The Yankees are digging through the waiver wire again, but this time I’m not rolling my eyes.
New York claimed veteran right-hander John Schreiber off waivers from the Kansas City Royals Monday, adding another arm to a bullpen that needs all the help it can get heading into September.
Schreiber, 32, leaves Kansas City with a 1-3 record, 3.65 ERA and one save in 55 appearances this season. Over 49.1 innings, he's allowed 41 hits, walked 22 and struck out 36, posting a 1.28 WHIP.
Those strikeout and walk numbers don't exactly scream Mariano Rivera. But dig a little deeper and there's something here.
Since April 19, Schreiber owns a 3.14 ERA over 43 innings, and he's been absolutely nasty against right-handed hitters, holding them to a ridiculous .143/.184/.231 slash line this season.
That's where I see the value.
This isn't your eighth-inning savior. This isn't David Bednar insurance. And nobody should be fitting Schreiber for a Monument Park plaque.
But he's a veteran reliever who can get right-handed hitters out, absorb innings and give Aaron Boone another legitimate matchup option instead of simply throwing somebody out there and hoping for the best.
And unlike some of Brian Cashman's famous dumpster-diving experiments, Schreiber actually has a track record. He's pitched in 327 major-league games with Detroit, Boston and Kansas City and owns a career 3.65 ERA.
Here's the concern: the strikeouts are down. Schreiber has only 36 K's in 49.1 innings, while walking 22. That's not exactly overpowering stuff, and in Yankee Stadium, putting runners on base and hoping for soft contact can turn ugly pretty quickly.
But as a September bullpen piece?
I'll take it.
The Yankees didn't acquire a star Monday. They acquired a useful veteran with one particularly valuable weapon: he gets righties out. Sometimes that's enough. And considering some of the bullpen roulette we've watched this season, I'll happily take "useful."
Welcome to the Bronx, John. Just throw strikes. We'll take it from there.
There is something about Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium that gets me every single time. Maybe it’s the uniforms, maybe it’s hearing those familiar names announced again, or maybe it’s watching men who once seemed larger than life walk onto the field a little slower, carrying a few extra pounds and a lot more gray hair, while your brain stubbornly remembers them exactly as they were. Whatever it is, the day has a way of getting inside you. And maybe Old-Timers’ Day hits even harder now because it reminds us of something the current Yankees organization seems to have forgotten: being a Yankee used to mean you earned something.
Old-Timers’ Day has always been baseball’s version of a family reunion, and nobody does baseball history quite like the Yankees. The tradition connects generations, reaching all the way back to the emotional days surrounding Lou Gehrig’s farewell in 1939. Over time, it became something uniquely Yankee. The history of this franchise isn’t locked away in a museum or confined to grainy old film clips. Once a year, some of that history actually walks back onto the field, waves to the crowd and reminds you exactly why you fell in love with baseball in the first place.
There was a time when Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio were the final two Yankees introduced. Think about that for a second. The Mick and Joe D. Eventually, that honor belonged to Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra. There were also those wonderful years when Phil Rizzuto and Bobby Murcer weren’t simply former Yankees returning for a ceremony; they were broadcasters who would put the pinstripes back on, wander onto the field and somehow make you believe that nothing had really changed. Of course, everything had changed. That's the cruel little trick baseball plays on us. It moves slowly when we're watching it and unbelievably fast when we look backward.
And now we're apparently living in a world where Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera qualify as old-timers. Are you kidding me? I watched these guys play. I remember Pettitte peeking over his glove, Posada grinding through at-bats and the opening notes of “Enter Sandman” telling everybody in Yankee Stadium that Mariano was about to shut the door. Those guys aren't supposed to be old-timers. They're supposed to be the guys we watched while the old-timers were being introduced. Yet here we are. That happened pretty damn fast, didn't it?
My guys will always be the Ron Guidrys of the world because that was my generation. Louisiana Lightning was one of those Yankees who made baseball feel magical to me. But that is also the beauty of Old-Timers’ Day: everybody has their guys. Your father had his, you have yours, and your kids will eventually have theirs. If we're lucky enough, someday the players our children worship today will walk onto that same field with gray hair while our kids sit in the stands wondering where 30 years went.
That's baseball. It gets handed down. Father to son, mother to daughter, grandfather to grandson. Families once gathered around radios, then televisions, and now they're watching games on phones and tablets. The technology changes, but the conversations don't. We still complain about umpires, argue about managers, second-guess pitching changes and somehow convince ourselves every April that this could finally be the year. Baseball will break your heart one night and give you a memory you'll carry for the rest of your life the next afternoon. That's the deal we make with this game, and for some reason we keep coming back.
But Old-Timers’ Day also reminds me of something else, especially when I look at the way the modern Yankees operate. Standards used to matter, and opportunities were earned. Players earned jobs, earned patience and earned the right to stay in the lineup. Accomplishments felt bigger because everybody understood how difficult it was to get there. There wasn't this endless organizational obsession with proving the front office was right about somebody simply because admitting a mistake might make Brian Cashman uncomfortable. If a guy performed, he played. If he didn't, somebody else eventually got his opportunity. It was a remarkably sophisticated baseball philosophy known as playing the guys who deserved to play. Maybe Aaron Boone needs somebody from analytics to build him a PowerPoint presentation explaining it.
That's what makes Old-Timers’ Day such an interesting contrast to the current Yankees. Look at the men walking onto that field and think about what many of them represented. Toughness, accountability, pride and an understanding that wearing pinstripes didn't automatically make you special. Winning in them did. Producing when the pressure was greatest did. Earning the respect of Yankee fans did.
