Official Yankee fan thread

[Yankee4Life]

Congratulations to the Diamondbacks and the fact that they beat the Phillies was a bonus. Did you see how they won this series?

 

1.Sacrifice bunts.

2.Stolen bases.

3.Aggressive base running. Aggressive base running all the time.

4 Singles and line drive hits that advance runners and provide pressure on the opposition.

5. Consistent hustling defense.

6. Consistent starting pitching.

 

Now do the Yankees do any of this?

[Yankee4Life]

Domingo German, Matt Bowman, Franchy Cordero, Jimmy Cordero, Billy McKinney and Ryan Weber were outrighted off its 40-man roster today.

 

I don’t see anything wrong with this and it was a good move by Cashman and the Yankees. It was also an easy move on their part so we will see how well they do when the transactions and acquisitions get harder.

[Kccitystar]

2 hours ago, Yankee4Life said:

Domingo German, Matt Bowman, Franchy Cordero, Jimmy Cordero, Billy McKinney and Ryan Weber were outrighted off its 40-man roster today.

 

I don’t see anything wrong with this and it was a good move by Cashman and the Yankees. It was also an easy move on their part so we will see how well they do when the transactions and acquisitions get harder.

 

This is fine, these are all AAAA fringe guys

[Yankee4Life]

Ok, who in the hell is Yerry De Los Santos and why do we need him?

[Yankee4Life]

Hey!!! Ok!!! Spring training opens and we have already received our first exaggeration of the season. Aaron Boone just said the Yankees are "hellbent on being a champion."

 

Wooo, what do you think of that? Gives you goose bumps doesn’t it? He neglects to say that this organization is always “hellbent” on this and it seems to me he is already putting up smoke and mirrors ahead of the first rash of injuries that should happen next week or the very latest the last week of February.

 

I am conditioned now not to believe anything this guy says ever again.

[Yankee4Life]

Gerrit Cole to miss at least 1 to 2 months as Yankees ace visits noted surgeon

The Yankees will be without Gerrit Cole to at least the start of the season.

 

 

 

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole will be out at least one-to-two months and will head to Los Angeles for an appointment with noted sports surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache, The Post has learned.

 

Several Yankees doctors and ElAttrache have viewed Cole’s preliminary film, and while none has detected a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, there’s enough concern about the ligament that ElAttrache has suggested an in-person visit.

 

Word is that the defending AL Cy Young Award winner will be out for an “extended period,” although for now, the hope and belief is that Cole has a chance to return sometime in May or early June.

 

The initial readings of Cole earlier in the week were optimistic, with the belief the issue could be resolved with rest and other conservative treatments, but ElAttrache has recommended more testing, raising the level of worry.

 

Yankees manager Aaron Boone publicly ruled out Opening Day, but it’s clear Cole will need more time than that now.

 

At the very least, Cole will need to wait for swelling and inflammation to subside, and once that does, he would need to re-ramp back up to get into major league pitching shape.

 

The 33-year-old has shown his usual excellent velocity and command this spring, but his recovery, normally no problem for one of baseball’s most dependable starters, has been an issue.

 

His most recent spring outing was a three-inning, 47-pitch live batting practice Thursday.

 

“His recovery, before getting to his next start, has been more akin to what he feels during the season, when he’s making 100 pitches,” Boone said Monday, when Cole underwent the initial MRI exam.

 

That turned out to be just the start of testing that has been going on for a few days and will continue in California with ElAttrache.

 

Former Yankees great Masahiro Tanaka was able to pitch successfully with a weakened elbow ligament, but many pitchers are not.

 

Gerrit Cole talks to the press at the start of Yankees spring training.

 

Since the start of the 2020 season, no one has pitched more innings in baseball than Cole (664), who has performed like the workhorse the Yankees believed he would be when they signed him to a $324 million contract.

 

Cole has been the rare combination of excellent and durable, never undergoing Tommy John surgery and consistently taking the ball for the Yankees every fifth day.

 

There is no good time to lose Cole, but extended missed time this year would be especially devastating.

 

Gerrit Cole will miss at least 1-to-2 months.

