Fire Boone, Fire Cashman

Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman insist the Yankees are a "championship caliber" team.  I don't know what makes them think that or what team they're watching.  Because it certainly isn't the 2023 edition of the Yankees.  That team has been nothing short of a dumpster fire.

A lot of things have gone wrong for the Yankees this season.  Aaron Judge has been great when healthy, but he's also had two separate stints on the injured list...and the lineup seems completely incapable of hitting without him!  This has been a season-long problem, and there isn't just one culprit.  There are a lot of high-priced veterans who are being paid to not produce.  At the All*Star break, the Yankees ranked 28th in the Majors in batting average, ahead of only Detroit and Oakland.  Their inability to hit translates to an inability to score, which puts undue pressure on the pitchers, who, other than Luis Severino, haven't been too bad.

The pitching staff, frankly, is the only reason they've remained in contention in the loaded AL East, a division where every team is over .500.  The bullpen, meanwhile, is considered the "strength" of the team, although I still don't exactly see how.  Is it simply because the bullpen has, on paper, been the least bad of the three areas?  Because it's a bunch of no-name guys who haven't been performing exceptionally, either.

Sunday's loss in Denver was absolute rock bottom.  The bullpen completely imploded.  It's as simple as that.  Gerrit Cole was great for seven innings and left the game with a 3-1 lead.  Tommy Kahnle came in, loaded the bases, and Clay Holmes unloaded them by giving up a grand slam.  The Yankees actually came back to tie it, then took a 7-5 lead in the 11th.  That's when Boone turned to Nick Ramirez for some reason....and Ramirez promptly gave up the game-tying two-run homer.  Then it was Ron Marinaccio's turn...to give up a walk-off homer to a guy who hadn't hit a home run all season.

Boone completely mismanaged the bullpen in that game, and it wasn't the first time this season that's happened.  And the end result wasn't just a loss.  It was a series loss to the worst team in the National League.  Since the beginning of June, the Yankees have now lost series to the White Sox, Cubs, Cardinals and Rockies, all of whom are below .500, as well as two against the Red Sox (including a doubleheader sweep in Boston).  They entered their series in Anaheim just 13-19 since Judge broke his toe at Dodger Stadium.

It was a big deal over the All*Star break when Cashman fired hitting coach Dillon Lawson, the first in-season firing of any member of a Yankees staff since 1995.  Cashman's philosophy is that coaches should only be judged over a full, 162-game body of work.  With Lawson, though, he made an exception, since a message had to be sent.  It also had to serve as putting Boone on notice.  If George Steinbrenner was still around, Boone wouldn't just be on notice.  He'd be gone.  And, frankly, so would Cashman.

Hal Steinbrenner has shown much more patience than his father.  But even he has to realize why the fans have grown beyond frustrated.  This is a team that, despite constantly being competitive and always has one of the highest payrolls in baseball, has won a grand total of one pennant in 20 years!  And it sure doesn't look like that'll be changing this season!

Every year, the script is exactly the same, too.  One or more of the veteran hitters gets hurt, usually for an extended period, while others underperform.  Cashman goes out and makes a deal at the trade deadline and that guy either also gets hurt or completely sucks.  And the end result is, if they do make the playoffs, they continue not hitting at all while getting outplayed and eliminated by a better team.  The next year will "definitely be different," only for it to be rinse and repeat.

I'm sorry, but Cashman has to shoulder most of the blame for all that.  He's been the Yankees' GM since the 90s.  It's pretty clear he's been there too long.  Because a lot of the moves he's made to improve the team haven't worked out.  It obviously isn't from lack of trying.  But, the bottom line is really pretty simple.  It hasn't yielded the desired results.  And when a team with an unlimited budget continually underachieves, the GM should be worrying about his job security.  Not staying in the job for 20 years despite those results.

And, frankly, the entire organizational philosophy needs to change.  Cashman is big on analytics and has hired a staff that also buys into that way of approaching the game.  What do they have to show for this sudden embrace of analytics, though?  Certainly not a World Series title or even an AL pennant!  Frankly, they're just copying other teams that became successful by adopting the analytical approach and hoping it'll work as well for them. 

Newsflash: IT DOESN'T.  They're not as good as Houston.  They're not as good as Tampa Bay.  Adopting the approach that worked for those two teams might help against everybody else, but it clearly doesn't work against teams that are not only better than you, they're better than you at playing that style.  Also, just because it works for Tampa Bay and Houston doesn't mean it'll work for everybody.  Build your team around the personnel you have!  Don't try to pigeonhole your personnel into a particular style that may or may not work for them!

As for Aaron Boone, I disagree with Cashman that you can't change managers midseason.  Because sometimes that's exactly what a team needs.  A new voice, a new approach, just something different.  That might be all it takes, and we've seen time and time again where a simple managerial change made all the difference.

We saw it last year with the Phillies.  They fired Joe Girardi midseason and Rob Thomson took them to the World Series.  In 2003, Jack McKeon took over the Marlins in June and led them to a World Series victory over the Yankees in October.  George Steinbrenner fired and rehired Billy Martin so many times it was easy to lose track, but one of the times he fired Martin, in 1978 (coming off a Word Series championship), Bob Lemon guided the Yankees to a huge comeback in the AL East, one-game tiebreaker playoff win in Boston, and World Series victory over the Dodgers.  So, changing managers at midseason has clearly worked for teams in the past!

Would firing Aaron Boone guarantee improved results?  Obviously not!  Just like there's no way to guarantee they won't straighten things out and make a miracle run over the final two and a half months if Boone stays the manager.  If things don't improve, though, and this season ends with an 84-78ish record, Boone may be gone, whether they manage to sneak into the playoffs or not.

Cashman will do everything he can to make that happen.  This team has a lot of needs, and you know he'll try to address them at the trade deadline.  He hasn't had the greatest track record with his trade deadline acquisitions over the past few years, though, so that initial joy could once again quickly be overtaken by a substandard reality.  And how long can Hal Steinbrenner continue to tolerate that?

Yankee fans are frustrated.  There's no denying that.  Dillon Lawson's firing was a warning shot.  He shouldn't be the last.  Because the best way to build it back up might be to tear it all down.  Which means when they return home, Hal should listen to the "Fire Boone" and "Fire Cashman" chants.  Chants that figure to only get louder and louder.