Today, the organization too often seems to want the uniform itself to provide the credibility. We hear about process, underlying numbers and quality at-bats. Somebody goes 0-for-4 and Boone tells us there were some “really good swings” in there. A player struggles for months and we're assured he's “really close.” The Yankees lose a brutal game and we're told there were still “a lot of good things” happening. Great. Put it on a plaque and hang it next to the championship banners: 2026 New York Yankees — A Lot of Good Things Happened.
The Yankees of previous generations didn't build this franchise on encouraging postgame press conferences. They built it on results. Ron Guidry didn't need the organization explaining why you weren't actually seeing what you thought you were seeing. Mariano Rivera didn't require a spreadsheet to convince anybody he was dominant. Derek Jeter didn't need three years of excuses and organizational spin. Bernie Williams didn't need Brian Cashman appearing in front of reporters to explain that some internal metric suggested Bernie was secretly playing terrific baseball. Those guys played, they produced, and they earned their place.
That's why these old Yankees mean something to us. They aren't simply names on Baseball Reference or numbers printed on the back of throwback jerseys. They're memories. They're summers and October nights. They're your father screaming at the television. They're your grandfather telling you for the 900th time that baseball was better when he was young. You rolled your eyes at him then, and eventually you got older and started telling the same damn stories yourself. Funny how that works.
Saturday also brought one of those moments that reminds us Old-Timers’ Day isn't simply about nostalgia and applause. Sometimes it's about saying goodbye. Tommy John couldn't be there. At 83 years old and dealing with serious health problems in recent years, John sent an emotional message to the Yankees thanking the organization, the Steinbrenner family and the fans who followed him throughout his remarkable 26-year career. He also remembered Dr. Frank Jobe, the surgeon forever connected to the operation that saved John's career and eventually changed the sport.
John thanked the Yankees for giving him an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone, and those words are difficult to hear without feeling something. Forget wins, losses and statistics for a moment. Forget Cashman and Boone. This was an 83-year-old man looking back at an extraordinary baseball life and thanking the people who shared some part of the journey with him. We throw around the phrase “Tommy John surgery” so casually now that sometimes we forget Tommy John is actually a person. He was a pitcher, a Yankee and a man whose willingness to attempt something radical with Dr. Jobe more than 50 years ago ultimately helped thousands of pitchers who came after him.
That's the part of Old-Timers’ Day that matters most. For all the championships and famous names, baseball ultimately comes back to people. It comes back to family, memory and the people sitting next to you while you're watching the game. That's why you can remember a random Yankee game from 40 years ago and also remember exactly where you were, who was sitting beside you and what your father said when somebody hit the home run. Baseball somehow attaches itself to our lives that way.
Maybe that's also why Old-Timers’ Day feels even more important today, because the modern Yankees sometimes seem determined to convince everybody that baseball has become impossibly complicated. It really isn't. Play hard. Perform. Earn your opportunity. Win. And understand what the uniform represents. George Steinbrenner certainly had his faults—and there were plenty—but there was never any confusion about the expectation. Winning mattered to him. Losing bothered him. Failure wasn't endlessly repackaged as progress.
That's one of my biggest problems with this current organization. Sometimes I watch the Yankees and wonder whether losing actually bothers anybody in charge anymore. A terrible loss happens and Boone walks into the press conference sounding like the team just completed a successful corporate retreat. Cashman periodically emerges to explain why the roster he constructed isn't really the problem, and fans are expected to accept it because apparently expecting the New York Yankees to behave like the New York Yankees has somehow become unreasonable.
Then Old-Timers’ Day arrives, and for a few hours all that garbage disappears.
Guidry walks onto the field. Pettitte comes out. Matsui and Posada appear. Mariano waves to the crowd. You hear the applause and suddenly remember what this franchise is supposed to feel like. There was pride attached to those pinstripes. There were standards. There was accountability. There was an understanding that playing for the Yankees wasn't the accomplishment; what you did while wearing the uniform was the accomplishment.
Baseball has changed tremendously. Some of those changes have made the game better, and some absolutely have not. But Old-Timers’ Day cuts through all of it. For a few hours, nobody cares about exit velocity, launch angle or whatever obscure metric the Yankees have decided explains why the guy hitting .210 is actually doing a fantastic job. Nobody needs Brian Cashman to explain the roster, and nobody needs Aaron Boone to tell us somebody put together a few good swings.
Instead, you hear a familiar name announced over the Yankee Stadium speakers and suddenly you're 12 years old again. For me, Guidry is dealing. Reggie is coming up with runners on base. For somebody a little younger, Pettitte is staring over his glove, Posada is digging into the box and Mariano is making that walk from the bullpen. Somebody younger still will have an entirely different group of Yankees that takes them back.
That's the whole point.
Baseball isn't really measured in innings, WAR, exit velocity or championship rings. In the end, it's measured in memories and the people with whom you shared them. Old-Timers’ Day gives us a few wonderful hours when those memories come walking back onto the field. It reminds us where we've been, who we watched with our fathers and who we'll eventually tell our children about.
And maybe, just maybe, while all those old Yankees are standing out there, the people currently running this franchise should take a good look at them.
Because those pinstripes didn't become famous because everybody was comfortable. They didn't become famous because the manager protected everybody from criticism or because the general manager refused to admit when his plan wasn't working. They became famous because generations of players understood that getting to Yankee Stadium wasn't the finish line.