 

In what will be an all-in year for the Yankees — who mortgaged part of their pitching future in a trade for Juan Soto, who will be a free agent after this season — there are significant questions behind Cole in the rotation.

 

Marcus Stroman pitched just 24 innings in the second half of last season due to hip and rib-cage issues.

 

There are questions of durability and effectiveness with lefties Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes, both coming off seasons to forget.

 

In his first full season as a major league starter last year, Clarke Schmidt was OK (4.64 ERA) but not special.

[sabugo]

So, business as usual then.

 

[Yankee4Life]

18 minutes ago, sabugo said:

So, business as usual then.

 

Yes. They are a major disappointment.

[Yankee4Life]

It’s time for my annual who stays and who goes list.

 

Pitchers

 

Get some rest over the winter and be prepared to work on fundamentals:

Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Carlos Rodon, Luke Weaver, Will Warren, Marcus Stroman, Clayton Beeter, Jake Cousins, Cody Poteet, Ian Hamilton, Mark Leiter, Jr.

 

Enough already!

Nestor Cortes, Clay Holmes

 

You waste of space

Jonathan Loaisiga

 

Re-sign him

Tim Hill, Tommy Kahnle

 

Hitters

 

Like the pitchers, get some rest and then be prepared in February to work on something called “fundamentals.” You can do it. I have faith in you.

Oswaldo Cabera, Jazz Chisholm, Jr, Anthony Volpe, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton

 

They deserve a decent shot.

Oswald Peraza and Ben Rice.

 

Come in early and don’t forget your glove

Jasson Dominguez

 

Get the hell out of here

DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo

 

Probably going to go.

Jon Berti, Trent Grisham, Alex Verdugo

 

More who should go.

Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman.

[sabugo]

I agree with pretty much everything except for Loaisiga. Let him heal first and then see what's left in the tank before just getting rid of him. 

[Kccitystar]

I'll tell you why Boone is unlikely to be fired every postseason exit, and this is just my hot take:
 

Aaron Boone is just following the organizational philosophy to the letter. The org/analytics team have their processes, their "lanes", and their "systems". The problem and flaw with this philosophy is that these things are way too rigid for baseball, and the organization has shown time and time again that they are not willing to adapt to real-time variables, or as people say, the intangibles. The Yankees’ system is designed to minimize the impact of human intuition and natural player instincts in favor of a process that can be consistently defended by numbers that you can repeat and get the same result every time. The problem is that refusal to account for these real-time variables means that the team is frequently blindsided when situations do not unfold as projected by the data.

If you view team decisions and situations through a "process" lens, you can become just as detached from reality as Cashman. The entire view of the organization is that as long as that game decision that you made was driven by the analytics and data that you had, or that we (as the organization) gave you, then the outcome is just the outcome, and not just the result of a "mistake" that you made. It's easier to defend failures as "bad luck" or "outliers", rather than as signals that the process that got you to that result might need a significant overhaul.  It's how EVERYONE avoids accountability up and down the organization. 

Throughout the years seeing the Boone-era Yanks play, my newfound understanding of how heavy-handed the organization's data driven approach was made every baffling Boone decision click for me. A great example is how Boone handles slumping players. A data-driven perspective might show that in the long run, a specific player is expected to rebound based on historical averages and underlying metrics. Even though this can be true, it doesn't look at immediate factors like fatigue, psychological struggles, or adjustments opponents have made that require timely, human intervention. The rigidity to “trust the process” means these nuances are ignored, and decisions that should be flexible become formulaic.

All of these things require some level of situational awareness, as they have always been factors that play into the outcome of the games. The worst part about this philosophy is how it allows both Boone and Cashman to deflect blame. When decisions don’t lead to wins, they can be justified by pointing to the data that informed them. This shields Boone from criticism since he’s merely executing a plan based on data, and it insulates the front office by framing failures as outliers or the result of bad luck. This cycle of justifying losses with analytics and variance discourages the organization to look introspectively at what they are doing wrong. They never reach a point where they question whether the overarching strategy is flawed; instead, they simply tweak the process without re-examining its premise.

