RUMOR: YANKEES HAVE THEIR EYE ON A SECOND BASEMAN

The Yankees have a mess on their hands and it is going to hard for the Yankees to fix. I say it will be hard to fix because the Yankees are better at creating problems than they are at solving them. The Yankees have a big problem in the infield and lots of variables to consider. Good thing this lockout is going to give them lots of time to weigh all of their pros and cons.

Second base is going to be the hot spot for the Yankees. The Jazz Chisholm experiment didn't work. The Anthony Volpe experiment at shortstop failed so it shouldn't be reborn at second base so that leaves the questions of what are the Yankees going to do?

Well, they are kicking the tires on a reunion with Gleyber Torres, read more HERE. The Yankees have no good internal options that are ready for a promotion, so if you are looking for more young blood from the minors, it's not imminent. The Yankees need someone else with experience, who can handle the position and provide some stability. Gleyber at least has the experience part down.

I wouldn't say he has the stability part, either. It is hard to forget about all of the mistakes and booted balls. They are burned in my memory because he in fact, drove me crazy. He'd do something good and then minutes later erase it by doing something stupid. It's who he was....and probably still is. However, he did one thing that most of the roster didn't, he was a consistent hitter. He hit for average, and above his weight unlike Austin Wells.

The consistency piece is what the Yankees are desperate to find. Hal Steinbrenner just ripped the Yankees in his press conference last week. He blamed the offense for failing to hit in the absence of Aaron Judge this season. The Yankees need hitters for sure, but they need more than one and hitters more well rounded than Torres.

Torres has spent the last two seasons in Detroit, and if the Yankees can't land an upgrade by free agency or trade we could see a reunion. We've had our fair share of inconsistencies and bobbles already. If the Yankees want to fix what ails them, they need a new approach. I don't think the Yankees need a reunion with the guy that lacked versatility and refused to move to third base when the Yankees acquired Chisholm.

The Yankees need new and upgraded, not older, worn down and mediocre. Next, please!

--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj

JUST ANOTHER REASON TO DESPISE THIS WEAK CATCHER

Yankees fans remember when catching was an exhausting job performed by a man who could still hurt you with a bat.

They remember Thurman Munson. They remember Jorge Posada. And watching Austin Wells hit .186 makes the distance between those standards and the current product painfully obvious.

Munson’s toughness has a documented history. On June 18, 1971, Baltimore’s Andy Etchebarren knocked him unconscious in a home-plate collision. Munson went to the hospital, pinch-hit the next day, then returned behind the plate the following game and collected three hits, including a home run, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.

That was an extraordinary response to a brutal collision. It isn’t a medical prescription for another player decades later. But it helps explain why Munson’s name still carries weight: the man endured the punishment of catching and built a substantial offensive record.

In his 1976 MVP season, Munson hit .302 with 105 RBIs. He then batted .529 in the World Series. The demands of his position were enormous. So was his contribution.

Posada carried that workload, too. He caught at least 120 games in every season from 2000 through 2007. In the last of those seasons, he hit .338 with 20 home runs and 90 RBIs. Eight consecutive years of heavy catching duty, capped by that kind of offensive production.

And yes, Posada took blows to the head. After a foul tip on September 7, 2010, he experienced fogginess, poor sleep and a headache. Bryan Hoch reported that the Yankees withheld him from action and sent him to a neurologist; subsequent tests were negative and he was cleared to play. Anyone claiming Posada never reported symptoms would be rewriting history.

The meaningful comparison is what those catchers established over years of work.

Munson and Posada gave the Yankees production that justified their standing. Wells has yet to establish anything resembling that offensive dependability.

His 2026 line included 14 home runs, 32 RBIs and a 77 wRC+, meaning his offensive production was 23 percent below league average. Against left-handers, he hit .122 in 99 plate appearances. Those numbers should make the Yankees’ talent evaluators squirm.

Whoever projected this bat needs to explain the gap between the scouting report and the scoreboard.

What did they see? What have they successfully developed? And how much longer should fans accept a starting catcher whose offensive case requires this much explanation?

Scouts cannot guarantee a prospect’s success. They can, however, recognize when their original assessment needs revisiting. The front office should demand that reassessment instead of letting everyone grade their own homework.

Wells’s improved second half deserves consideration. His .787 OPS after the break gives the organization a reason to keep evaluating him. It does not justify handing him the position without credible competition.

His reported head symptoms belong in that evaluation, too. But the question of his health cannot answer every question about his hitting.

Fans are entitled to look at this season and conclude that the Yankees need a better offensive option behind the plate. They don’t owe the scouting department another year of patience simply because admitting an evaluation went wrong would be uncomfortable.

Wells needs to earn his at-bats. The people who selected and developed him need to defend their decisions with results.

Munson and Posada built their reputations through years of demanding work and meaningful production.

Wells has a .186 season to answer for. The Yankees have a starting job they should stop treating as settled.

THE YANKEES DEMAND LOYALTY BUT WHEN WILL THEIR LEADERSHIP DELIVER ACCOUNTABILITY?

Ya'll have some explaining to do. I mean, how many times are Yankees fans supposed to watch the same ending before the people running this organization admit the script needs to change?

Another October is over. Another opportunity is gone. Tampa Bay swept the Yankees out of the ALDS, extending a championship drought that now stretches across 17 seasons. And the questions reach well beyond one lineup, one pitching change or one injured superstar. They reach the people responsible for deciding what Yankees baseball is supposed to look like.

Hal Steinbrenner. Brian Cashman. Randy Levine. Aaron Boone. Different responsibilities. Different levels of authority. The same obligation to answer for the product.

