The Yankees have mastered one part of October: explaining why the people in charge deserve another chance.
The season ends. Fans are furious. Management expresses disappointment. Then the same leadership returns to explain how seriously everyone takes winning.
At some point, that starts sounding like job protection dressed up as championship ambition.
And Michael Kay, of all people, has stumbled onto the problem.
To my ears, Kay’s act is running on fumes. The lectures, the indignation, the apparent belief that frustrated fans need another explanation—it has gotten painfully tired. His microphone still works. His commentary could use a retirement party.
But this time, he raises a good point.
Kay described the modern manager as a “middle manager” executing front-office instructions, while mentioning that Aaron Boone had never managed before getting the Yankees job. He did not offer proof that Brian Cashman dictates Boone’s individual moves. He was questioning where authority actually resides.
So let’s follow that question upstairs.
If Boone implements the organizational plan, Cashman answers for the plan. If Boone makes the decisions independently, Boone answers for those decisions.
Somehow, the Yankees have constructed a system where either explanation protects both men.
Boone’s defenders cannot shrink his authority when something goes wrong, then inflate his importance when handing out credit. If he is a leader capable of changing this team’s performance, judge him like one. If he primarily delivers instructions from upstairs, hold the people upstairs responsible.
You cannot make him indispensable when defending his employment and powerless when explaining the results.
Cashman deserves the same scrutiny.
He chooses the manager, assembles the roster and shapes the baseball operation. Yet when the team disappoints, the discussion too often turns toward players failing to execute—as though the roster appeared at Yankee Stadium without anyone ordering it.
Players deserve criticism. They have to hit, throw, defend and think. But their failures cannot become a permanent escape hatch for the executive who selected them.
If your plan requires everyone to perform at his absolute best, perhaps your plan isn’t particularly good.
Then there is Hal Steinbrenner, who owns the entire arrangement.
Ownership decides what deserves another opportunity. Ownership determines whether an explanation is convincing or merely familiar. Every endorsement Hal gives the leadership beneath him makes the next result his responsibility, too.
That is why the Yankees’ problem starts at the top.
A demanding owner challenges his general manager. A demanding general manager challenges his manager. A demanding manager establishes standards that survive losing streaks and uncomfortable conversations.
When consequences disappear upstairs, the championship speeches downstairs become background noise.
The Yankees can keep invoking their history, but history should create an obligation. It should make the current leadership uncomfortable when the organization falls short. Instead, the legacy sometimes feels like a marketing department’s greatest asset and management’s least enforceable promise.
Nobody can guarantee that replacing Boone or Cashman produces a championship. But keeping them requires a convincing argument, too.
Why are they still the right people? What recurring problems have they corrected? What will change under their leadership?
Fans deserve answers that go beyond how difficult winning is. They know it is difficult. That is why the people responsible for it are paid so well.
Kay’s observation exposes the question the Yankees cannot keep dodging: whoever makes the decisions must own the results.
That responsibility runs from Boone through Cashman and lands squarely on Hal’s desk.
The Yankees want fans to embrace championship expectations.
It is time their leadership faced championship consequences.