You had to earn what came next.
That's what made those players Yankees.
That's what made the achievements worth celebrating.
And that's why, every Old-Timers’ Day, seeing those guys come home still means so damn much.
Interacting with our Bleeding Yankee Blue readers is something I love, especially if everyone is respectful in the conversation. I want to introduce you to Len Ferrara who reached out to me and had a few things to say. So, I asked that an article be written. Here you go, folks, enjoy. And thank you Len.
-Casey
Every once in a while, on Facebook, an ad pops up for people to show that they are the oldest Yankee fan. I have put my name in, but I am obviously not the oldest because every Wednesday I have breakfast with a bunch of guys, three of whom are Yankee fans and are older than I am. Thus, age is just a number.
Since I’m rambling, I thought I would share some Yankee Stadium experiences.
My first trip to Yankee Stadium happened when I was seven or eight. I can’t really remember how old I was. You have to understand that was 75 years ago. It was a bus trip from Saint Anne’s Church in Newark, New Jersey. Basically, most of my family went.
Since I was an insignificant seven-year-old, I got to sit directly behind one of the vertical girders in the original Yankee Stadium. I can't recall how little of the game I saw, looking back and forth on either side of the girder. Since the year would have been 1950 or 1951, let me list some of the people who would’ve been playing in that game: Berra, Mize, Coleman, Rizzuto, Brown, Woodling, DiMaggio, and Bauer.
Now let me jump forward to when I was in the eighth grade. I was a school crossing guard. The reward for eighth graders who got the crossing guard assignments was a trip to Yankee Stadium. We sat in the bleachers. It was a sunny day. We roasted.
I remember telling the chaperone, my history teacher, that we had “found our place in the sun” (you have to dig back into your history book to understand that reference). The highlight of the day was my favorite player, Andy Carey, who played third base. He hit a home run right in the direction where we were sitting, but it didn’t quite reach us, proving you can’t have everything in life.
Some 25 years later, in the “new” Yankee Stadium, I was able to grab a foul ball that came into the upper deck at the weirdest angle I could ever imagine. I never thought you would get a foul ball sitting in that section, but I did.
That brings us to the latest and current iteration of Yankee Stadium. The best thing about it, I find, is the steak sandwich.
We, as Yankee fans, are so spoiled by players of that caliber, and I guess it’s just that we demand excellence, which is so hard to come by at this point in time.
As far as the current team is concerned, I don’t think it’s difficult to point to the holes. I don’t think you can win a championship when you have three guys batting below .200, or close to it. I also don’t think a hitting coach can take a .210 hitter and make him into a .250 hitter, but I have been known to be wrong a few times in my life.
Does the bullpen need help? Absolutely.
What I don’t understand is why we seem to have excellent prospects in the minors who stay in the minors while we get to watch relievers give up runs every time they come in.
The Yankees are worth $7 billion, or something like that, and Hal Steinbrenner thinks salaries are out of control. He's in favor of a salary cap that may cause him to cut $70 million in payroll. How is that going to happen?
Did the fans vote to give Trent Grisham $20.2 million for the year?
Will he be on the team next year?
Why do the owners vote in favor of selling teams to guys or groups that have absurd amounts of money and then complain when those same people give out absurd contracts?
Why did the league allow the bankruptcy sale of the Dodgers, and now they have a ridiculous financial advantage? Excuse me, you didn't see that coming?
When Stanton is healthy, will Boone put Rice in at catcher so the lineup would include Goldy, Rice, and Giancarlo? Or are they worried that his legs are not in shape to catch? Has Boone noticed the increase in Rice's size over the last two years?
Will Volpe playing second help with his hitting or mental gaffes? Or do we have to settle for a shortstop with less range?
But the Yankees don’t just have a manager problem. They have a general manager problem too. And before the Brian Cashman defense squad starts printing Hall of Fame plaques, let’s revisit a little thing called history — something Aaron Boone clearly treats like optional reading.
The Yankees dynasty wasn’t born the second Cashman sat in the GM chair. That’s revisionist history wrapped in pinstripes.
The foundation of the dynasty was built by Gene Michael — “Stick” Michael — from 1990 through 1995. He was the stubborn architect who refused to trade away the young core when everybody else wanted shiny new toys. No Derek Jeter deal. No Mariano Rivera deal. No Andy Pettitte tossed away for some fading veteran. Stick protected the future while the rest of baseball played checkers with Yankee prospects.
Then came GM Bob Watsonin 1996. The pieces were already in place. The engine was built. Watson helped guide the Yankees to a championship while the Core Four era officially arrived.
By the time Brian Cashman took over in 1998, the Yankees were essentially a luxury sports car with the keys already in the ignition. From 1998 to 2000, they dominated baseball — but pretending Cashman created the dynasty from scratch is like giving the guy who watered the lawn credit for building Yankee Stadium.
That’s why many people around baseball — and many Yankees fans — view 2009 as Cashman’s one undisputed championship. Why? Because that team had George Steinbrenner and his fingerprints all over it. And how did the Yankees win that title?
By opening the vault like a casino owner on New Year’s Eve.
The Yankees didn’t “develop” their way to that title. They went on a shopping spree that looked like George Steinbrenner had discovered unlimited credit. And to Cashman’s credit, it worked. But since then? A whole lot of headlines, analytics buzzwords, and October disappointment.
Which brings us to the recent Brandon Tierney-Aaron Boone exchange — a conversation that accidentally exposed why Boone always sounds like the last guy in the room to realize the fire alarm is real. Brandon Tierney was wrapping up the interview and talking about the Yankees’ roster depth and urgency this season when Boone decided to launch into a full infomercial for Cashman.