Yankees fans deserve a team that looks prepared when the season is on the line. They deserve players who understand situations, coaches who correct recurring mistakes and executives who can recognize when their own approach needs to change. That is a reasonable expectation for any organization. For the Yankees, it should be the starting point.

And now some of the people who wore the uniform are asking the same questions.

The criticism is coming from inside the Yankees family

Anthony Rizzo spent four seasons in the Bronx. After this year’s elimination, he offered a blunt assessment on Ross and Rizzo Unfiltered:

“Like we just keep doing the same every year and we don’t win. That’s insanity.”

Rizzo acknowledged the talent in the lineup while questioning why the results against strong competition keep falling short. That distinction matters. A roster can look impressive and still expose serious weaknesses in how an organization assembles, prepares and deploys it.

CC Sabathia went straight at the culture.

“No disrespect, but they don’t know what that standard is.”

During an October discussion with Dellin Betances and Chris Young, Sabathia described the influence of veterans and former Yankees who once made the organization’s expectations tangible. He questioned whether that standard was still being maintained. The conversation also addressed preparation and Boone’s tendency to defend his players.

Those are serious concerns from someone whose credibility in that clubhouse was earned through performance, toughness and leadership.

Alex Rodriguez, meanwhile, called for an organizational rethink on FOX:

“There has to be a philosophy change.”

Importantly, Rodriguez explicitly stopped short of demanding firings. His criticism concerned the Yankees’ baseball judgment, defensive priorities and uncertainty across several positions entering an elimination game. You can disagree with his preferred solution. You cannot reasonably dismiss that diagnosis as a fan yelling from the cheap seats.

Then came Joe Girardi.

“There are things that happen and you wonder, ‘Is someone saying anything?’”

Girardi pointed to Austin Wells’ baserunning mistake and Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s costly throw during the postseason. He also defended Boone’s work under difficult circumstances. His comments were a warning about accountability and repeated fundamental failures, rather than a straightforward demand to replace the manager.

That nuance strengthens the larger argument. These men do not need to agree about Boone’s future to recognize that something in the organization needs attention.

The mistakes have become too familiar

Go back to the fifth inning of Game 5 of the 2024 World Series.

Aaron Judge dropped a fly ball. Anthony Volpe made a throwing error. Gerrit Cole failed to cover first on a grounder to Anthony Rizzo. A five-run lead disappeared in an inning that became an unforgettable exhibit of baseball breaking down at its most basic level.

Now move forward to Game 2 against Tampa Bay in 2026: four Yankees errors, with defensive mistakes and catcher’s interference helping turn the game against them.

Every player makes mistakes. Great players make mistakes in enormous moments.

But recurring failures demand more than reassurance. They demand an examination of preparation, positioning, instruction and consequences. When similar problems survive from one postseason to another, the organization has to explain what it changed and why those changes failed.

Fans should be able to see the correction.

Jake Bauers deserves an honest examination

Watching Jake Bauers become the 2026 NLCS MVP for Milwaukee should make the Yankees uncomfortable. The former Yankee helped drive the Brewers past the Dodgers and into the World Series.

But there is an important fact here: New York did work with him.

Reporting in 2023 documented swing and approach adjustments during Bauers’ time in the Yankees’ system, including changes to his bat path. The organization identified something worth developing and invested instruction in it.

The Yankees subsequently traded him to Milwaukee for prospects Jace Avina and Brian Sánchez. His later success does not automatically prove that trade was indefensible when it happened. Player development is uneven, and no team gets every decision right.

Here is the question Cashman should have to answer: How well does the organization recognize which improvements will last, and how effectively does it carry promising developmental work into sustained major league production?

Bauers’ success makes that question worth asking. Claiming the Yankees never helped him would let the front office dismiss the criticism with an easy factual correction.

The stronger argument demands an explanation of what they saw, why they moved on and what they learned.

Players have questioned the instruction before. The concerns predate this October. In 2023, former Yankees minor leaguer Ben Ruta offered a devastating assessment:

“There is no baseball being taught there anymore.”

Ruta criticized a developmental emphasis he believed rewarded selected measurable outcomes while neglecting broader baseball instruction. His account represents one former player’s experience, rather than a complete audit of the farm system. Still, it raised a question the Yankees should welcome being tested: Are their players learning how to win games, or mainly how to improve the measurements the organization values?

Sonny Gray also publicly questioned the fit between his abilities and the Yankees’ instruction. In 2019, he criticized their emphasis on a slider he described as “a s----y spinning pitch.” Contemporary analysis challenged parts of his recollection using pitch-tracking data, so his explanation should not be treated as the final word on his struggles. But it remains a documented example of a player saying the prescribed approach did not suit him.

Good coaching requires adapting instruction to the person receiving it. An organization should be confident enough in its methods to recognize when those methods need adjustment.

Boone’s responsibility cannot disappear behind his popularity. The Yankees hired Boone without previous coaching or managerial experience. That was their choice, and they own it.

Years later, however, his original résumé is a weaker argument than the work fans can now judge for themselves.

Does his team execute? Does it respond to mistakes? Does it enter difficult situations prepared? Does his leadership produce observable improvement?

A manager can care about his players, maintain their trust and still fall short in enforcing standards. Public support has value. So does knowing when support needs to include a hard conversation and a changed expectation.

It would also be inaccurate to describe the entire coaching operation as having no experience. The more useful demand is that the Yankees demonstrate that their instruction works.

Fans are entitled to ask why basic problems remain visible after years of opportunities to address them.

