-century Yankees. 

The difference between then and now is that now the Yanks have decided that they are a small-market team.

Nearly every one of their moves for the last few years reflects that mentality. 

Trading four good young pitchers to acquire a rental superstar like Soto in hopes of stealing a World Series that would keep the fans pouring in for a few more years? A superstar who Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman knew from the beginning was only a one-year rental? 

Yeah, that's how the likes of desperately under-capitalized teams such as the Washington Nationals and the Tampa Bay Rays operate. 

Passing on the likes of Cody back in 2023, or Pete Alonso last year, both of whom would have been cheap pick-ups who might have pushed the team to a championship? Passing on star after star after star—on the one man (times a dozen examples)—who might have turned the Yanks into the Dodgers East? 

Hey, that's Moneyball. That's the Athletics, minus Sacramento. 

I kid, I kid, of course. The Yankees aren't a small-market team. A small-market team is usually:

—Run by brilliant, crafty baseball minds who know how to maximize smaller acquisitions and build a great farm system.

—Short of cash.

Not so much the Yanks, who have kept the same incompetent in charge of the front office for a record 28 years and counting, and who have been handed billions of dollars of free stadia by the taxpayers over the last half-century. 

Not the New York Yankees who, according to the latest luxury-tax calculations, spend only around 50 percent of their stupendous revenue on payroll and tax, leaving some $350-$400 million of declared revenue (and who knows what in undeclared samoleons) to spend on...what, exactly? 

The Yanks are just lucky that their superstar of the age, Aaron Judge, is not as possessed by the same adoration of money as the Steinbrenner heirs, or he would have taken his talents to the Bay Area years ago and exposed just what a rotting hulk the Yanks have become.

It is true, of course, as a great man once said, that there's no predicting baseball. Who knows if Luke Weaver can bounce back? Michael King has an alarming history of injury, and Tatsuay Imai is awfully small, and if Cody Bellinger really wants $50 mil a year through 2033, we're better off sticking with the kids.

But taking risks and spending money is how you win championships. That, or by hiring skilled people to build a great farm system, but that would mean...

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Yankees just lost out on a 16-year-old. Should we worry?

Over the years, the Yankees have spent more on 16-year-olds than Jeffrey Epstein. 

And yesterday - Epstein Redaction Day in America - this story wriggled up out of the Yankee infundibulum:

A 16-year-old Dominican SS drink-of-water named Wandy Asigen ditched an apparent deal with the Yankees, jumping to the Mets for a $3.8 million signing bonus. Supposedly, the Death Barge had this kid on ice, with a $4.3 million deal that somehow went poof. Complicating matters, the Yankees recently fired their longtime chief of international scouting, a guy named Donny Rowland. Food Stamps Hal seems to be questioning the strategy of bestowing massive checks upon 16-year-old Latinos, (and their handlers), a policy that has shaped the Yankee farm system in this millennium. 

A lot to chew on here.  

Depending on your view of Gary Sanchez - who was once the world's wealthiest, self-made Latino teenybopper - the Yankees' huge international bonus signings have either been a boom or bust. 

Believe it or not, Sanchez - now 33 - is still going. Last year, in 29 games for the O's, he hit 5 HRs and batted .231. He's now a free agent, scraping for that final contract. But remember 2016? The Kraken! The Sanchize! Gary!  Guy hit 20 HRs in a half-season, batted .299. He was 23, the future of the Yankees - (Aaron Judge hadn't yet stuck the landing) - and the argument for - as Trump once said of Epstein "liking them young."  (At 16, Sanchez had received the then-highest signing bonus in history.) 

Then, unfortunately, Sanchez devolved into a strikeout machine, a big-swinging disappointment who didn't sprint to first or learn to block pitches. Manager Joe Girardi winced, and the Yankee front office claimed he was hurt. It's called enabling. 

Sanchez became one of those situations today's Yankees see too often: A guy with great potential who cannot unlock it with the Yankees. Mr. Volpe comes to mind. 

Remember the infamous international signing class of 2014? The Yankees grabbed 10 of the top 30 "ranked" prospects in the world - Demis Garcia, Nelson Gomez, et al - all of whom sank without a bubble.

Then there is Roderick Arias, who signed in 2022 for $4 million, and who has yet to hit a nickel. Last year, 20, he batted .208 at low A Tampa. It's too soon to give up on the guy, but I suspect the Yankees would happily deal him if somebody, anybody, viewed him as a hot commonly. 

Of course, the final judgement is The Martian, who signed in 2019 for $5.1 million, the highest bonus in Yankee history. Depending on what happens with Cody Bellinger, Jasson Dominguez will either be a critical cog in the 2026 Yankee outfield or be traded by January 15. He's 22. If he blossoms with another team, well, the fireworks over Tampa will be something to see.  

So, Wandy Asigen? WTF? Let's cross fingers and wish him luck. We won't know for at least five years. That said, we will be watching.

The Big Story

This post is about the Back Covers Championship.  