 

If you look at how the Yankees lost Game 1 of the World Series, following it through as a series of "processes" and "lanes", it looks completely defensible on paper because the data says so/suggests as such. In actual reality it ignored literally all of the game context any manager who still had a feel for the game would have adapted to:

• Taking Cole out early. This was probably driven by pitch counts and matchup data. On paper, it sounds like the best move, but in doing so, it ignores literally all of the on-field stuff you see as a manager, like the flow of the game. You can see that Cole has momentum. You can see that he isn't tired and that he's locked in on the mound. He says he feels great. The Dodgers aren't hitting him as hard. By being so rigid with processes and not willing to adapt to what you see on the field, you disrupt all of the momentum Cole had all game, and your decision is going to put pressure on the bullpen to perform to get 9 high-leverage outs.
• Using Cortes, who did not pitch off a mound since September 18, again, driven by the data regarding his good numbers against lefties. It ended up giving the Dodgers the game. It ignored every real-time variable, like the long layoff, the fact that it was a high leverage situation, and the fact that Tim Hill was probably your most effective lefthander in the bullpen throughout the playoffs.
• Defensive alignments: They're all influenced by data and analytics that tell you where you should stand on the field based on batted ball data and the hitter's tendencies. If you rely solely on that data, you're not taking into account game momentum, or how a team is approaching their at-bats for that situation or for that specific game, or how likely a player's hitting tendencies might not align with aggregated data. Now you have players thinking too much on where they "should" be on the field and not using their situational awareness to respond naturally to a play as it unfolds.

The worst part about all of this is that the Yankees would never consider the overall philosophy as systemically not effective. Teams that consistently contend for championships don’t abandon analytics but instead use them as part of a holistic strategy that considers the human side of the game. The Yankees’ unwillingness to adapt to real-time variables or acknowledge that their process might need a fundamental change is why we keep having early exits in the playoffs when we're able to contend. As long as Boone follows the process, his job is safe, and the organization won’t consider these failures as reflective of deeper issues within their strategic approach.

[Yankee4Life]

KC, you may not make a lot of posts in here but they are always informative, educational, well thought out and most of all correct.

 

Thank you.

[Yankee4Life]

Oh boy, this article says it all.

 

Why do all these Yankees seasons start to crack at the same time of year?

                                        by Joel Sherman of the New York Post

 

 

“Listen, if you can’t spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, you are the sucker.”  – Mike McDermott in the opening line of “Rounders”

 

The Yankees began an eight-game stretch Monday against a trio of teams that played poorly enough in July to fall from contention to sellers. It opens with their historic patsy, the Twins, at home, then three on the road in St. Louis and then two in their Steinbrenner Field home away from home against the Rays.

 

To end this month, the Yankees have a seven-game stretch against the Nationals and White Sox, the worst teams in the majors in the non-Rockies division.

 

To end this season, the Yankees have 13 games (the last six at home) against the White Sox and the two biggest sellers at the deadline, the Twins and Orioles.

 

This has always been the hope lingering for the Yankees, a soft schedule to get right on, to get fat on, to surge into the playoffs on. Except we are well beyond the halfway mark of this season and have to ask: “Are the Yankees the suckers?”

 

They might look around a table and see soft landing spots against big deadline sellers and wretched foes. But their opponents might look back and not see the Yankees as we have come to know them, but a bad team in those uniforms.

 

Cody Bellinger and Anthony Volpe chase down a hit that falls between them in the Yankees’ 7-1 loss to the Astros on Aug. 10, 2025.

 

And the key might be: Can the Yankees look in the mirror and see themselves as they actually are and not how they expect to be or delude themselves into seeing?

 

Because even if they salvage this season, there are a lot of internal questions that must be asked if Hal Steinbrenner keeps the leadership infrastructure intact or disassembles it.

 

One question that certainly needs to be answered is why has the team endured a middle-months dive for four straight years now. Once is a blip. Twice perhaps coincidence. But this is four times.

 

The Yankees went into the Twins series with a 20-31 record in their past 51 games, a stretch from June 13 through this past weekend. That is nearly one-third of a season with a .392 winning percentage. If you think it is a long season and playing one-third with that bad of a record is common even for winning teams then know this: In the 30 seasons since 1996, the Yankees have had that bad of a record over 51 games within a season three times:

 

Aaron Boone’s 2022 Yankees.