Randy Levine’s record includes a lesson in how to alienate a player

If Levine wants to discuss organizational standards, his handling of Dellin Betances’ 2017 arbitration case belongs in the conversation. After the Yankees won, Levine publicly criticized the position taken by Betances’ representatives. Betances said the experience left him feeling attacked:

“They take me in a room, trash me for about an hour-and-a-half.”

Levine also praised Betances as an elite setup man, but his decision to continue the dispute publicly helped turn a completed salary proceeding into an unnecessary confrontation. That episode is an older example, and it should be identified as one. It nevertheless illustrates a leadership failure worth remembering: winning a negotiation does not excuse damaging a relationship with someone whose work you depend on.

The Yankees should bring the same energy to examining executive mistakes that they bring to defending executive decisions.

Hal owns the outcome. Steinbrenner has said, “I don’t believe I should have a $300 million payroll to win a championship.” Fair enough. Then demand better results from the people spending it.

A large payroll is a resource. Turning it into a balanced, prepared team is management’s job.

Hal does not have to imitate his father’s temper. He does have to establish expectations that carry consequences. He chooses who leads baseball operations. He decides whether continuity remains justified. He has the authority to require an independent examination of development, coaching and roster construction.

Backing your employees can be admirable. Continuing to back an approach without demanding convincing evidence of improvement becomes something else.

The public record cannot tell us every private conversation Hal or Levine has had. Fans can judge whether the organization’s actions are producing the promised standard.

The Yankees need changes people can see

A serious response would begin with clear responsibility: for player development, defensive preparation, baserunning, roster balance and the correction of recurring mistakes.

It would include baseball voices empowered to challenge Cashman’s assumptions. It would judge coaches by their ability to teach and improve players. It would examine departures such as Bauers without pretending every successful former Yankee represents a scandal.

And it would require ownership to explain why the people entrusted with solving these problems are still the right people to do it.

Fans should not have to choose between loving the Yankees and questioning their leadership.

That love is precisely why the questions matter.

Rizzo is questioning the repetition. Sabathia is questioning the standard. Rodriguez is questioning the philosophy. Girardi is questioning the accountability.

The men running the Yankees should be answering them.

The championship history belongs to the franchise.

The responsibility for what happens next belongs to its leadership.

CLEAN HOUSE. LOSER CASHMAN’S YANKEES ARE A FAILURE.

AI Generated

Brian Cashman built this mess. Aaron Boone keeps explaining it. And Yankees fans keep getting charged championship prices to watch an organization congratulate itself for coming up short.

Enough.

The 2027 Yankees need a demolition crew. Start with the front office’s arrogance, work through the manager’s office, and stop treating disappointing players like priceless family heirlooms.

Austin Wells needs to be a backup catcher. Period.

A .186 batting average. A .624 OPS. Fourteen home runs and 32 RBIs. Those were his 2026 numbers. Somewhere along the way, the Yankees apparently decided an everyday catcher’s bat was an optional accessory.

Nobody is watching those at-bats and seeing Thurman Munson. They’re watching another Yankees development project whose reputation keeps arriving at the ballpark before his production does.

His defense has value. Fine. Make him the backup. A good glove should earn consideration; it shouldn’t grant lifetime immunity from hitting .186.

Cashman needs to find a starting catcher who can contribute offensively without requiring a presentation explaining why the contribution is secretly happening.

Anthony Volpe? Trade him. Immediately.

The Yankees sold fans a cornerstone. Four seasons into his major league career, the offensive foundation still looks like wet cardboard.

A career 83 OPS+ through 542 regular-season games is a substantial body of evidence. League average is 100. How much longer are we supposed to applaud the possibility that he eventually gets there?

The hometown story was lovely. The marketing department must have loved it. Unfortunately, the opposing pitcher doesn’t care where you went to high school.

My assessment of Volpe now? A reserve infielder. A guy backing up second base in Cincinnati. That’s an opinion about his role, not a report about a Reds trade.

The Yankees presented him like a destination when he was still a question. Then they made questioning him feel like a violation of team policy.

Fans deserved an honest evaluation. Instead, they got a sales pitch with pinstripes.

Trade him while another organization still believes it can unlock what the Yankees keep insisting is in there.

Then fire Aaron Boone.

No farewell tour. No discussion about how much the players love him. No more treating clubhouse approval like the final score.

A manager can have good relationships with his players and still demand excellence. With Boone, the reassurance is easy to find. The consequences are considerably harder.

From the outside, he looks like Cashman’s preferred spokesman wearing a uniform. The puppet criticism survives because the arrangement keeps producing the same spectacle: the roster fails, Boone explains, Cashman remains above the wreckage.

What, exactly, would constitute failure serious enough to change this?

The Yankees dismissed Joe Girardi on October 26, 2017, after an ALCS Game 7 loss. Cashman cited problems connecting and communicating with players.

Apparently, the organization solved the communication problem by hiring someone who can explain disappointment indefinitely.

Chicago moved on from Joe Maddon in September 2019 after a collapse cost the Cubs a playoff berth.

Accomplished managers lose jobs. Boone keeps getting another opportunity to tell us how close this group is.

Fire him. The Yankees need leadership with enough authority to make standards matter.

Jazz? Gone. We're done with the antics. We're done with the BS.

Trent Grisham? Pack up.

His 2026 salary was $22.025 million. His production: .211, 18 homers and a .703 OPS.

Twenty-two million dollars bought the Yankees another hitter fans needed to be talked into appreciating.

Cashman’s ability to spend enormous money and still leave obvious holes should be studied. Every winter brings another complicated explanation for why something underwhelming was actually clever.

Let Grisham walk. Stop paying for the memory of a better season.

David Bednar? I’d move on—but the numbers deserve an honest hearing.