Years ago El Duque correctly identified that the popularity of New York City sports teams and the measure of their zeitgeist could be tracked and quantified  by the back pages of the sports section of NY's two major dailies. 

This year the Knicks are, deservedly so, in a position to win it for the first time since El Duque started tracking. 

There are twenty-four back covers left.  The Knicks should win but a couple of Yankee FA signings plus the Giants and Jets owning Mondays will keep it close. 

The Yankees are no longer the most interesting team in NY sports. The Knicks are. Soon it will be proven empirically. 

Personally I hope the Knicks take it, but that's not the most important story here. After all, the Knicks and Yankees play different sports with a different length of season.  

The Big Story Is About The Mets

Here is the current standing. 

Yankees    177    Mets 153      Yankees + 24

The Yankees have done nothing this off season the Mets, by virtue of letting important players, some would say the heart and soul of the team, leave in FA keep racking them up.

But this isn't about wins, this is about ascendancy and differential. 

Here are the standings from the last  few years... 

2024    Yankees     215     Mets    141.5    Y+  75.5

2023    Yankees     150     Mets    119.5    Y+   30.5

2022    Yankees     210.5   Mets   147.5    Y  +  63

2021     Yankees    207      Mets   156       Y +   51

Last year the Yankees got 215 Back Covers. This year they'll be lucky to get to 180.  Last year they trounced the Mets by 75. This year, under 30. 

NOTE:   El Duque split the cover on the defection of Luke Weaver. I would have given the full point to the Mets but arguing about which team deserves the back cover is what make this sport so exciting. 

Today the Mets stole a cover by stealing a coveted international player. Hal's indifference, Brain's incompetence,  and Boone managing somehow to retain his job, all chip away at our collective passion and as tabloids know... passion sells papers. 

Michael King is staying in San Diego, and pressure on the Yankees ratchets ever higher.

For Whom It May Concern: I - el Duque - being of somewhat sound mind and middling spirits, hereby decree that from now until forever, one Michael McRea King - a golden native of Rochester, (the real one, in NY) - shall never find placement upon my shitlist. 

Unlike some ex-Yanks, who shall remain nameless, Mr. King has chosen not to poke his flaming love pump directly into my one good eye, by joining the Mets, Dodgers, O's, Jays or Redsocks - in other words, my mortal enemies. Give him credit. He has chosen to do what the NFL's Chargers, along with Ted Danson, Cameron Diaz and Slater from Saved by the Bell wouldn't do: 

He will stay in San Diego. 

As Yank fans, our case was simple: If you're not going to sign with the Yankees, just please don't stand outside our cage, rattling the bars with your salad spoon. Just don't sign with our arch rival. That's all. 

And to his credit, now and forever, Michael King did us right. 

He is staying put. 

Someday, when he's pushing 38 as a worn-out 6th starter/middle-innings-sweat-sock, I trust the Yankees will bring him back. He will not have besmirched his Yankee time on Earth by teaming with Juan Soto or the Fenway frat bros. In my personal Monument Park, the plaque for Michael King will say:  "WE SHOULDA NEVER TRADED YOU FOR WHAZZHISNAME." 

But but BUT, this is no moment for moose tranquilizers and Calgon Bath Oil Beads. Michael King is now off the free agent board, which adds more pressure upon the Yankees to sign Tatsuya Imai. Or else. King was a distant fallback option. Now, if we lose Imai, the Yankees face a Katy-bar-the-door, Cashman trade apocalypse, which will probably recreate some of the worst trade fiascos of our past. I'm thinking Sonny Gray, Javier Vasquez, Michael Pineda, Frankie Montas, dear God, in the name of Ian Kennedy, don't make me do the entire list...

Wait, should he now be called Ian Trump-Kennedy?

One more thing. Today, the Interweb claims that Cody Bellinger - our dear, sweet Cody - wants a ridiculous eight-year-deal of $50 million per season. And I'm the Easter Bunny. Sorry to say, but if the Yankees sign Belli for a dollar a year, he still strangles the last seven years of dreaming that The Martian will become a great Yankee. If we sign Belli, The Martian is gone. Do we want to see what he does in another city? And do we think the Yankees can trade their way to a world championship?  (Say, anybody know where I can buy some Calgons?)

Guess who's coming to town! It's Bruce Springsteen, John Sterling, and Santa!

 

MLB All-Manger Team

 By Doug K

1B   Frankinsence Howard
2B   Starlin Castro
SS   Cresh Davis
3B   King Kelly (1)

RF   Myrrh Throneberry
CF   Jesus Alou
LF   Dave Kingman (2)

C   Hank Camelli

DH   Babe Ruth

P   Michael King (3)

MGR    José María Fernández

Off-Season Boone imagining lineups for his 2026 team . . .

 

"I'm Luke Weaver, and my scouting report is, I'm not as tough as I look." The Yankees are going to miss this guy.

"I'm a silent assassin," Luke Weaver once proclaimed, simultaneously clutching a microphone and a straight face. "But I'm also lovable and kind."