 

Aaron Boone’s 2023 Yankees.

 

Aaron Boone’s 2025 Yankees.

 

The Yankees have made a habit of struggling through the middle of the season under Aaron Boone.

 

The 2024 Yankees were not bad for quite that long, but had a 10-23 stretch from June 14-July 26 that stands alone as the worst 33-game span in the organization’s past three decades.

 

And check those dates. Because the 2022 Yankees had multiple 20-31 stretches from July 7-Sept. 5 in a 53-game period in which they were a combined 22-31.

 

The 2023 Yankees had multiple 20-31 or worse stretches from June 21-Aug. 29 in a 59-game period in which they were 24-35.

 

And the 51-game downturn that the Yankees carried into this workweek began on June 13.

 

So in the past four years, there has been roughly one-third of the season three times and a 20 percent segment in the other in which the Yankees went bad, and the start dates are June 13, June 14, June 21 and July 7.

 

Can the Yankees really look at this trend, which never happened to this extent or length under Joe Torre and Joe Girardi, and just go about business as usual after the season? Maybe.

 

The Yankees made the playoffs in 2022 and 2024 despite the nosedives and might still make it this season. And perhaps that is the salve to suggest they know how to play the long game and will go into the bunker and convince themselves they know best.

 

But these midseason collapses should be screaming to the Yankees about an underlying problem that demands self-examination, including from outside eyes and voices. And let’s be frank, it is probably not an analytics firm such as the one the Yankees hired to audit them during the 2024 season — because the Yankees only play baseball worse since that group came, dropped its findings and left.

 

I will take my shot at this, sans an analytics or scouting department to assist.

 

First, I think there are not usually simple, single-prong answers. For example, baked into this is an expanded version of the playoff system that, say, Torre and Girardi never encountered. More teams are trying to be at least competent, and therefore there are fewer total soft spots in a schedule and perhaps even longer stretches that can be problematic.

 

This version of Yankee Stadium is not as intimidating to opponents as the previous one and, at times, has become harsher than ever when it is going wrong for the home side.

 

But it feels like those and a few others are incremental issues. I think the bigger problem is mindset.

 

The Yankees are built around home runs and heroes, a H and H philosophy that melds with the big-picture analytics strategy that has encased the organization. Namely, if you are among the top five or so in homers and have at least two superstar plow horses performing at elite levels, that all but assures winning at least 55 percent of games most years and getting into the playoffs — and if you get into the playoffs enough, there will be years in which health and randomized high-end performance will line up well and you will get a championship parade.

 

The Yankees have won a lot of games waiting for Aaron Judge homers, but have also been susceptible to losing to more resourceful teams.

 

It is casino baseball. It is counting cards brought to the diamond, and the Yankees are far from the only team that practices this. It is playing a system and not worrying what the games look like or why you lose as long as you win 55 percent of the hands/games annually.

 

By philosophy, it works. In the past eight years, the Yankees have finished first in the AL in homers four times, second twice, third once and sixth once. They lead the majors this year.

 

Aaron Judge is a metronome of being in AL MVP consideration, and Gerrit Cole was often the same for Cy Young. In a year when Cole missed a few months like last year, Juan Soto played high-end sidekick to Judge. This year for the first few months it was Max Fried.

 

What this does, though, is create a savior culture with the Yankees. They will be saved by the homer. They will be saved by their superstars. They can talk about working on other elements of the game. And I bet they are points of emphasis in spring training. But look when these downturns are occurring: They start each year about one-third of the way through the season.

 

To play the game correctly — to treat 90 feet on both sides of the ball as a precious commodity — takes a fierce, relentless commitment to items such as concentration, hustle and repetition. It is not sexy. And you can see how over time these past few years the Yankees slip in these areas as the games mount.

 

I think it is because what wins out is the casino philosophy. If you let it become tiresome or boring or secondary, doing little things right every day can become physically arduous and mentally tedious. It is easier over time just to wait for the homers and the heroes.

 

Anthony Volpe and the Yankees have become exceedingly reliant on generating runs by hitting the ball over the fence.