He recorded 35 saves in 39 chances with a 2.47 ERA. That’s good pitching.

It also doesn’t obligate the Yankees to make him another expensive attachment while the lineup needs repairs.

My preference is to spend elsewhere and build a replacement plan. A good closer can protect a lead. He cannot manufacture a functional offense or repair Cashman’s judgment.

The closer’s entrance music should not be the most dependable part of the organizational plan.

Giancarlo Stanton? Confront reality already.

The healthy version of Stanton has been tremendous entertainment. The problem is that the healthy version has become somebody the Yankees keep expecting to visit.

Three calf strains cost him more than five months in 2026.

You cannot keep reserving a central place in the offense for a player whose availability requires crossed fingers and a medical briefing.

His contract makes an exit difficult. Releasing him would still leave money owed. Cashman has to deal with that reality instead of using it as permission to repeat the same gamble.

Stanton’s body has repeatedly failed him. The front office fails the roster when it keeps budgeting for a version of him it cannot reliably put on the field.

And that brings us to the man who should be answering for every inch of this:

Brian Cashman.

He evaluates the talent. He constructs the roster. He chooses the manager. He oversees the system that is supposed to develop the players.

Yet somehow, whenever the finished product disappoints, responsibility gets scattered until nobody can find it.

A player didn’t develop. Somebody got hurt. October is unpredictable. The roster looked good on paper.

Who keeps buying the paper?

Cashman cannot claim credit for the organization’s sophistication and then act like its recurring flaws are unfortunate weather.

If the same weaknesses keep surviving different rosters, examine the person assembling them. If the same excuses keep surviving different seasons, examine the people accepting them.

That includes Hal Steinbrenner. Ownership enables this comfort. Cashman has room to keep defending the process because the man above him keeps accepting the explanation.

Meanwhile, Aaron Judge keeps getting older.

That is the unforgivable part.

The Yankees have a player whose greatness should define an era. They are burning through his championship opportunities while debating whether another disappointing season really warrants an uncomfortable decision.

Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have publicly questioned the organization’s approach. CC Sabathia has joined the criticism of its leadership and direction.

These are men who understand what winning here requires. The Yankees would be wise to spend less time defending themselves and more time considering why those voices are dissatisfied.

This franchise should be embarrassed.

Embarrassed by the excuses. Embarrassed by the complacency. Embarrassed that fans can identify the problems and still expect the offseason press conference to explain why most of them are coming back.

Change Wells’ role. Trade Volpe. Let Grisham leave. Make hard decisions about Bednar and Stanton.

Fire Boone.

And stop pretending Cashman deserves permanent protection from the results of his own work.

Because if Judge finishes his Yankees career without a championship, the organization will have plenty of time to celebrate his individual achievements.

It will also have to live with the fact that he gave them greatness—and they kept handing him this.

BURN IT DOWN. THE YANKEES HAVE TO REBUILD.

The Rays swept the Yankees, celebrated in their ballpark, and blasted “New York, New York” in the visiting clubhouse.

They took the series. Then they took the soundtrack.

Want to stop another team from turning your stadium into a punchline? Beat them. Tampa Bay earned its celebration. The Yankees earned another winter of uncomfortable questions that somehow never seem to produce meaningful consequences.

Start with Brian Cashman. Then Aaron Boone. This operation needs a complete overhaul, and another offseason of rearranging the same furniture isn’t going to cut it.

Fire Boone. Move on from Cashman. Burn down this approach and build something that actually works in October.

Look at the offense against Tampa Bay:

• Game 1: One hit. Zero runs. A 1–0 loss.

• Game 2: Two runs, both on solo homers by Ben Rice. A 5–2 loss.

• Game 3: Three runs. A 4–3 loss that ended the season.

Five runs in three games. That’s 1.67 runs per game, calculated from those scores. Gerrit Cole gave them a chance in the opener, and the lineup responded by practically disappearing. Austin Wells finally broke up the no-hitter, then got thrown out trying to stretch his double into a triple. Their only hit became another mistake.

This wasn’t merely an offense going cold. It was a team failing to execute when every out mattered.

Four errors in Game 2. Then, with elimination staring them in the face, Boone moved Wells up to sixth. Wells went 0-for-3 before being lifted for a pinch hitter. Trent Grisham went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts in the finale. Those are the results of the lineup Boone trusted to save the season.

And Boone’s Game 2 decisions deserve scrutiny.

Against left-hander Ian Seymour, he let Luis García Jr. and Spencer Jones hit in the sixth, then stayed with Jazz Chisholm, Grisham and Wells in the seventh. Seymour retired all five. Boone had right-handed alternatives sitting on the bench. His explanation was that Seymour’s numbers made him a relatively neutral matchup, and that he was waiting for baserunners before deploying those alternatives.

Waiting for somebody to reach base while the offense keeps making outs is a hell of a rescue plan.

Yes, there was a statistical argument for staying with the lefties. That doesn’t make the decision untouchable. A manager has to recognize when his plan is producing nothing and decide whether another approach gives his team a better chance.

Boone watched the outs accumulate.

Then came the elimination-game shuffle. Jazz and Ryan McMahon sat. Anthony Volpe and José Caballero started. Asked about choosing Volpe, Boone offered: “Just felt like it.”

Volpe actually contributed in Game 3. Give him that. But the Boone’s explanation still deserves more than a shrug. With the season on the line, fans are entitled to hear a coherent baseball reason.

That’s my problem with Boone’s constant tinkering: What is the governing principle? Matchups? A hot hand? Defense? A feeling? Players need defined responsibilities, and fans need some evidence that all this movement serves a purpose. We cannot prove that lineup changes caused the offensive collapse. We can absolutely judge Boone by the collapse he failed to stop.