Indeed, he was. Or is. And today, Yank fans should mourn the loss of Weaver, a true baseball character, who will be missed in the bullpen, the clubhouse and, most notably, Suzyn's postgame show. 

That line, "I'm not as tough as I look..." surgically ignored the fact that Weaver resembled a kindergarten teacher who found a Yankee jersey and somehow slipped through security. He seemed to channel Wally Cox, though his fastball exploded on batters, and if he hadn't completely run out of gas and blown two tires, as well as leads, we might have won the 2024 world series. 

Weaver is the latest ex-Yank to move across town, a troubling migration that is starting to suggest a sea-change in the city's culture. The Yankees keep losing players who, - despite NYC's oppressive scaffolding, un-Julia-Roberts-like hookers and pizza rats - actually like Gotham and want to stay. Yesterday, he agreed to a 2-year, $22 million contract that adds him - for now - to Devin Williams and Clay Holmes, none of whom had to change their mailing address when they moved.

Listen: I'm not going Chicken Little here. No panic in this colon. It's still early in the hot stove winter. A gaggle of free agents remain unsigned - including ex-Yank Michael King - and anything can happen. But the Mets seem to have unlimited money and a scar on their cheek from having ditched and lost Pete Alonso. Meanwhile, in every interview and funeral home visit, Hal Steinbrenner offers a long poormouth solo. You wonder where this is going. 

Today, the Internet proclaims the Yankees are "among the finalists" for the Japanese ace, Tatsuya Imai. It's us or the Cubs, says our great friend and companion, the A.I. chatbot. 

Dear God, we all know what's coming: The participation trophy. Meanwhile, New York City slowly turns orange and blue.

I don't wanna sound the sirens and call for mandatory evacuations. Not yet, anyway. But if the Yankees lose out on Imai, it's a freefall to the secondary options. 

Luke Weaver turned out to be far tougher than he looks. The Yankees? I'm not so sure.

Ten reasons why the Yankees must sign Tatsuya Imai

1. Instead of joining Ohtani bandwagon, guy wants to beat the goddam Dodgers.

2. Yanks haven't signed a stud Japanese pitcher since Masahiro Tanaka in 2014.

3. Tanaka was a hero: Seven years on a fraying elbow, a lifelong Yankee. 

4. If Yanks flub Imai, fallback Michael King would mean forfeiting two high draft picks and international spending money. Imai has no strings attached. (Note: Yank farm system in the tank due to 2025 trade deadline garage sales. Yank's recent Rule 5 draft pick, somebody named Cade Winques, already showing up on team prospect rankings. Since when do Rule 5 picks rate so highly? Is the system a shambles?)

5. Last May, Imai was named the official Taiju Life Insurance Monthly MVP. 

6. In July, he struck out 17 in one game, surpassing a record held by Daisuke Matsuzaka, aka the Redsocks' Dice-K.

7. Guy is 27 and tiny:  5'11" and 154 pounds. Yank fans will love him.

8. Current opening day rotation: Fried, Schlittler, Warren, Gil and your Aunt Gertrude. 

9. Repeating: Instead of climbing aboard the Coors Lite Peace Train, this guy wants to beat the goddam Dodgers.

10. Finally figured out how to spell Tatsuya.

Still furnace-sitting in upstate Klondike. 

Life comes at you.

 I'm house-sitting a broken furnace, out in a forest, awaiting the birth of my first grandson. 

Keep me posted, everybody. 

Word of the day: Life.

What Lies Beneath...

 

"There's got to be more to life than this. Unless there's less."

—Mary McCarthy

    "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit"

Recent reports tell us that methane is slowly leaking out from underneath the Antarctic ice shelves, where it has been nicely stowed away for countless millennia so could have a civilization. 

Methane, as it happens, is a gas with about 25 times as much planet-heating capability as carbon monoxide. What's more, there is apparently a vast, almost limitless amount of it down there.

Ruh-roh.

Next thing you know, our battered little sphere is heating up faster than a Yankee Stadium rat dog, and then we take some desperate measure to stop it, like seeding the atmosphere with stuff to mitigate the methane but instead that plunges us into a new ice age and the only people who survive are those circling the planet endlessly in a global super train as that Korean movie and cable series told us and Hey Lady!

An absurd scenario, of course. There is no way these United States are ever going to invest in building a train.

In a similar vein, John Jastremski, one of SNY's funniest and most astute commentators—and, of course, a Yankees fan—recently told us that he thinks GM Brian Cashman has, "as always" some big, unseen unexpected deal, some blockbusting trade or signing, bubbling under the surface as ominously as that Antarctic methane.

Uh-huh.

Why is it I think we'll all be on the Korean Super Train before that happens?

What's perhaps most amazing about the sporting scene here in Loser City, is how little our many teams put out, for all that we pay them off.

Yesterday, we got to see the Jets start an undrafted, walk-on QB, for the first time in 50 years.

Our other football team, meanwhile, still cannot find a placekicker who can find the ball with his toe, never mind the uprights.