 

Unless it is really part of the culture. Unless it is more than box-checking that you are practicing cutoff plays or pitchers fielding practice and you are treating this with the elevated care that it could determine who wins a championship or not. It is why I do not think the playoffs are a complete crapshoot as the Yankees and so many others might say.

 

The Yankees of the post-Core Four era — a period when they took on analytics as their totem to follow no matter what — get eliminated in the playoffs regularly by a team that outplays them at baseball. The Astros have done it four times. The Dodgers did it last year as the Yankees lost the World Series as much as Los Angeles won it.

 

Now, this very easily can become analytics vs. old school, and I am not here to do that. If you told me to pick one or the other, I would take the analytics. In 2025, if you are not ahead of the curve in understanding every area that can unlock advantages, you will be way behind. Maximizing performance is vital. But I feel what has been lost is maximizing performance beyond measurables such as swing velocity, exit velocity, vertical break of pitches, etc.

 

If Moneyball at its core was based on capitalizing on inefficiency and what is undervalued, then improving on and demanding higher baseball IQs in real time in games is that. The Brewers are embodying it this year with the best record in the sport and a sweep this past weekend of the Mets in a series in which their ace (Freddy Peralta) did not pitch and their best everyday player (Jackson Chourio) and rookie starting phenom (Jacob Misiorowski) are both on the IL.

 

These Brewers get victories in two ways: they win or you lose (see Saturday night vs. the Mets as a prime example). They force you to beat them to win; they are not going to be co-conspirators. You have to win to win. They limit the opponent to 27 outs and seem to extend their own allotment to 30 outs by forcing mistakes by playing hard and with relentless detail.

 

And I also don’t want to turn this into homers vs. finesse offense, such as bunts and hit-and-runs. Because if I can only have one of those, I would take homers. It is the only sure way to a run or two or three or four. There is nothing more valuable on the field than a homer.

 

But when I return to thinking about the Yankees, there is a difference between treating the home run as a vital weapon and as a deity that will save you from all. There are times the ball will not go over the fence or that the opponent will defuse your stars. Then what?

 

For example, the Astros do as good a job of negating Judge as anyone. He has batted .199 against Houston in 50 regular-season games and .200 in 17 playoff games. It is part of the symptom that makes the Yankees easier marks against the Astros: Judge doesn’t do it on a team waiting for Judge.

 

Judge missed 43 games in 2023 from June 4 to July 27 due to a toe injury. That coincided with the annual downswing and led to the only missed playoff season of the Boone era. The 2025 Yankees are in a period in which neither Judge nor Fried is excelling. And it is as if both arms have been removed from the team, as if they had no other way to assemble a win or avoid a loss.

 

After an All-Star-worthy first half, Max Fried has pitched to a 5.73 ERA over his past four starts.

 

Because — among other things — the Yankees do not turn double plays well or steal bases often or with a high success rate or deliver productive outs with great frequency. You get the idea. This is about how valuable every 90 feet is. The stuff that gets you wins in the cracks when the ball isn’t going over the fence.

 

I just think when you have people in charge who put blinders on considering all the emotions of the game, you are losing something. Think about what it does to your dugout, the opposing dugout, a home crowd or a visiting crowd when you hustle a double or a triple or execute a bunt and force a misplay.

 

You can say that is ephemeral or unquantifiable or made up, but how do you ignore that when the Yankees turn bad for weeks (even months) at a time that their collective confidence wanes and they become more susceptible to opponents pressuring them into physical and mental miscues on both sides of the ball? Again, it is either your culture to care about this or not.

 

I’d rather hit a homer than drop a well-timed bunt, but why can’t you have both? Why can’t a team with the Yankees’ largesse embrace a world in which they can win with a hammer or a feather?

 

And I would remember that even the analytics are ever evolving and/or wrong in places. Because the Yankees stuck with Gleyber Torres at shortstop for quite a while based on what they saw on paper, not with their eyes. The same with Gary Sanchez behind the plate. The same with having an overly right-handed-hitting lineup. These were multi-year mistakes, and the Yankees were like the Titanic turning too slowly in groupthink to avoid the iceberg.

