SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Hal Steinbrenner called an 82-80 season “unacceptable” and promised “big changes” and those big changes so far are to hire a hitting coach to replace one who left voluntarily and to bring in an outside consulting firm that has yet to do any work.
He really waited more than a month since a season he would later describe as “awful” and in which the Yankees “accomplished nothing” to deliver this?
Oh wait, he also said on recommendation from Aaron Boone the Yankees are going to work on bunting more in the minors. I guess we should just book The Canyon of Heroes for next November now.
Why not say there also is going to be a fresh coat of paint in the home Yankee Stadium clubhouse too?
Five weeks since the regular season concluded, the Yankees owner is essentially offering that everyone who helped produce 82 wins will be back in their current jobs. So he is doubling down on a group that mainly has brought the Yankees success during Steinbrenner’s term — though no World Series appearances and the wrong current trendline.
The most revealing items that came through in his half-hour conversation with reporters is that Aaron Judge is apparently the assistant GM of the Yankees now and that Nick Swisher was among those with a vote on whether Boone should remain as manager or not. Nick Swisher? Why not just give Nick Jonas or Nick Nolte a vote — it is likely to be as insightful?
In June, Steinbrenner came off as detached by saying he was “confused” why the Yankees fan base was upset with the team’s performance. It turns out that they had more feel for his team than the owner — I am going to bet more than Nick Swisher too.
Steinbrenner spoke vaguely about changes — big changes — that are still to come. But here is a hint to the owner: the offseason has begun. So despite his insistence that there are changes afoot that the public might not see, the way the Yankees have done business to import Joey Gallo and Frankie Montas, Josh Donaldson and Carlos Rodon sure seems to be their current operating strategy for improving in 2024.
I asked the Yankee owner specifically about the losing streak of big decisions over the last 36 months that have harmed the Yankees both in real time and the future. He said first that he wanted to cite good moves such as obtaining Wandy Peralta, Clay Holmes, Ian Hamilton and Jose Trevino. That was like countering by saying, “Yes, the Titanic sunk, but wasn’t the music lovely until then?”
Even though my question was about scouting, analytics or anything that went into those choices, Steinbrenner only decided to defend his analytic wing. He picked the Joey Gallo trade and said that all Yankee decision makers were unanimous on that acquisition.
In Hal’s Universe, it is a victory to defend his analysts by saying the whole system that picked a player failed. It was not just the electricians who led to the entire power grid going down, it was all of my employees.
I get Steinbrenner’s loyalty and appreciate the decency that he does not like to fire people.
Brian Cashman and his staff have mainly provided a blueprint to keep the Yankees highly competitive for a long time. But this is a couple of years now where the organization has seemed headed in the wrong direction and it has manifested on the field since midway through the 2022 season. Is he sure this all hasn’t gotten stale or that this group is still playing its greatest hits while the industry has advanced ahead of them? Does he understand this is not just media and fans, but that other organizations are so much more critical of how the Yankees do everything from train their minor leaguers to acquire their major leaguers?
Because if the only moves of substance are replacing Sean Casey, who didn’t want to return as hitting coach, and bringing in Zelus Analytics for a yearlong assessment of how the Yankees are making decisions, then what Steinbrenner is announcing — whether he recognizes it or not — is no big changes for the 2024 product. It is the same people doing the same things in the same ways. It is not saying out loud what has to be the Yankees’ internal belief — that bad injury luck and bad breaks explains their absence from the 2023 playoffs.
Except the Yankees keep adding injury-prone players like Donaldson and Rodon, who then get injured as part of their current pathology.
Steinbrenner decided not to blame this on Boone after consulting his kitchen cabinet. But Steinbrenner mentioned several times how often he is talking to Judge about changes, which is to scream who is the far more powerful “Aaron” in Yankee World these days — though apparently Boone did have enough heft to influence more bunting in the minors.
Unprompted, Steinbrenner ended with the rote about hearing the fans and that everyone “is working their ass off” and that the Yankees are “doing everything we can to right the ship in 2024.” But when you serve up Swisher, bunting and Zelus, it does not inspire that the owner knows what ails his organization and is ready for actual “big changes.”
It feels tone deaf.