Boone called Cashman a Hall of Famer.
Tierney, probably wondering if he accidentally switched studios and wandered into a Yankees PR meeting, before politely pushing back.
Because here’s the reality: Hall of Fame executive? Based on what exactly? One championship in the last 16 years? An endless parade of expensive contracts that aged like milk in July? Constant playoff exits? A roster-building philosophy that too often feels like fantasy baseball run by a hedge fund intern?
That’s not greatness. That’s surviving in New York while owning an unlimited budget. Cashman is not a hall of fame GM.
Boone, of course, doubled down.
“He’s great at it, BT. He’s really good at it,” Boone said.
And that’s when Tierney hit the brakes.
“Great’s a little bit of a stretch. 2009’s been a minute, Booney.”
Correct. Completely correct.
The Yankees haven’t been starving for resources. They haven’t been rebuilding in a small market. They haven’t been operating with limitations. This is the Yankees. The standard isn’t “pretty good.” The standard is championships. Parades. Rings. October dominance.
Instead, Yankees fans have gotten aging rosters, bloated payrolls, analytics experiments, and postseason exits that arrive faster than Boone’s postgame line about how “the guys battled.” And Boone just kept talking — which is usually where Boone gets himself into trouble. He talks like a guy trying to finish an essay five minutes before class. More words don’t make the argument smarter.
Tierney ended the segment perfectly: “Go get a win.”
Exactly. Not 700 regular-season wins. Not another Wild Card appearance. Not another analytics seminar about launch angle efficiency. Win a championship.
That’s the job. If Cashman wants Hall of Fame talk, win another title. If Boone wants praise as a Yankees manager, stop managing October games like they’re spring training experiments in Tampa.
Until then, Boone can keep defending Cashman all he wants. Maybe he’s brainwashed. Maybe he’s loyal to a fault. Maybe he genuinely believes what he’s saying.
The modern bullpen isn’t about labels anymore—it’s about leverage, flexibility, and giving your team multiple paths to win. That’s exactly why Luke Weaver has more real value than David Bednar right now, and it’s not even particularly close.
Bednar is supposed to be a hammer. One job, one inning, shut the door. That’s the deal. But here’s the problem: if you’re only bringing one thing to the table, you better be elite at it. Not good. Not “figuring it out.” Elite. And lately, Bednar hasn’t been different. A velocity drop, he’s been alittle shaky.
Meanwhile, Weaver is the exact opposite kind of weapon. He doesn’t need perfection to be useful. He gives you options—and options win games over 162.
Weaver can give you two or three clean innings when your starter flames out early. He can patch together an emergency start without the entire bullpen catching fire behind him. He can stabilize extra innings, bridge the middle frames, or come in with traffic on the bases and actually put out the fire instead of pouring gasoline on it. Even when he’s not dominant, he’s contributing. That’s the key difference—his floor still helps you win.
And that’s where this becomes almost insulting from a roster-building standpoint.
Weaver fits the modern game perfectly. He’s the guy you deploy in the 5th, 6th, or 7th when the game is actually on the line—not just when the scoreboard tells you it’s time for a save opportunity. He stops rallies before they become losses. He keeps games from spiraling. He protects the rest of your staff by eating innings and preventing overuse. In a long season, that kind of pitcher doesn’t just help you win today—he keeps you from collapsing tomorrow.
Bednar? He’s locked into the 9th inning like it’s written in stone. No flexibility. No creativity. And if there’s no save situation, he’s basically a very expensive spectator. That’s a luxury you can afford when the guy is Mariano Rivera-level automatic. When he’s not? It’s a liability dressed up as a role.
And this is where the Yankees deserve every ounce of criticism coming their way.
Because when Bednar and Camilo Doval arrived, Brian Cashman puffed his chest out and essentially stamped it “mission accomplished.” Like the bullpen puzzle was solved. Like fans should just nod along and be grateful. How’s that looking now?
Messy. That’s how.
Bednar isn’t locking down good enough. The bullpen isn’t stabilized. And the one guy who actually gave you flexibility, length, and insurance across multiple scenarios—Luke Weaver—is gone.
So, here’s the question that should be hanging over the Bronx like a storm cloud: why didn’t they prioritize keeping the guy who gives you more ways to win?
This isn’t complicated. It’s basic roster construction in 2026. Versatility matters. Durability matters. The ability to influence multiple parts of a game matters. Weaver checks all those boxes. Bednar checks one—and right now, he’s not even checking it well...again, shaky.
For a franchise that loves to talk about “championship standards,” the Yankees are making decisions that feel anything but. This isn’t some grand philosophical debate. It’s common sense.
And right now, common sense is nowhere to be found in that front office.
Hal Steinbrenner appeared on a video call this week looking like a man who just realized fans know math. He announced, in his signature soft-spoken “please don’t yell at me” tone, that it’s still too early to know the 2026 payroll. But—don’t worry!—he’d like it to be lower than the $319 million spent in 2025.
“Would it be ideal if I went down?” Hal mused, as if he were deciding between yacht sizes. “Of course. But does that mean that’s going to happen? Of course not. We want to field a team we believe can win a championship.”
Believe. That’s the key word with this ownership group. Believe. Wish. Hope. Pray. Manifest. Burn sage. Sacrifice a chicken. Anything but build an actual roster that wins the World Series.