The Giants' bizarre new head coach, the wonderfully monikered Mike Kafka—eyebrows coiffed as menacingly as those of Ming the Merciless—then entertained himself by scoffing at questions about why he seems determined to drive the Jints' one faint hope of the past ten years into concussion oblivion.

When it comes to basketball, well, we're all paying higher subway fares because we had to give the Nets the Moss House, their weird new arena over in Brooklyn, and some day I know they will reward us with a winning season.

Sure, it's been over half-a-century since the Knicks have won an NBA championship. But they are on the verge, perhaps of winning a meaningless, in-season tournament—the NBA equivalent of the FIFA peace prize.
   

Mike

And for all the hockey teams we have littered about the place, when was the last time we had a true superstar of the ice in NYC? 

I'm thinking maybe a declining Wayne Gretzky, who last skated for the Rangers before the turn of the century. 

Our latest grifters seem to be your New York Mets, who I had high hopes for, thinking that if Stevie Cohen and David Stearns were sincere about their desire to spend their way to a dynasty, they might-
Ming

—might—just steal away enough of the baseball market to force even Tightwad Hal Steinbrenner into actually competing.

No such luck, it seems. 

Instead, Stearns is happily ripping apart the "core" of a Mets team that wasn't really the problem with the club, downgrading the franchise at every turn. Pete Alonso, Edwin Diaz, and Brandon Nimmo for Marcus Semien and Jorge Polanco, anyone? 

Stearns thus far seems like a bookend egomaniac to our own dear Cashie, albeit with a wonderful, cat-who-hate-the-canary smile. And could it be that the canary is...us? 

Funny how the Mets disassemblage is taking place just months after the NY state legislature voted to allow the public land around the Stadium Formerly Known As Shea to be developed...and just days after some murky government board gave Mr. Cohen the go-ahead to build a ginormous casino out in the old Valley of Ashes.

Could it be that the casino was the real prize all along?

Could it be that our local club owners are each and everyone the very finest of scamsters, making money off both the bait and the switch? 

Could it be that Cohen will soon join Messrs. Steinbrenner, Dolan, Mara, Johnson, etc., as one more lump in our lumpenscamatariat, sitting on yet another lump habitat where most of us fans aren't even allowed in?

Sorry, Mr. Jastremski: with all pressure removed, Hal & Pal ain't doin' nothin'. Tatsuya Imai wanna come to the Bronx, but as far as the Yankees are concerned, he can not. The Yanks won't even re-sign Bellinger, which might not be so bad if it meant a real effort to play and develop Spencer and The Martian.

But it doesn't.  Instead, we will get to watch Amed Rosario attempt—and fail—to play yet another position.  Don't even count on them taking a small risk on a talented but oft-injured pitcher like Mike King.  

Never gonna happen, my friends.  All that's bubbling below the surface is the methane.  All aboard!

Yankees said to be "all in" on bidding war for Tatsuya Imai. That usually means finishing second.

Here we go, again...

They're saying what they always say, preparing to do what they always do.  

They'd never let Juan Soto go. Remember? They'd stop at nothing. He'd bonded with the team, the fans, the security guards, everything. He was a Yankee for life. 

Of course, they'd keep Luis Severino. They'd stick with Clay Holmes. They liked Gleyber Torres.  Yeesh, they even talked up Devin Williams.

They were all in on Alex Bregman. Blake Snell? Of course. They were yaya for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, fixed on Freddie Freeman, rollicking for Roki Sasaki. Most of all, they'd stop and nothing - NOTHING - to sign Shohei Ohtani. Nothing. 

Bryce Harper grew up wanting to be a Yankee. It was his destiny, his dream. Remember how he came to New York, looking to drum up a contract? They hid under their beds.

Manny Machado's wife wanted to play in NY. She grew up there. They took  them to dinner, ordered Big Macs, sent them home in an Uber. They wanted Machado, cherished the idea of him as a Yankee. But it just didn't happen - perhaps, because they never made an offer. 

That's today's Yankees. When the big fish emerges, they're "all in." But something happens. They just miss. So close. Runners-up.  

So, we're the Yankees intend to pursue 27-year-old Tatsuya Imai to the ends of the Earth. Nothing shall halt their Sherman's-March-to-the-Sea quest, their unshakable resolve to make him a Yankee. I shudder to imagine the disillusionment that other teams, other GMs, surely face when hearing the terrible news that the Yankees are in the bidding!

Exciting, eh?   

Yankees bring back Amed Rosario, who was once the Mets' version of The Martian

The Yankees will bring back Amed Rosario, the 30-year-old Swiss army knife, for $2.5 million. Guy eats lefties for lunch, but boots grounders for dinner. 

Ten fun facts:

1. In 2012, he signed with the Mets for $1.75 million, their biggest bonus for a 16-year-old. In a manner befitting Jasson "The Martian" Dominguez, Rosario was nicknamed "El Nino." 

2. He broke out in 2016 at Double A. He batted .324, drove in 71 runs, and went 1-2 in the 2016 Futures Game.

3. The following spring, ESPN's Keith Law named him MLB's No. 1 prospect. 

4. He reached the Majors on Aug. 1, 2017, and got a hit.

5. In 2019, as the Mets SS, he hit .287 with 15 HRs, 72 RBIs and 19 SBs. But his defense was atrocious, statistically worst in the NL. 

