CASHMAN NEEDS A THIRD BASEMAN TO FIX HIS LAST THIRD BASEMAN

Brian Cashman apparently needs a third baseman to help with the third baseman Brian Cashman acquired.

Quite a business model. Sell the solution, discover the problem, then ask everyone to trust you with the next solution.

According to ESPN’s Jorge Castillo, Ryan McMahon finished 2026 with a 78 wRC+ across 124 games. That’s offensive production 22 percent below league average. His usually reliable defense declined, too. Now the Yankees could look to replace him or find a right-handed hitter to share the job.

Wonderful. The fix needs an accessory.

There’s something exhausting about watching the Yankees assemble a roster and then spend another offseason figuring out how to make that roster usable. A platoon here. A defensive replacement there. Another bench player to cover the weakness of somebody who was supposed to solve a weakness.

By Opening Day, the lineup needs an instruction manual and three people from customer support.

McMahon deserves criticism for his performance. Absolutely. But he didn’t acquire himself. The front office made that decision, and the front office owns the result.

That’s where my patience runs out.

Every acquisition carries risk. Nobody expects Cashman to predict every slump. But fans should expect the man building the roster to answer for the holes in it—especially when fixing yesterday’s decision becomes tomorrow’s offseason priority.

And please, spare us the familiar sales pitch about flexibility. Flexibility is useful. Needing multiple players to make one position functional is a headache.

The Yankees suck at giving their fans a reason to believe anything has changed. They keep asking for trust while producing another list of repairs.

Fans buy the tickets. Fans pay for the merchandise. Fans arrange their nights around this team. Then October ends, and somehow they’re supposed to applaud the opportunity to watch management troubleshoot its own work.

Enough.

Show us you actually give a shit.

Make the difficult evaluation. If McMahon remains the answer, explain why and build a credible plan around him. If he isn’t, improve the position. Don’t let the desire to defend an acquisition become another reason to tolerate weak production.

A championship roster requires honest decisions, including the uncomfortable admission that the last decision didn’t work.

Cashman wanted the job of building the Yankees. The scrutiny comes with it.

Fix third base. Then give fans something better than a reassuring explanation for why it needs fixing again.