The problem? Belief hasn’t delivered a title since 2009. That was 16 seasons ago. A whole human being has gone from diapers to high school in the time it’s taken Hal Steinbrenner to figure out that pitching depth matters.
Instead of acknowledging the colossal failures of the front office—which fans have been screaming about, writing about, tweeting about, billboard-ing about—Hal chose instead to protect Aaron Boone like he’s wrapping the last candle on a birthday cake.
Boone, Hal insists, is “a good manager at many of the things he has to do.” Translation: he fills out a lineup card and remembers to file an HR report after every ejection.
But the actual losing? According to Hal, that’s on the players. Not Cashman for building another roster with holes you could drive an Amtrak through. Not Boone for managing like he’s trying to win a participation ribbon at a middle school science fair. Not the organization that keeps trotting out the same stale formulas, training methods, and analytics that worked exactly once—eleven years ago.
And this is exactly the kind of thing Bleeding Yankee Blue has been calling out for years. We aren’t a corporate mouthpiece. We’re the bellowing megaphone of the fanbase—the only entity that holds this team accountable because the Yankees sure as hell don’t hold themselves accountable. BYB has ripped into Cashman’s complacency, Boone’s cookie-cutter mediocrity, and Hal’s tone-deaf billionaire logic long before the mainstream media grew the guts to do it.
We’re not writers pretending to be above the fray. We’re fans. Paying fans. Fans who don’t get comped seats behind the dugout—we sit with the people who spend a month’s rent for two beers, a hot dog, and a parking spot.
So when Hal starts lecturing the fanbase about expenses, we’re allowed to laugh right in his face.
According to Forbes, the Yankees raked in over $700 million in revenue in 2025. Hal, however, says that’s “not fair or accurate” because nobody talks about expenses—like the $100 million annual payment to New York City.
Right. Because we were all sitting here thinking, “Gee, I hope the Steinbrenner family is doing okay financially.” Poor Hal. Barely scraping by. Just a humble billionaire trying to keep the lights on and the stadium sushi fresh.
Meanwhile, fans are spending:
-$80 for a nosebleed ticket -$40 for a beer that tastes like regret -$150 for a jersey with a player's name who’ll be DFA’d in three months -$65 for parking unless you want to risk your car in a pothole the size of Mariano Rivera -And a small fortune for food, merch, and a commemorative cup we never asked for
The Yankees aren’t hurting. They’re swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck. And yet somehow, we’re supposed to believe they can’t go the extra mile for a roster upgrade?
Then look at the ACTUAL moves so far:
Paid Trent Grisham $22 million—the most expensive “insurance policy” in baseball history. Added Ryan Yarbrough—because apparently the Yankees just had to get another soft-tossing lefty. Non-tendered relievers like someone cleaning out expired yogurt. And still haven’t fixed left field. Because why fix something that’s been broken since Brett Gardner's first retirement?
For a team that claims it “needs” outfield help and bullpen help, they are sprinting headfirst into February acting like everything will magically come together if they manifest hard enough. Oh, and Cody Bellinger? Hal declined to comment. Which is rich, because he doesn’t seem shy about commenting on everything else.
This is the same owner who said he was “confused” by fan frustration during a midseason stretch so bad it made the 2013–2016 era look like the 1927 Yankees. Confused! As if the booing wasn’t loud enough for him to hear from Tampa.
This is also the same owner who defended Brian Cashman’s job security by saying “he has earned the right to stay.” Earned? In what universe? If any of us delivered the kind of results Cashman has delivered since 2009, we’d be escorted out of our workplaces with a cardboard box and a security guard.
And this is the same owner who blamed a 2025 ALDS exit on the players—never the people who built a roster with:
-No depth -No stability -No left field -No October identity -And no plan other than “maybe Gerrit Cole saves us again”
So here’s the truth nobody in the Yankees’ front office wants to hear:
Yankees fans are done with excuses. We’re done with lectures. We’re done with tone-deaf billionaires crying poor. And we’re done being treated like we don’t know the difference between a real championship blueprint and the same broken strategy the Yankees keep recycling.
If Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t want to invest in the Yankees like the powerhouse they used to be, then maybe it’s time for someone else to step in—someone who actually cares about winning instead of profits, optics, tax thresholds, and PR spin.
Because right now?
Hal is complacent. Cashman is stale. Boone is overmatched. And the Yankees, the greatest franchise in sports history, are a $7-billion machine being run like a thrift store version of Moneyball.
If Hal wants to keep acting confused, out of touch, and allergic to urgency, then maybe he should finally do what fans have been whispering for years:
Sell the team.
Until then, Bleeding Yankee Blue will keep saying what the front office won’t: Yankees fans deserve better than this. And we’re not shutting up anytime soon.
Are you listening to Brian Cashman’s end of the year presser? WHY?! Why do it again? It’s like the same awful Christmas sweater that you bought in a pinch 10 years ago to make it a friends Holiday Party! Now you keep dusting it off to re wear each year. Throw it away! Donate it to Goodwill! Better yet don’t go the the next “Bad Christmas Sweater” get together…those parties are worse than fruitcake.
The Yankees are now like that Christmas sweater in a way. Sure, they’re still the NEW YORK YANKEES. They are synonymous with big time sports like the Tree at Rock Center is with Christmas. But the magic is gone! It feels like the years after we were told Mom and Dad were Santa (Though I’m still investigating that one).