He is a failed championship leader. Fire him.

And Cashman doesn’t get to hide behind the manager he keeps endorsing. He built the roster. If the available choices keep leaving Boone searching for a spark, the person assembling those choices belongs in the firing line, too.

Then there’s Jazz, questioning the boos:

“So you’re booing a guy that’s playing, trying to help the team win, and you’re hearing boos instead of trying to hype guys up.”

Jazz, nobody owes you a standing ovation for trying.

You finished the regular season with 19 homers, 41 steals, a .231 average and a .711 OPS. The 19/41 club. Not the 50/50 club. Those steals have value. Your athletic ability has value. But the swagger needs more consistent production behind it. Play cleaner. Play better. Give the fans something to cheer about.

Fans paying real money to watch another October collapse are allowed to express disgust. Millionaire players treating the crowd’s frustration like the central problem is pathetic. The boos didn’t construct this roster or make those errors.

Do not bring back Jazz. Do not bring back Grisham. Get a dependable everyday catcher. Shop Volpe and make a trade that improves this team.

That doesn’t mean giving Volpe away for nothing. It means ending the attachment to what everybody was supposed to become. Evaluate what they are, what they can realistically become, and whether someone else makes the Yankees better.

Judge is asking the front office to address the holes and go all in. He’s right. His message is especially pointed because he also acknowledged that a winning team alone isn’t enough in New York. For accuracy, he backed Boone’s return; the demand to fire Boone is mine.

Build a complete roster around your captain. Stop asking one superstar to cover every organizational weakness.

Get hitters who put together competitive at-bats. Get defenders who finish routine plays. Establish roles. Hire a manager who communicates clearly and demands execution. Make every department answer for whether its work produces a better baseball team.

The greatest franchise in baseball history cannot keep selling its past as an excuse for its present.

I haven’t paid for a ticket to that ballpark in four years because I’m done financing the same bad movie. Be a fan however you want. But ask yourself what incentive this organization has to change if disappointment keeps selling just as well as ambition.

The fans want a championship.

Stop asking us to accept less while charging us more.

Fire Boone. Move on from Cashman. Revamp the roster.

Burn it down and build it back up—because this version of the Yankees has exhausted its excuses.

It is absolutely pathetic.

ONCE IS A MISTAKE, BUT TWICE AND BEYOND IS A PATTERN

It sucks to suck, and that's exactly what the Yankees have established. It's dejavu all over again and it doesn't have to be. But the Yankees choose it because they like to suck more than they like to win, apparently. I just twitched violently as I typed that.

Year after year this team is plagued by awful fundamentals. The Yankees manage to lose. Keeping Aaron Boone and the front office in place is a losing strategy. The official box score says the Yankees were charged with four errors but let's be real that was six. One of those errors was miraculously called a hit by the official scorer and the other was saved by George Lombard Jr and Jazz Chisholm should bow down and praise him for saving his butt. This organization does not teach good fundamentals, and they certainly don't expect it out on the field. It's an afterthought for the Yankees as long as they can smash homeruns out of the park.

But that's not serving us well at all. We saw it against the Dodgers in the World Series two years ago and we haven't learned anything from it. Here we are two years later still beating ourselves and we did it against a very fundamentally sound team. That's what makes it worse. It's also what gives us another dose of harsh reality.

Good teams don't just ride a hot streak, they literally outplay everyone else and make inferior teams look stupid. That's everything we see with this Rays team. I've always said Kevin Cash is a good manager, and he is smart. The Rays play fundamental baseball and what makes it worse, they know how to create those pressure situations that make bad teams like the Yankees crumble. The Rays have created chaos, and the Yankees haven't overcome it. The Rays have a manager that knows what he is doing, and what other teams are not doing. He is the opposite of Aaron Boone and we are reminded of it yet again.

In MLB postseason history, only 10 out of 91 teams have ever come back to win a best-of-five series after losing the first two games. Coincidentally, the Yankees are the last team to do that back in 2017 but this isn't even a shadow of what that team was. Saying that really makes me miss "the good old days" because at least we weren't THIS tragically pathetic. Anything is possible but it is hard to have faith in this team with no Aaron Judge and weak players like Ryan McMahon, Chisholm and Austin Wells unnecessarily filling in the roster.

The Yankees need to change everything they do and think. It's time to turn things upside down. We've already endured 16 seasons of losses with no championships but Hal Steinbrenner hasn't understood our frustration. I wonder if this is the year it finally clicks and he gets it.....but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Please boys....show us something today. Don't just rollover and get eliminated at home. Please.

--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj

A LOT OF BOONE IMPROVEMENT PROMISES, BUT ALL THESE YEARS LATER, NOTHING CHANGES

Yup, we don't forget.

Players have changed over the years, but one thing remains. Boone. And after the mistakes, he's not out there reprimanding them.  Just a lot of talk to the press about how things need to get better, but the players do not.

What the Yankees did against Tampa Bay on Monday was an embarrassment.

Four errors. A 5–2 loss. A 2–0 deficit in a best-of-five division series. A team supposedly built to compete for a championship suddenly standing one loss from elimination because it could not handle the basic responsibilities of playing baseball. Catch the ball. Make the throw. Understand the situation. Give your pitcher a chance. It's your job.

Apparently, those expectations are too demanding.

We here at Bleeding Yankee Blue has been hammering this organization about leadership, accountability and fundamentals for years. The other night supplied another miserable example of why. The names change. The opponent changes. The calendar changes. The Yankees keep finding familiar ways to sabotage themselves.