6. In the winter of 2021, the Mets sent him in a package to Cleveland for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carascos. 

7. The Indians/Guardians moved him to the OF, where his defense remained shameful. They flipped him back to SS, and - at least, offensively - he had a good year: .282, 11 HRs, 57 RBIs.

8. He had great speed. In 2022, he led the Majors in triples, with 9. The following year, he led in infield hits, with 35. Overall, he's stolen 110 bases, but been thrown out 36 times.

9. After Cleveland, he's kicked around with the Dodgers, Rays, Dodgers (again), Reds, Nats and finally the Yankees. He devours lefties - a career .298 - and bats .262 against RHs. 

10) Wherever he plays, he's a defensive liability. 

He could platoon with Ryan McMahon and/or Oswaldo Cabrera at 3B. Or the Martian in LF. Or even Jazz Chisholm at 2B. Not the star we need, but not a bad chess piece, either.

And for only $25K - $40K, you can also have Aaron Boone show up to motivate and inspire in person . . .

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Yankees team up with Walmart. Does anybody else see the deliciousness?

Breaking Happy News: The Yankees and Walmart are hosting a Winter Wonderland, supplying toys for needy children. 

Great. Bravo. Yay.   

The Yankees and Walmart. A perfect team-up, for a worthy cause. 

The Yankees and Walmart. A marriage made from holiday spirit. It's all good! Be proud. I certainly am. Yankees and Walmart! We're doing good. Our favorite baseball team, linking up with our favorite retail outlet. 

Not sure how this will work. My guess: All good Yank fans who work or shop at Walmart will donate money, and the Yankees will co-host a big gala giveaway, and everyone will sing songs, and Santa Hal will make an appearance, and some needy kids will have a happier holiday season than would have happened otherwise, and I have absolutely no problem with this. The Yankees and Walmart. Jolly good show. 

Look, if you think I'm going to be smug or smart-alecky here, you clicked on the wrong website, kiddo. The Yankees! Walmart! Teaming up! As they should! If only K-Mart were around to see this. And who knows what the Dodgers will team up with - Amazon? Nvidia? Saudi Aramco? Doesn't matter. We're with The Wall. Bravo.  

Yankees and Walmart. Mickey Mantle and Mickey Mouse. Stanton and Santa. The Babe and The Babe!  An unstoppable duo. 

Have I mentioned the savings when shopping at Walmart? I'm sure our main elf, Brian Cashman, does, when touting trade packages. Together, the Yankees and Walmart can solve any team's need: Weedwhackers, outdoor grills, shirts, shoes, outfielders, infielders, starters, relievers, everything. At low, low prices.

Yankees and Walmart! I'm raising my glass. Merry Christmas to all! And let the shopping begin! 

The day after Baseball's Convention of Nothingness: Five takeaways

Okay, as the late Mr. Wolf would say, Let's go to the videotape! 

1. Are we being played? The Information Superhighway is ripe with trade rumors that make no sense. Supposedly, the Yankees are in on Colorado's Gold Glove CF Brenton Doyle, and I'm thinking - great, a Ryan McMahon for the outfield. WTF? They already have a logjam. Acquiring Doyle would kill their imaginary chase of Kyle Tucker and/or Cody Bellinger, as well as clobber plans for The Martian and Spencer Jones. This 4-D chess match is giving me a headache. But this we know: Pull one thread on the Yankee sweater, and the varsity letter falls off. I think they're running a massive psyops campaign. They say anything, knowing that across the Yankiverse, all that matters is pitching, pitching, pitching content, content, content.  

2. The Mets will gorge themselves at the free agent buffet. Stevie Cohen has not yet begun to spend, and I imagine him holding two large platters as he goes through the line, loading up on burnt-end cutlets (Bellinger), bang-bang shrimp (Tatsuya Imai) and the prime rib (Bo Bichette). We're going to get the mystery meat leftovers. (Michael King, Jordan Montgomery.) Food Stamps Hal is always looking to collude - remember his talks with Cohen when Aaron Judge went on the market? In today's America, corruption is not just legal, it's preferred. The Mets will spend their money, then leave the store. That's when the Yankees will enter.

3. Are the Yankees really listening to deals for Jazz Chisholm? Or is this just a way of telling players that nobody is safe? This would be a sea change, and it would open a gaping hole at 2B. Chisholm's 31 HRs - and 31 SBs - were nice last year, but he sucked in the postseason, when he tried to hit every ball to Yonkers. Also, I wonder if he can withstand another year of being pummeled at 2B? He's a tough player, and I think the Yankees like him. So, again, in these rumors, are we being played?  

4. There remains a huge void at SS, in the rotation and on the truth. A general rule of Yankee fandom is to never believe their target date for a player's return from injury. Doesn't matter who, or where, or when. If the Yankees say he'll be back in May, he'll be back in June. If so, Anthony Volpe and Carlos Rodon will miss major blocks of the regular season. Also, there's no guarantee for either. Volpe has yet to show any stardom, and they're saying that Rodon, at the end of September, could barely lift his arm, due to the chips floating in his elbow. 

5. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I cannot shake the feeling that, when the 2027 labor strike ends - maybe in 2028? - Hal will be looking to sell. Massive changes will be coming to MLB's financial structure, and the Yankees are already descending into a mid-upper tier dingus. Meanwhile, the richest men in the world - what comes after trillionaires? - will be coveting cultural versions of penis extensions, and what better way to advertise your manhood than by hanging with celebrities in the owner box? (Something Hal does not do.) Somebody - a Musk, a Bezos, a Trump - will make Hal an insane offer, which he cannot refuse. I'm not sure whether to look forward to this, or to dread it. But the Yankees should be owned by superhuman wealth, with an ego to match. Hal has never filled that role. (Except when performing in the Broadway version of KINKY BOOTS. He was sooo liberated.)   

For $350, you can give Aaron Boone this Christmas

 He's on cameo.com, doing inspirational videos at $350 a pop.

STOP THE PRESSES, WE JUST GOT BRADLEY HANNER!

 Well, if you've been waitin' on Cashman making a big move this winter: here it is, come and get it!

Bradley Hanner (hope I got his name right). Who the hell is he? Right, I'ze thinkin' the exact same thing. Seems he's a career minor leaguer who's bounced around, last year with an ERA of almost 5, and gave up 13 HR in only 49 innings pitched. And that was down in AAA! Cleveland. 

https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/yankees_make_first_post_winter_meetings_free_agency_move/s1_16754_43191578

Hmmmm. 13 homers in 49 innings pitched. Don't that come to a homer every 4 innings? Which if he was a starter would equate to a whopping 50 homers allowed, if he pitched 200 innings.

Remember those military commercials? "Aim High" 

Seems the Yankees didn't get the message. The motto here seems to be "Aim Low" or at best, "Aim Average". Or maybe they did get it right. Because that'll be a whole lotta "it is HIGH, it is far, it is gone" ... for the other team. We got this sad sack for 800K, courtesy Food Stamps HAL & Cashman Dumpster Diving, Inc.

*P.S. Thanks very much to Stang for showin' me how to put up one of these articles on e-blogger. This is the first one I've ever put up all by me-self. Before that, I had to depend on you guys to put these things up for me. Not exactly a tech genius, me. Guess I shouldn't ever bother applying for a geek squad job at Staples! "Don't call us, we'll call you..."

At some point, the logjam will explode, exposing the shape and substance of the 2026 Yankees. We might not like what we see.

A big fat nothing...

That's what we got this week: A big, fat, humongous zilch, as we wait for... well... something.  

It's like that interstellar spaceship, 31/ATLAS. It's passing us by, heading for Ice Planet Hoth. We prepared ourselves for an all-channels "PEOPLE OF EARTH..." message from Thanos, or Dr. Manhattan, or Ming the Merciless. Somebody. Anybody. Instead, we got the FIFA Peace Prize and astronomy's version of the Epstein files - to be forever sat upon and kicked down the road, a big fat nothing. 

Bombs keep dropping, prices keep rising, bodies keep piling up, and everybody sits around, waiting for... something.

So why would the Yankees be different? Cooperstown Cashman went to the winter meetings in Orlando, kicked a few tires, maybe tried a Hogwarts Blooming Onion in the Harry Potter theme pub. He saw no free agent worth bidding on, no trade worth pulling the trigger on, and went home without even visiting the Villages, in a quest for some golf cart sex. And here we are, on the other side of what used to be winter's most defining week, having accomplished... well... a big fat nothing. 

The Orioles, Redsocks, Blue Jays and Dodgers all improved. The latter seem dangerously close to landing Skubal and making 2026 irrelevant. The Mets still sit atop the biggest pile of money aside from the one in Elon Musk's dirty conscience, and the Yankees keep waiting... 

The good news? We haven't done anything stupid. The bad news? We seem to have no agenda. We wait for somebody to break the logjam - to sign Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger or Tatsuya Imai. We wait for a big fish to graze and move on. We talk like the Yankees of old, but it's just muscle memory. If we were really all-in on Bellinger, as we claim to be, we could have taken him off the board with an offer. But we didn't.   

The Yankees are waiting and watching. If not for the Rule 5 draft - their first pick in 14 years, in which they selected a 25-year-old RH bullpen widget - there would have been no reason to hang around Thursday. Today, they're probably already home. 

Weird winter, thus far. Earthquake in Alaska. Flooding in Washington State. Twenty-four inches, already on the ground, in Syracuse. A long, cold one is coming. And for now, a big, fat nothing.  

Music to our ears

 “I haven’t accomplished anything,” Cashman said Wednesday.

He just lost Edwin Diaz. Will Steve Cohen take it out on the Yankees?

Yesterday, the unstoppable Dodgers - baseball's version of Covid - strengthened their stranglehold on America, signing the best closer on the market, right out from under the burst corpuscle nose of their richest competitor. 