Who changed it all? Well, it seems to be the 3 UNWISE MEN! Hal isn’t a baseball man or a competitive titan like his father was. He is a silver spooned bank teller who reads from a Steinbrenner script…but he can’t sell it. George NEEDED to win. He believed he owed it to New York. Hal hears about all the subways in the city and probably thinks they just have a lot of low-rate, chain sandwich shops! He isn't NYC.
It's like that movie “Funny Bones” with Oliver Platt and Jerry Lewis. The great comedian and his unfunny son. “There are some that can read funny, and there are those with funny bones…you’re neither.” See it. It’s great and sums up the massive gap between “The Boss” and “The Bust”.
Cashman is a clown. He was the wunderkind under the Stick Michael regime and just a figure head while the Dynasty was playing and winning. Then he took the massive checkbook at his disposal and found a way to get it done in 2009…still with Mo, Jeter and company.
He constructs bad teams! He makes dumb moves. Sure, the sun shines on a dog’s ass now and then but…well hell, I'll just shout Ellsbury and leave it there! He is defiant every year when the press asks why the Yankees are a broken record of broken teams. He needs to go! FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE!! They canned GI Joe Girardi and he was good! Cashman is like 10-week-old milk at this point. He stinks and you’ll get violently ill if you drink any of his nonsense. Hit the Deegan, Brian. You need to move on.
Then we have Boone. I like Aaron Boone. Had the chance to meet him a few times, He is genuine. He loves the game, and I KNOW he gets that he is the skipper of the greatest franchise in sports. He has been ok. Not great. Not the main reason they fall short. He’s been ok. But this is NEW YORK! Like Colin Quinn once said about New York audiences, “I don’t care if Jack Nicolson gets up on that stage…if he isn’t funny within the first 5 minutes he’s gonna get booed.”
Boone is a nice guy…but my Uncle Jack is a nice guy, and he shouldn’t manage the Yanks either. I think Aaron would be better suited skippering the DBacks or Pads. He’s a So Cal guy and they can skate by with the laid back thing. NOT IN THE BRONX.
Sadly, ZERO will change. The great player we have…and we have 1…will be another year older and edging closer to the Pat Ewing, Charles Barkley club. Pitching is touch and go. Max is good, Cam could be great, and Cole is on a new elbow. They are selling a dream, and we haven’t shown interest in buying into it for years now.
Change is the only thing in life that is guaranteed…somehow the New York Yankee Brass is the exception to the rule. They won’t for yet another year. Firing a bullpen coach named Mike Harkey? He was the problem???
Look, I still believe in Santa. I stopped believing in the Yankees…and that is more of a kick in the head to my childhood than fading faith in a jolly elf from the North Pole, gang.
How many times do I need to say it? The Yankees’ mismanagement has been one long disaster this season, boxing the team into a corner where they have zero margin for error. They’ve been forced into this ridiculous situation where every night they need to play flawless baseball just to keep playoff hopes alive. That’s not “Yankee baseball.” That’s a self-inflicted wound.
And when you’re the manager who misplayed his hand all year, that’s on you. Boone has flat-out screwed this team, Cashman is just as responsible. But Boone's left them praying for perfection instead of actually building a team that can win with some breathing room. Fans don’t want to crawl in through the wild card like some half-assed charity case. We want the AL East crown, because that still means dominance, it still means Yankees. But Boone? He’s fine squeaking in through the back door like, “Hey, at least we got in!” This bozo would throw a party over leftovers.
Here’s the problem: Boone doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand winning, he doesn’t understand managing, hell, the guy probably couldn’t pick the right gallon of milk at ShopRite without asking Cashman for a spreadsheet. He’s fucking awful.
But don’t let the players completely off the hook either—the Yankees have played like absolute garbage. The bullpen implodes every night, and Boone only makes it worse by mismanaging them like he’s actively trying to blow leads. In two games against a playoff contender at home, they’ve been outscored 23-3. Twenty-three to three! And here’s the kicker: only four of those runs came off the starters. Nineteen came from the bullpen. Boone’s response? “Track record, stuff, who they are.” Translation: he’s crossing his fingers, hoping the same guys who keep shitting the bed suddenly turn into Mariano Rivera.
This is Boone-ball: built on “believe and hope.” It’s the dumbest philosophy imaginable. Baseball isn’t third-grade math, dude. You don’t just plug numbers into a calculator and pray. You have to feel the game. You have to notice who’s sharp, who’s gassed, who looks like they just rolled out of bed with a migraine. Stats won’t tell you that. Track records don't tell you that either. But Boone would rather point to “track record” while watching his bullpen get their tits lit up like the Macy’s fireworks. Last night? An 11-1 embarrassment, courtesy of Boone’s special brand of bullpen roulette.
And don’t get me started on the players chirping. Austin Wells basically shrugged off the beating by saying, “You can’t make as many mistakes against good teams.” Thanks, moron—you’re batting .210. How about you shut up and focus on putting the bat on the ball? Nobody wants a lecture from a guy who couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.
One small win? The front office finally forced Boone to bench Volpe. It didn’t matter last night—since the offense scored one run—but at least shortstop was clean for once, and Jose Cabellaro even picked up a hit. Imagine that.
The truth is simple: the Yankees are three games back of Toronto with 17 left. Time is running out. To even have a chance, they now need to play damn near perfect baseball. And guess what? Baseball is not a game of perfection. It never has been. This is what happens when you let Aaron Boone steer the ship: the Yankees end up taking on water while the captain is below deck drawing up more spreadsheets and blowing bubbles.