And Aaron Boone keeps finding something to say afterward.

That is the part I cannot stomach anymore. There is always an explanation. Always another assurance. Always a suggestion that the Yankees understand what went wrong and will address it. Then another important game arrives, and the same problems show up wearing freshly washed pinstripes.

How many times are we supposed to buy this?

Boone kept Ryan McMahon in the lineup partly because he wanted “to prioritize the defense.” McMahon then mishandled a routine grounder on the second pitch of the game. Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s attempted double-play throw went astray. Austin Wells added catcher’s interference. Three official errors in the first inning.

Prioritize the defense?

The Yankees could barely survive it. Those were the opening moments of a playoff game. This was the preparation they brought to a night when they desperately needed to even the series.

By the end, the defensive damage extended beyond the four errors in the box score. There were additional misplays, including mistakes involving Spencer Jones, George Lombard Jr. and Luis García Jr. Three unearned runs helped bury the Yankees.

Every one of those players has a responsibility to execute. Their mistakes belong to them. But the manager and his coaches have a responsibility to prepare a team that can perform under pressure. When these breakdowns keep resurfacing in important games, the people running that preparation deserve scrutiny.

Boone has had years to establish his standards. We are looking at the results. Cam Schlittler was left trying to navigate the mess around him. He departed after 4⅓ innings, charged with four runs, only two earned.

His outing was not flawless. He kept grinding. But his teammates made an already difficult assignment harder. Before making the pitching change in the fifth, Boone had watched his defense repeatedly compromise his starter.

I wanted to see Schlittler get a chance to work through that inning. Pulling him did nothing to repair the fielding behind him. George Lombard Jr.’s subsequent error extended the inning, and Richie Palacios delivered the two-run single that pushed Tampa Bay’s lead to 5–1.

Meanwhile, Ben Rice supplied two solo home runs. The rest of the lineup went a combined 2-for-28. Rice was trying to drag an entire offense across the finish line while the defense was busy digging a hole underneath it.

That is a hell of a way to approach October.

Afterward, Boone said:

“We’ve got to get over it.”

Of course they have to recover. There is another game to play.

But fans deserve something more substantial than the latest invitation to move past a disaster. We have been moving past these disasters for years. Eventually, somebody has to explain why the organization cannot stop producing them.

The history of these comments makes last night even harder to accept.

In 2022, Boone said of baserunning:

“It’s been a stronger point of emphasis from Day 1 of Spring Training.”

Good. It should be. But an emphasis has to become a habit. A habit has to survive a difficult game, a tight score and the pressure of October. Otherwise, the organization gets to announce its commitment every spring without ever being held responsible for whether that commitment lasts.

On July 5, 2024, after a loss to Boston, Boone said:

“We have to play clean baseball, especially when things are hard to come by. We’ve got to be better, period.”

I mean, no shit. Don't tell us, tell them! And while you're at it, make sure these players are doing what is needed! The context was maddening. Anthony Volpe failed to run hard enough from third to score before DJ LeMahieu was tagged at second. Because that final out was a tag rather than a force, getting home in time mattered. LeMahieu also could have prolonged the play with a rundown. The Yankees wasted an opportunity through poor execution and situational awareness.

Boone recognized the problem publicly. Recognizing it was the easy part. The harder responsibility was making that kind of baseball unacceptable—and producing a team that consistently demonstrated it understood why.

On July 8, 2024, CBS Sports’ Mike Axisa wrote:

“Simply put, they need to play cleaner baseball.”

Even the outside diagnosis had become familiar. There comes a point when “cleaner baseball” should stop appearing on the organization’s wish list and start describing the product on the field.

On February 14, 2025, Brian Cashman acknowledged the defensive problem:

“Defensively we were challenged in a lot of positions last year.”

He also said:

“I thought we were bad defensively.”

Cashman was discussing the offseason effort to improve run prevention after the 2024 World Series loss. He believed personnel changes would strengthen the defense and help the Yankees go further. That matters because this failure reaches above the manager. Cashman knew. The front office knew. The problem had been identified. Improving it was an organizational objective.

So nobody gets to act blindsided when fans demand answers about another October defensive collapse.

Then, in comments reported July 24, 2025, after another four-error game against Toronto, Boone said:

“Keep working at our fundamentals day in and day out and it will continue to get better.”

Read that again. Then think about last night.

The Yankees may conduct drills. Coaches may review video. Conversations may happen behind closed doors. We do not need to invent what happens inside the clubhouse to judge the effectiveness of the work.

The recurring failures are visible.

Whatever instruction and accountability exist have not produced a standard reliable enough to prevent another postseason embarrassment. That is the failure Boone and the front office have to answer for.

And I am tired of hearing their intentions presented as evidence of success. The same week as that Toronto debacle, Aaron Judge said:

“Going into this off day, we’ve got to refocus and tighten it up on defense.”

The captain could see it, too. At some point, all this tightening is supposed to hold. Instead, the Yankees keep arriving at the biggest moments with parts falling off.

Bleeding Yankee Blue was calling for change long before this latest disaster. On November 5, 2024, our senior managing editor, Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa, argued that the Yankees needed to move on from Boone and establish accountability after the World Series. Her criticism specifically addressed the team’s baserunning, fundamentals and leadership.

On July 24, 2025, BYB returned to the same issue in HOUSE OF HORRORS & LOSERS Jeana described recurring fundamental failures and challenged the protection Boone and the front office continued to receive.

The record is there.

I have been ahead of the curve on this argument, and BYB has kept making it when plenty of people preferred to dismiss the criticism as excessive. We were watching the habits. We were watching the excuses accumulate. We were asking why an organization with these resources continued to tolerate such unreliable execution.