The Mets - and zillionaire owner Stevie Cohen - were left with the door prize known as Devon Williams, whose career achievement has been to break the Yankee Beard Ban. (Note to Met fans: He's all yours!)

That leaves Cohen and his aircraft carriers full of money looking for someone to accept his cash and make him whole again. Surely, he will follow the playbook of all schoolyard bullies: Beat up the nearest wimp. 

That's us.

What better way to showcase his Hegsethian manhood than by outbidding the Yankees in some suddenly manufactured, existential auction? That could mean signing Cody Bellinger - because he can - or the Japanese starter, Tatsuya Imai, or Alex Bregman, or Dopy Dildox. Doesn't matter. The Dodgers just punked him with the Whoopie Cushion, and Cohen - in the manner of narcissists everywhere - needs to re-exert himself as NYC's Big Chief Lug Nut.  

Amid the signings of Diaz and Kyle Schwarber (by the Phillies), the Yankees yesterday did - what's the word? - Schmegma? Lymph? Bupkis? They did nothing. You could say that Cooperstown Cashman is lying in wait, preparing to pounce. You could say that the front office is fully armed, ready to charge. Hell, you could say anything. What you can't say is the Yankees have yet to reveal a strategy to improve their chances in 2026. They are waiting to see what the Mets, Dodgers, Redsocks and Blue Jays do. Then, I assume, they'll make adjustments. 

Last year, after Juan Soto went to the Mets, the Yankee reactionary strategy seemed to work. While the Mets were realizing how dreadfully they had overpaid for Soto, the Yankees quickly signed Max Fried and traded for Bellinger. In the end, the Orioles and Rays fell apart, Boston's youth movement proved to be a year away, but the Blue Jays ate our lunches. 

It's hard to imagine the Yankees improving in 2026 without at least one major addition to the pitching staff. The question now: Will they have to beat Cohen, and his newly bloodied nose? The last thing Food Stamps Hal seems to want is a bidding war. It looks as though that's what he's going to get.

This week, the Yankees could face a knockout blow

It's coming, straight at us...

I'm not talking about 3I/Atlas, the "comet" that is obviously an alien probe to phone home about whether intelligent life exists on Earth. 

I'm not talking about the KC Chiefs, who dominated pro football and pop music culture through the first half of the 2020s, and who now look old and tired.

I'm not talking about the looming recession, or Trump's gilded Walmart ballroom, or even the Golden Globes' snub of Sydney Sweeney's big punching bags in her boxing movie. 

Nope, what's coming is Big Stevie Cohen, large as a Macy's parade balloon, and his infinite checkbook. It has so intimidated Hal Steinbrenner that the Yankees already sound like also-rans in the upcoming bidding war for Tatsuya Imai.

Yes, Tatsuya Imai - the lone top Japanese free agent in this decade to NOT want to join the Dodgers. Every dime in Hal's hope chest should go into signing Imai - fortifying the pitching staff and standing up to Big Stevie. 

But here's the rub: It might not be enough. 

The Yankees painted themselves into a corner - actually, a centerfield - when they offered Trent Grisham $22 million to stay a year. Of course, he was gonna take it. As a result, to sign Cody Bellinger or Kyle Tucker will force a massive domino-drop of secondary trades, most likely involving Jasson Dominguez and/or Spencer Jones, and they still might not save the pitching staff. 

The Yankees need Imai more than Trump needs compression socks. But the problem is Cohen, the modern day Boss. Last year, he kicked poor Hal's ass in the bidding war for Juan Soto, (even if it left the Mets in tatters during the regular season.) This week, he can do it again in a straight up auction for Imai.

It's coming - that moment in the movie when Hal either stands up to the bully or accepts the Yankees' fate in the second half of the decade. 

It might happen today: Somebody signs Tucker, which leaves everyone chasing Bellinger, which causes his value to spike, which leaves the Yankees out in the cold, which makes Imai the biggest fish in the pond, which means... well... God knows what? Big Stevie's knockout punch? 

We don't know what's coming. 

What we know is that it might be really bad.

For the first time since we began counting, the Yankees could lose the Tabloid Covers Race in NY

Forty covers left, give or take. 

Too close to call.

Today, as they launch the '25 Winter Meetings, the Yankees cling to a supermodel-thin, six-page lead in the annual IT IS HIGH Tabloids Back Pages Race, the covers we have covered since 2019.

With three weeks left, it's a photo finish between the Yankees and the Knicks - the closest in IIHIIFIIc history. For the first,  time ever, another organization could dethrone the Bombers as NYC's premier sports team, in terms of free ink.

Hal Steinbrenner ought to take notice. The Winter Meetings offer a chance to sign a big free agent, clinch their seventh covers title, and secure their place atop Gotham's pecking order. But if they fail, we could be witnessing a sea change in New York - a long time coming, and maybe a long time before it returns.

Three years ago, the Yankees won with a mere 150 covers, beating the Jets by 14 pages. (That was the year of Aaron Rodgers.) Until now, 2023 loomed as the closest the Yankees have come to losing NY. 