Can the Yankees still squeak in? Sure. But who the hell wants that? Fans don’t want to sneak into October. We want to storm in by winning the East—because that’s the Yankees way. That’s what this franchise is supposed to be. Boone doesn’t get it. And until he’s gone, we’re stuck with a team that keeps shitting the bed and a manager who thinks “hope” is a strategy.
The greatest day in Yankee history will be the day that the Yankees fire Aaron Boone.
This is an absolute fact. Engrave it in Monument Park. Get it tattooed across the Bronx. That’ll be the parade we actually want to attend—one where the floats are just Boone’s cardboard boxes being wheeled out of Yankee Stadium. Hal Steinbrenner needs to do something now!
Let’s talk about what just happened, shall we? The Yankees didn’t just lose to the Marlins—they got swept by the Marlins. The same Marlins that operate on a shoestring budget and still somehow managed to outplay, outhustle, and outmanage the mighty Yankees. Why? Because they were hungrier. And the Yankees? They were full on entitlement and stale vibes. That kind of complacency doesn’t come out of nowhere. It drips down from the top like bad glue in a busted air conditioner. Weak leadership breeds lazy baseball. And baby, we’re knee-deep in it.
Aaron Boone isn't a leader—he's a yoga mat for his players to emotionally stretch on after another blown lead. Nobody at Bleeding Yankee Blue ever believed this team could hold a first-place spot for the long haul, not with Boone at the helm, armed with his big notebook of empty motivational quotes and postgame cliches. We’ve been calling this collapse since Opening Day. Just take a stroll through the archives—we practically wrote the script.
Let me remind you what I said right here on BYB just the other day:
“Bleeding Yankee Blue stressed — no, begged — for good starting pitching. Having a legit starter go deep into a game gives the bullpen a chance to breathe, reset, and come at hitters with fresh arms throughout the week. But why would the Yankees ever want to do something logical like that? Why would they ever target a starter when they can just load up on relievers and hand them to Aaron Boone like he’s some bullpen whisperer?
These new bullpen additions came with hype, tweets, and highlight clips. They also came with zero chemistry and zero margin for error — and they imploded in unison like a synchronized swimming team trained by clowns. Boone had no idea what to do with them. He tried to mix and match, but all he did was mix gasoline and fire."
Spoiler: Aaron Boone isn’t a bullpen whisperer. He’s not even a bullpen mumbler. He sucks. These shiny new bullpen toys came with hype videos, fancy analytics, and tweets galore. What they didn’t come with? Chemistry. And when Boone got his hands on them, he turned them into a fire drill—minus the plan. Friday night was a disaster. The kind of disaster that deserves its own ESPN "30 for 30" narrated by Keith Hernandez shaking his head.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Alex Rodriguez called it out on national television. According to The New York Post, A-Rod didn’t mince words:
“You can’t make this up,” Rodriguez said. “I mean, look, you can bring in nine relievers, it’s not going to make a difference. I don’t care if you bring back their ’98 bullpen with Mariano [Rivera], Mike Stanton, and Jeff Nelson, if your pitchers are going 3⅓, 4⅓, it’s not going to work.”
Practically a direct lift. Direct echo. Direct vindication. No beef here. We need the legends to start piling on, because this franchise is spiraling and no one inside the walls seems to care.
This is not the team that Jeter and A-Rod bled for. This isn’t even the team Nick Swisher would high-five. This version of the Yankees? Soft. Emotionally allergic to accountability. Directionless. And all of it—every bit of it—traces back to leadership, or more accurately, the absence of it.
Aaron Boone? A puppet with a Sharpie. Brian Cashman? The architect of this chaos, proudly swinging a deadline hammer and hitting his own thumb. His refusal to target real starting pitching and his obsession with overloading the bullpen like it’s a relief pitcher swap meet is now fully biting him in the ass—and Yankee fans are biting back.
And thinking ahead you know what the worst part is for me? The future. You realize that Michael Fishman is the assistant general manager of the Yankees, right? He is also the bozo putting projection analytic sheets together for this terrible team, right? Well, if Cashman goes, I fear that this loser takes the reigns. Jesus let's hope not.
Here’s the ugly truth: this team can’t hit in the clutch, can’t run the bases with any intelligence, and can’t seem to string together situational baseball without looking like they’re trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. The bullpen ERA is 4.28—22nd in the league. We’ve got a shortstop hitting .221, a catcher batting .209, and Aaron Boone throwing tantrums at his coaches instead of holding his players accountable. He is not a leader. He is not respected. If this were the wild, Boone would be eaten first—and no one would miss him.
And now we sit here, watching a team that once inspired fear reduced to a punchline. The Yankees are not a serious franchise. They are cosplay contenders. The front office is delusional, the manager is toothless, and the players are untouchable and underperforming.
We’ve been sounding the alarm for months. You’re just waking up to it. But here's the good news: there is a way forward. It starts with this simple truth:
The greatest day in Yankee history will be the day that the Yankees fire Aaron Boone.Repeat it until it happens. Then maybe—maybe—we can start acting like the New York Yankees again.
You ever watch someone fail so hard at their job that you genuinely start to worry they might be doing it on purpose? That’s where we are with Aaron Boone. At this point, it’s not just poor decision-making or lying to the press and fans—it’s just stupid. Yes, I said it. Stupid. And the latest example of Boone’s misguided nonsense? His defense of Anthony Volpe in the face of very real, very deserved fan frustration.