Now, for those finally opening their eyes: welcome.

And shame on everyone who waved away the warning signs and treated concerned fans as the problem. You do not have to agree with every lineup criticism or bullpen complaint to recognize that repeated failures deserve more than another defense of the manager.

Being demanding about the Yankees is part of caring about the Yankees.

I care enough to say this plainly: Aaron Boone should be fired.

His public assurances have lost their credibility with me. A manager cannot keep promising improvement while his team repeatedly demonstrates the same vulnerabilities under pressure and expect unlimited patience...FOR YEARS.

The players need consequences for repeated lapses. Those consequences should be deliberate and consistent: corrective work, changes in roles, and playing time earned through execution. A respected veteran should face the same expectations as a rookie. Talent should come with responsibility.

Boone also needs to be judged by that standard. So do his coaches. So does Cashman.

A replacement manager will need authority to enforce expectations. The front office needs new decision-makers who will challenge unsuccessful practices and judge the organization by what it delivers. Hal Steinbrenner has to demand that change instead of signing off on another round of reassuring explanations.

The Yankees of the late 1990s, carrying into 2000, won four championships in five seasons under Joe Torre.

That is the seriousness this franchise should be trying to recover, but with a clown like Boone... forget it.

It requires preparation, trust, execution and the willingness to confront failure. Players can feel supported while being held responsible. A manager can remain composed while insisting on standards. Torre’s success should remind the Yankees that leadership is measured by the team it produces.

Last night, Tampa Bay kept putting pressure on New York. The Yankees kept giving that pressure somewhere to go.

Boone cannot throw away this game, retrieve another familiar phrase and expect the discussion to end. The discussion should reach his office, Cashman’s office and ownership.

I have no faith that the Yankees will win a World Series under this leadership. They have given me years of reasons to reach that conclusion. Another October collapse only strengthens it.

Fire Boone. Bring new leadership into the front office. Give the next manager the authority and responsibility to make disciplined baseball a daily requirement.

And hold everyone to it! 

The Yankees have supplied enough statements about getting better. Their fans have earned the right to demand that they actually do it. The time is now, I am fed up.

SOME PEOPLE DO STICK UP FOR BOONE! THEY MUST BE STUDIED.

We've spent 9 seasons criticizing Aaron Boone. I think the only way we stop is when he is finally gone. That has to happen sooner or later, right? No one can live forever. That's what science has told us anyway. So since Baboonie isn't immortal and the Yankees aren't smart enough to fire him we can pretty much count on Baboonie doesn't go away because the Yankees finally fire him.

At this point, I can't imagine ever defending Baboonie. If I ever did, someone needs to have me examined because something is wrong with me. There's always at least one that goes against the grain though, right? Well NJ.com is defending Baboonie, you can check it out HERE. The closest I will ever get to defending Baboonie is to say that he did not hand pick Austin Wells to be the catcher of this team. He is stuck with him. Wells definitely screwed up game one, but given his track record it isn't a surprise.

Baboonie even went so far as to admit he screwed up. He gave him some tough criticism in his own Baboonie way so there is that. But why defend him at all? He doesn't need or warrant defending. If he actually won a championship the criticism would at least come with one gleaming moment of accomplishment that matters to all of us.

Instead, we have to listen to him defend dead weight like Wells and then strangely justify decisions not add Aaron Judge to the ALDS roster. I say strangely because he tried to use science to ssound smart and defend the thought process but it just falls flat. NJ.com went as far as to say Judge isn't close to being 100% yet....but one more week not rehabbing could get him there.

Come again? Seriously, am I the only one who thinks one week could be a difference maker? We've seen Giancarlo Stanton battle with an epidemic of strains for years now. One week never brought him close to 100% in the nine seasons he's been here. He's a constant walking strain! Baboonie has an example of the exact opposite thought process but the aging captain is somehow going to be different. It's Baboonie logic.

A Grade 2 strain takes 6 to 8 weeks to fully heal for all other professional baseball players not named Judge. When the ALCS starts on October 12th, Judge's rehab will be on day 26. That's not even four weeks IF the Yankees can even get there. I'm not against wishing for that once in a lifetime miracle....I just don't trust that Baboonie or the Yankees would recognize it happening.

So while anything is possible, I just don't understand defending Baboonie for anything, really. Anyone who does needs to be studied and possibly committed.

--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj

WELLS PLAYS HERO, BOONE’S OFFENSE PLAYS DEAD

The Yankees lost Game 1 to Tampa Bay, 1-0, wasting five innings of one-run pitching from Gerrit Cole. Jonathan Aranda’s third-inning homer supplied all the scoring. Drew Rasmussen supplied the humiliation: eight innings, 10 strikeouts and one lousy hit.

Then Austin Wells decided he was trying to be a hero. With two outs in the eighth, he finally broke up the no-hitter—and promptly got thrown out stretching a double into a triple. He saw Luis Rojas’ stop signal after passing second and kept going. Congratulations: you rescued the Yankees from one embarrassment and drove them straight into another. Stay at second and give the next hitter a chance. That’s October baseball, not an audition for a highlight reel.

And Aaron Boone deserves scrutiny, too. He stacked the lineup with eight left-handed hitters, and Rasmussen carved it up. The supposed matchup advantage produced 23 swings and misses. At some point, having right-handed alternatives means actually considering a different look while there are still outs to work with.

Then Boone chose Giancarlo Stanton to pinch-hit for Ryan McMahon leading off the ninth—Stanton’s first plate appearance since April 24. He struck out. I understand betting on his October power, but asking a guy sidelined for five months to rescue a one-run playoff game is a hell of a gamble. Boone afterward said he liked the at-bat. Wonderful. Put that on the scoreboard.

