In the event you had been a Yankee fan watching the season-ending press conferences from Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone, you felt as if this was your baseball Groundhog Day. There have been no surprises, nor did any Yankee fan anticipate there to be. They’ve heard variations of those remarks for eight years now.
“A good team fell short of our ultimate goal,” Brian Cashman mentioned.
“We’re just as hungry [as the fans], just as disappointed,” Cashman mentioned.
“You gotta be on your ‘A’ game [in the postseason] or you’re gonna take a punch and get knocked out,” he mentioned.
They bought knocked out. Once more. One other home-run-happy Yankee workforce took one other swing and miss at October. And it’s a must to say there have been a whole lot of misses, for the reason that Yankees — solely the Angels and Rockies struck out extra this season than they did — struck out 25 instances in Video games 1 and a pair of in opposition to the Blue Jays, when that sequence was actually misplaced. Aaron Choose tried to save lots of his workforce together with his final house run of the season, that shot out of “The Natural” and off the foul pole in Sport 3. It turned out to be too little and too late for an additional Yankeeteam that leaves October early.
It was an NBA champion named Draymond Inexperienced who as soon as mentioned this about his sport, “There are 82-game players. And there are 16-game players.” The Yankee had been as soon as once more loaded with a bunch of actually good 162-game gamers, led by an important one named Choose. However they received solely three extra video games after the primary 162, out of the 13 they might have wanted to win all of it. So one other season ends with any individual being higher than they’re. Beneath Brian and Boone it has been the Astros 3 times, the Pink Sox twice, the Rays as soon as, the Dodgers as soon as. Now it’s the Blue Jays, who lit them up for 23 runs in Video games 1 and a pair of and by no means seemed again after coming again throughout the border.
Yankee followers know all about what number of consecutive profitable seasons their workforce has had, 33 and counting. The Yankees have completely made historical past within the course of and been a mannequin of consistency throughout the primary 162. It’s simply not the sort of historical past their followers as soon as anticipated from their workforce. And by the best way? This isn’t about Yankee followers pondering that each single season actually is meant to be World Sequence-or-bust. Or that any season that falls in need of the Sequence is a few form of embarrassment.
However Yankee followers are allowed to suppose that their workforce, with all of its sources and with the championship pedigree it as soon as once more carried into this century, must win a couple of World Sequence over 25 years, which is the place they’re right now. For the reason that Subway Sequence of 2000, the Yankees just do have that one title, in ’09. Over the identical interval, the Pink Sox have received 4 titles, the Giants have received three, the Dodgers appear like they’re about to win their third, the Astros and the Cardinals have received two.
Boone, after all, might be again subsequent season, engaged on a contract extension that scheduled to take him via 2027. Cashman, if he doesn’t get an extension of his personal, might be getting into the final 12 months of his personal contract subsequent season. They each talked bravely about doing higher subsequent time as a result of, actually, what else was both of them going to say?
Cashman spoke of Hal Steinbrenner and the Steinbrenner household on Thursday, at one level saying, “They believed many times we had a chance to do something.”
Did Cashman make the workforce higher on the commerce deadline? He did. However ultimately, even the reimagined workforce wasn’t adequate. Did the Yankees win 94 video games with out their ace, Gerrit Cole, misplaced within the spring to Tommy John surgical procedure? They positive did. After which practically bought clipped by within the Wild Card spherical by a Pink Sox workforce that had misplaced its younger star, Roman Anthony, weeks earlier.
Even then, that best-of-three sequence win over Boston was noteworthy on this one very huge approach: It was the primary sequence victory within the Brian-Boone period at Yankee Stadium that didn’t come in opposition to a workforce from the American League Central.
Now Yankee followers surprise what’s going to change between now and subsequent October, by which era the Yankees will nearly actually be giving themselves one other probability to win World Sequence No. 28. They surprise if Anthony Volpe, in whom Cashman and Boone and everyone else on 161st St. proceed to be so invested, will ever be the participant they’re nonetheless satisfied he’s going to be, particularly since Volpe will begin subsequent season late due to shoulder surgical procedure this week.
Cole might be coming off his surgical procedure when subsequent season begins. Carlos Rodon might be coming off his personal surgical procedure to take away bone spurs from his pitching elbow. Nobody is aware of whether or not Cody Bellinger goes or staying. Nobody has any concept who the beginning centerfielder might be on Opening Day, or the beginning shortstop, and even the beginning third baseman. Or if the Yankees actually wish to journey into the longer term with Jazz Chisholm, Jr. at second base. Not less than Ben Rice, such an exquisite shock this season, appears to be a worthy and on a regular basis product of the Yankee farm system we consistently hear a lot about.
There’s some huge cash coming off the books this winter, so Cashman will as soon as once more be capable of throw cash at a few of these issues, and be given one other probability to place his workforce again on prime.
“When opportunities present themselves [in the postseason] you have to capitalize on them,” Cashman mentioned.
Within the offseason, too. We simply noticed his imaginative and prescient for the ’25 Yankees, nobody else’s. Cashman says each workforce is completely different. It’s. It’s the ending that doesn’t change for the Yankees. Groundhog Day once more yesterday. Lengthy winter simply starting.