But does Aaron Boone listen? Nope. He holds a weird, almost unsettling loyalty to Volpe—like he’s guarding some dark Yankee secret. It’s beyond favoritism. It’s delusion. Boone was asked about fans booing Volpe and, in a moment that may go down as the dumbest soundbite in Yankees managerial history, he responded with this gem:
Aaron Boone uses his shirt to explain why he's not worried about Anthony Volpe getting booed pic.twitter.com/31Qfv3Kl4D
“Look, I bet you every guy on this shirt’s been booed here,” he said, pointing to his shirt... which had pictures of Derek Jeter, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig on it.
Boone tried to equate Anthony freaking Volpe—who couldn’t find the strike zone with GPS—to three of the greatest players to ever breathe in Yankee Stadium air. Jeter? The Captain. Ruth? The Sultan of Swat. Gehrig? The Iron Horse. And then there’s Volpe: the struggling, erratic shortstop who’s only “legendary” for lowering fans’ blood pressure by getting benched. Volpe is in the Gallo category.
It’s not even funny anymore. It’s offensive.
Boone went on to wax poetic about how “everyone gets booed,” including Mariano Rivera. Yeah, Mo got booed. After he gave up runs. In the major leagues. In the World Series. Volpe gets booed for botching routine ground balls and hacking at pitches like he’s trying to kill a mosquito with a tennis racket. There’s a difference. A big one.
And look, it’s not Volpe’s fault he was crowned the future King of the Bronx before ever proving he belonged. That’s on the Yankees. That’s on their “trust the projections” analytics team that thought he was going to be Ozzie Smith. Instead, he’s barely hanging on as Jack Wilson with worse instincts.
What’s worse is Boone’s press-conference gaslighting. He acts like we—the fans—are crazy for being upset. Buddy, we’re not asking for Volpe to be perfect. We’re asking for competency. And when we don’t get it? We boo. That’s the Bronx. Deal with it.
Even MLB insider Joel Sherman had acknowledged the Volpe problem the ohter day. His recent report said, “No one should be surprised if they add one more bat before the deadline, preferably right-handed with the ability to play shortstop.” Translation: the Yankees know. The press knows. Everyone except Boone knows.
And it’s not like the team hasn’t made moves. They brought in Amed Rosario. They traded for Jose Caballero. Why? Because Volpe is a liability, plain and simple and I am positive they are "keeping an eye on it". If he keeps playing like he has—spoiler alert: he will—Joe Maddon’s suggestion makes perfect sense: send him down. Let Caballero, who actually has baseball instincts, take over. He's fast, smart, right-handed, and doesn’t look like a deer in headlights every time the ball is hit his way. And yes, Caballero can play, unlike Volpe.
Bottom line: the Yankees made the wrong bet. Boone made it worse. And now, we’re all stuck watching Volpe flail and Boone spin the kind of nonsense that makes you wonder if he’s managing with a Magic 8-Ball.
And while we're on the subject: Boone isn’t a Yankee legend either. Let’s stop pretending. He hit one big home run in 2003. Great. Did we win the World Series that year? Nope. Yet the Yankees play that home run like it was Gettysburg. Boone was a moment, not a movement. And the only thing more tragic than his presence in Yankee lore is the fact that we now have to watch him protect Volpe like a bodyguard at a boy band concert.
Honestly, they should just bunk together at this point. Call it Camp Clueless.
I love the Yankees. I live and breathe this team. But this? This ain't it. This is some weird cosplay version of Yankee greatness where accountability died and mediocrity gets a standing ovation. And if this front office, this manager, and this shortstop are the future?
Then maybe the fans should start booing a little louder.
Let me start with a confession: I love Luke Weaver. Love him. I want him riding in on a white horse in the ninth, mowing down hitters like it’s his divine mission. I want him as the closer, and I won’t apologize for it.
That said… I'm not blind. Devin Williams — yes, that Devin Williams, the one who was serving up ninth-inning heartburn earlier this season — might actually be figuring it out.
After a rough patch that saw him lose the closer gig and, frankly, a good chunk of our collective patience, Williams is clawing his way back into relevance. He’s rocking a 4.75 ERA with 11 saves, and while that stat line might not scream “dominance,” the trend is headed in the right direction. June’s been kind. He’s slowly lowering that ERA and, more importantly, he’s stopped talking about his beard like it’s Samson’s hair.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The man has started calling his own pitches using PitchCom — a bold move that screams “let me cook.”
“I wasn’t comfortable with the way the game was being called,” Williams told the New York Daily News. “So instead of, I don’t know, trying to make other people see what I’m seeing, I took it into my own hands, and it’s been good since.”
I respect that. No more passive-aggressive vibes about catchers or coaches. Just, “Give me the controls, I’ll fly the plane.” That’s the kind of energy I can get behind — provided he doesn’t nosedive into another blown save.
And it looks like he's embracing the modern bullpen philosophy too:
“I feel like the bullpen works better when guys are going one inning,” he said via MLB.com.
Look, we’re not in the Goose Gossage three-inning save era anymore. We’re in the land of matchups, metrics, and max-effort bullets for one frame. If Williams can give us one clean inning — just one — that’s enough. And if he and Weaver can morph into some twisted reincarnation of Wetteland and Rivera? That’s the dream.
So, while I still want Luke Weaver slamming the door more often than not, I’m absolutely rooting for Devin Williams to rise to the occasion. Because if you can survive New York’s back pages, PitchCom drama, and a full-blown crisis of confidence — and still come out chucking gas — you’ve earned a shot.
Let’s get fierce. Let’s get filthy. And let’s hope one of these guys — or both — becomes a lockdown legend. Let’s go Yankees!
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