 

Ryan McMahon has brought an attention to detail on offense and defense that the Yankees were lacking before acquiring him before the trade deadline.

 

And the problem is institutionalized to some degree, if not to a large degree. Because the Yankees have gotten more lefty, more athletic and more defense-oriented over the past year-plus, and it simply does not manifest at a high enough level in games. Beyond his obvious high-end talent, Cody Bellinger is a superb baseball player with great feel for the game on both sides. Paul Goldschmidt, too. Ryan McMahon seems to have that gene as well.

 

And yet …

 

Here are the Yankees going through a sustained death spiral period for a fourth straight year. The new blood can’t give a full transfusion if the body is unwilling to accept it.

 

It leaves the Yankees bystanders to their own problems. They remain spectators waiting for homers and heroes. Maybe they will still get enough of both from here to the finish line and, as they did in 2022 and 2024, overcome this midseason nosedive to reach the playoffs.

 

But this shouldn’t be ignored. There is something wrong with how the Yankees collectively attack the game that is leading to being vulnerable to extended regular-season swoons and more susceptible to October elimination.

 

At some point, you sit at the table and have to lose your arrogance and figure out you might be the sucker.

[Jim825]

This article brings up many good points. 

[Yankee4Life]

14 hours ago, Jim825 said:

This article brings up many good points. 

 

It sure did Jim and the first thing I thought of was why don't the Yankees realize this obvious fact themselves?

 

Do you remember the Orioles from Earl Weaver's time there? Ken Singleton said in a reprinted article that is included in a Thomas Boswell book that the Orioles worked on fundamentals so much and they got so good at it that other teams would almost get mad at them because they never threw to the wrong base. They were that good in doing the little things.

 

This is the main reason why they don't win. They'll pound bad pitching with homers by Judge and company but when the post season begins they are up against tougher pitching. And we all know what a failure Judge is in October.

[sabugo]

Very good article. Putting to words what we see with our own eyes.

[Yankee4Life]

6 minutes ago, sabugo said:

Very good article. Putting to words what we see with our own eyes.

 

And that is what drives me nuts. You and I and Jim and KC see this and we are just baseball fans that do not get paid a nickel by the Yankees for our time or input. But we see what the problem is. That is the difference.

[Kccitystar]

2 hours ago, sabugo said:

Very good article. Putting to words what we see with our own eyes.

It didn't take me 6 months into a new season to put 2 and 2 together like Sherman did. I made this analysis right after the World Series ended:

https://www.mvpmods.com/forums/topic/67121-official-yankee-fan-thread/page/30/#findComment-712165

 

The Yankees have been stuck in the same time loop for years: pounding bad pitching in the spring, slump through the summer, and then scrape into October hoping for magic. It’s baked into their DNA now, so they will favor power over precision, processes over feel. When the weather heats up and playoff-caliber arms show up, their lack of situational sharpness gets exposed. Good teams grind wins by executing the little things, like hitting behind runners, taking the extra base, throwing to the right bag, etc. while the Yankees’ obsession with “lanes” and rigid matchups turns the lineup into a roulette wheel, killing the human aspect of baseball, the rhythm and routine, in the months when it matters most.

 

By August, their hitters are still ‘finding it’ instead of refining it, entering October with spring-training chemistry.

That’s how you end up in the postseason with no feel for counts, no timing window locked in, and nothing but over-swings, bad pitch recognition, and weak contact to show for it. Their miltaristic-like process may have gotten them there, but that’s exactly the problem and it's frustrating as a fan to see: They constantly measure any season’s success by the fact that their process worked, not whether the result did.

 

So in their eyes, why bother making changes?

[sabugo]

I believe it's been years now that I've suggested you should work for the Yankees. Hell, even George Costanza got a job there 🤣

[Kccitystar]

2 hours ago, sabugo said:

I believe it's been years now that I've suggested you should work for the Yankees. Hell, even George Costanza got a job there 🤣

 

I refuse

[Yankee4Life]

8 hours ago, sabugo said:

I believe it's been years now that I've suggested you should work for the Yankees. Hell, even George Costanza got a job there 🤣

 

You are not kidding but that would never happen because the guy makes too much sense and they could never have that in their organization.