Since 2019, when we began counting, the Yankees have never been challenged, as the way they will be this month. Even if they do hold on, their margin will be perilously thin. 

Consider the records...

2025: 176.5 (1st, Knicks 2nd at 170.6) 6 covers.
2024: 215 (1st, Mets at 160) 55 covers.
2023: 150 (1st, Jets at 136) 14 covers.
2022: 210 (1st, Mets at 147) 63 covers.
2021: 207 (1st, Mets at 156) 51 covers.
2020: 152 (1st, Mets at 132) 20 covers.
2019: 211 (1st, Mets at 190) 21 covers.

It will go down to the wire, perhaps decided by a spoiler. The awful Giants are chasing the NFL's top draft pick. St. John's basketball is 5-3 on the season. Who knows what the last three weeks will bring?

Today, the Post runs with the Knicks, while the Daily News reaches back into history to grieve over Don Mattingly's Hall of Fame snub. In another universe, that would have been a Yankee back page. But Mattingly is too far removed from his old team for them to claim him. Sad. 

So, the Winter Meetings are here. Will the Mets outgun us? Will the Knicks keep winning? Three weeks left. Forty covers. It's gonna be close. 

On Winter Meetings Eve, scattered thoughts...

1. If Toronto had won it, the 2025 world series would have gone down as the most exciting in history. It had everything - close plays, heroic blasts, a miraculous stuck fly ball, A-Rod's analysis - everything. One problem: The wrong team won. It could have been Canada, showing up Trump's ridiculous taunts. It could have been Max Scherzer, the return of Bo Bichette and Junior. Instead, it was the Dodgers, buying another championship, as we knew they would, and as they probably will in 2026. So close.

2. I've got Anthony Volpe Derangement Syndrome. It's been three lousy years, and '25 was the worst. Volpe's .212 BA ranked 24th of 24 qualifying shortstops. Worst in baseball. In OPS, he ranked 21st of 24. They say he played hurt? That doesn't exonerate him. The Yankees finished one tie-breaker game behind Toronto, and a halfway decent SS could have made the difference. I keep reading that the Yankees will seek an OF, a RH catcher and pitching. Damn, we need a decent SS, which Volpe is not. 

3. I wonder if Hal Steinbrenner is getting tired. Based on his recent interviews - whining about rent, luxury taxes and payrolls - has owning the Yankees become a drag? This is a world of impending trillionaires, and $300 million is chump change for those who will party in the solid gold ballroom. I wonder if Hal sees another year of the lost family heritage, hearing bombastic words from people like me, and secretly hopes that Elon Musk or Larry Ellison would buy this albatross. When you see Netflix buying Warner Brothers, like its a carton of cigs at a corner Mom & Pop, you have to wonder what's coming after the looming shutdown in 2027,  Could there be worse owners out there than Hal? 

4. Yes, I sound like a pathetic prospect hugger, but I hope the Yankees stick with both The Martian and Spencer Jones. Give them a shot in spring training. Play the one who performs best. The Yankees need pitching, pitching, pitching, and they can fill the ranks with free agents. The final four teams this year had one thing in common: They played youngsters. The Yankees need to see what their farm system can produce. Even if they fail, it will be fun to watch Dominguez and Jones. And who knows? 

Look Deep Into The Eyes of HAL – Managing General Partner and Grand Poobah of The New York Yankees

 

Strap in, everyone: The Winter Meetings are upon us.

Imagine a convergence of Juggalos, Trekkies, Hells Angels and Joe Pesci impersonators, squeezed into a hotel backlot like those street gangs in the movie The Warriors,  but summoned not by Cyrus - the visionary leader of the Gramercy Riffs - but by the reanimated corpse of Bud Selig, whose body has been taken over by Scott Boras.

That's baseball's Winter Meetings.  

Strap in, everyone - because throughout the years, for better or worse, this is when the Yankees reinvent themselves.

Last year, during these meetings, they signed Max Fried and traded for Cody Bellinger. The year before, they exchanged the farm system for one season of Juan Soto. 

In other Decembers, they landed Gerrit Cole, CC Sabathia, Giancarlo Stanton, Alex Verdugo, Curtis Granderson - all winter meeting babes. The list goes on, too painful to revisit. Every year, the first full week of December begets the future of the Yankees. 

This is the super-moon, the meteor shower, the impending visit from that interstellar "comet," 3I/Atlas, where an alien Bones McCoy is surely taunting Scotty, as they watch the YES Channel. 

For seven years we've suckled at the P.T. Barnum hype teat of Jasson Dominguez. By this time next week, he might be a California Angel. 

Since being drafted in 2019, Anthony Volpe has served as a Jeterian stand-in for "the future of the Yankees." By this time next week, he could be a Brewer.

Already, Internet watering holes are filling with rumors. The Yankees will enter this pageant of prudence in desperate search of pitching, pitching, pitching...

God knows what they will look like next Saturday.

Get ready, everybody. It's coming.