Monday’s Game 2 has Cam Schlittler lined up to start. The Yankees need to give him actual run support and bring this series home tied. Expect pressure immediately: another loss means facing elimination in Game 3.

Boone needs better answers. Wells needs better judgment. And this lineup needs to remember that beating Boston didn’t finish the job.

WELLS BLOWS A LEGIT SHOT FOR THE YANKEES

Austin Wells finally did something useful against Drew Rasmussen—and immediately found a way to wreck it.

Two outs. Eighth inning. Yankees down 1-0. Wells breaks up the no-hitter with a double, then gets thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. Opportunity over. Inning dead.

Park your ass at second base.

You’re a catcher, Austin. You run like you’re dragging the equipment bag. Where exactly did this sudden belief in your blazing speed come from?

Austin Wells spoils Drew Rasmussen's no-no then gets HOSED at third 🤯 https://t.co/yIGAjlCHK3

— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) October 4, 2026

The Yankees finally had a pulse, and Wells decided to unplug the monitor.

This was brutally dumb baseball. Second base already puts you in scoring position. With two outs, you’re running on contact. Give the next hitter a chance. That’s basic baseball awareness, and Wells apparently left his in the dugout.

Instead, he took the team’s precious opening and gambled it on legs that had absolutely no business making that bet.

Spare me “he was trying to make something happen.” Something had happened. You hit a double. Your next assignment was standing on a bag. Somehow, that proved too complicated.

The lack of speed was obvious. The lack of judgment was inexcusable.

Wells deserves credit for breaking up the no-hitter. Then he deserves to get absolutely roasted for turning a legitimate scoring chance into an inning-ending display of delusion.

You don’t have to be fast to help this team. You do have to be smart enough to know you aren’t.

HEY BOONE, DON’T SCREW THIS UP

The Yankees swept Boston, and I enjoyed every second of it. Now comes the harder part: beating Tampa Bay without turning their own dugout into the Rays’ greatest competitive advantage.

These Yankees—the misfits as I call them, the guys I’ve questioned all summer—have given us something worth rooting for. They handled the Wild Card round without Aaron Judge. Austin Wells contributed. Spencer Jones contributed. Suddenly, a lineup that too often looked like a collection of separate problems started playing like a team.

I want these misfits to win the whole damn thing.

That doesn’t mean Brian Cashman gets a summer’s worth of criticism erased by two October victories. I’m still tired of roster construction built around gambles, injury recoveries and the assumption that somebody will eventually figure it out. I still question the evaluations, the patience afforded certain players and the habit of selling hope as a strategy.

But the players have an opportunity now. Let them take it.

Tonight starts with Gerrit Cole. Game 1 begins at 6:30 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field, with Cole facing Drew Rasmussen. Tampa went 55–26 at home, so walking into that building and expecting Boston’s surrender to carry over would be a mistake.

Cole brings a 10–9 record, a 3.61 ERA and 131 strikeouts. Rasmussen counters with 16–5, a 2.67 ERA and 174 strikeouts. Those numbers should get everyone’s attention.

Cole is rested. Now he needs to be sharp. There’s unfinished business after Tampa eliminated the Yankees in the 2020 ALDS, but revenge doesn’t retire hitters. First-pitch strikes, command and keeping the ball in the park do. Junior Caminero, Yandy Díaz and Jonathan Aranda cannot be allowed to turn every inning into traffic.

And against Rasmussen, the Yankees need useful at-bats. Make him work. Move runners. Take the available run instead of waiting for the three-run homer that might never arrive.

Then there’s Wells. I’ve criticized him plenty, and his regular-season bat earned those questions. I really don't think he's good, but maybe he's on a hot streak. He had a good Wild Card series, and he deserves credit. In Game 1 alone, he delivered two hits, drove in a run and scored another while helping the Yankees pitchers overwhelm Boston.

Trent Grisham? I appreciate what he can provide offensively. I’m still watching him in the field. Does he take the right route? Make the clean play? Keep an extra base from becoming an extra run? October defense has to withstand scrutiny, especially against a team willing to pressure every small mistake.

And is Aaron Judge even necessary in this series?

It’s a provocative question, but the roster decision deserves one. A healthy Judge makes this team better. A limited Judge returning from a strained right calf presents a different calculation. Entering today, his availability remained uncertain, with a possible pinch-hitting role under consideration.

If he can help, use him. If he cannot run or defend effectively, don’t rearrange a functioning lineup simply because the biggest name is available. The misfits just showed they can win together. Respect that.

Ryan Weathers’ potential addition to the ALDS bullpen presents another test. I’ve questioned the Cashman gamble there, too. Making the roster is one thing; being ready for a tight October inning is another. Boone needs to know the difference.

Behind Cole, Cam Schlittler is slated for Monday’s Game 2, with Carlos Rodón and Max Fried the likely options when the series reaches New York. Those Bronx assignments remain unconfirmed, but there is enough pitching here to make this a real fight.

Which brings us to the question every Yankee fan eventually asks:

Will Boone mess this up?

Will he recognize when his starter is finished? Choose the reliever suited to the inning? Let productive players play? Or will we spend tomorrow discussing a decision everyone could see going wrong before it happened?

Manage the game in front of you, Aaron. Give these guys their best chance.

I’m rooting for Wells to keep hitting, Grisham to make every play, Cole to own the opener and the kids to keep bringing life into this team. But, Rasmussen is tough... and the Rays are home.

Let the misfits win.

I’d love nothing more than to spend November explaining how they proved me wrong.