12:54 pm: Adler also reports that the contracts of third base coach Phil Nevin and assistant hitting coach P.J. Pilittere will not be renewed (Twitter links).
12:11 pm: While there’s been much speculation concerning Aaron Boone’s status as the Yankees’ manager, the team is already making changes to the coaching staff. Hitting Coach Marcus Thames has been informed he won’t be brought back next year, reports Lindsey Adler of The Athletic.
A former MLB outfielder and designated hitter, Thames served as the Bombers’ hitting coach the past four seasons. Starting in 2002 he played parts of ten seasons for four big league clubs, including two stays with the Yankees. In 2012 he joined the Yanks as a minor league hitting coach, and worked in that capacity at three levels. He arrived in the Bronx in 2016 as the assistant hitting coach, and was promoted to hitting coach two years later.
Like Thames, Nevin and Pilittere each depart the organization after spending four seasons in their respective roles. All three joined the coaching staff at the same time as Boone, whose status for 2022 remains unresolved. Boone has expressed a desire to return, but his contract expires at the end of this season. The Yankees have yet to make a formal announcement regarding Boone’s future with the organization.
If it’s Marcus’ hitting methods that were followed then he should be fired. If he just follows organizational ideals , then he was unjustly let go. Don’t forget he was hitting coach when we led the world in hitting. He didn’t get stupid overnight.
Amen. The largest cogwheel we know and *actually* need fired is Boone. His replacement will ultimately show us if there’s progressive culture change in the front office.
Who do you want to replace him with
mike scoscia?
Bruce Bochy
Carlos Beltran
@coachrsj- Buck Showalter
Either someone like Hensley Meulens, the runner-up to Boone, or Joe Espada who’s been frequently mentioned
Lloyd McClendon
Eduardo Pérez
Aaron Boones .601 winning% is 10th best all time. I know fans hate those kind of stats. The ones that make their biased opinion look stupid.
Another stat. Just 11-11 in the playoffs. Mediocre.
There’s a simple answer to that, juiced balls. When they were still in play Thames launch angle approach worked. With deadened balls not so much
Yes, the 2019 Yankees with their high FB% lived off of the juiced ball. Now the team is an offensive wasteland
Firing a peon when it should be Cashman being shown the door. Boone should probably go as well but the GM put this team together. I cannot think of anyone fit to be the manager of the Yankees except Don Mattingly.
Yankees led all of MLB with outs at home. (22) Now they’re rightly sending Nevin home. “See ya!”
If Nevin makes it home without getting thrown out, then we’ll know for certain he was the problem.
The Yankees led baseball in getting runners thrown out at the plate. I think Judge getting thrown out on the Stanton blast to the Green Monster was the icing on the cake. It was a very close play but you don’t send him on that.
Sorry but the constant swing & miss at low & aways by the “sluggers” with RISP was a constant – Hitting Coach is a big part of that & not have alternate strategies for AB’s x player.
Good riddance and let’s get someone who can do this NYY team justice!
Agree 100%. Been saying this all year. Players don’t all get bad overnight. Approaches do.
Disagree @Big-time.
Both deserved to go. All the bad sends from 3rd base and extra outs from scoring position? Nevins was inexcusable- I don’t think you disagree with that.
But Thames… there’s three options here: 1) he couldn’t communicate with the hitters and get them to make the changes he recommended. 2) he followed org leads, and lacks the fresh perspective needed to offer new approaches that could’ve helped the often anemic offense. 3) it was his instruction being followed, and, the offense remained anemic.
It doesn’t matter which option it was, he needed to go. Either couldn’t reach players anymore, lacked input to correct things, or his approach just plain stunk.
With regards to leading in hitting… maybe his ways were more effective with the juiced ball and he couldn’t adapt?
A 4th option is that Cashman acquired players that have a different set of skills than what the Yankees needed, Gallo and Odor are not guys that put the ball in play a lot. I’m not judging their overall value, but they have a combined 188 Ks in 510 ABs.
Add the final issue is the disparity between their OPS and their RPG. Those two measures have a high correlation, The five OPS’ in the AL were also the top-5 scoring teams (in different order).
But the NYY ranked #7 in OPS and #10 in RPG. That’s kind of high, and I don’t see anything to explain that. Maybe being 14th in OPS with RISP, but I’m not sure that is skill or luck, Especially since they were 1st in 2020.
In short, I think there is a reasonable claim to be made that they were lucky last year, and unlucky this year.
Your info is wrong. Yanks were 19th in runs scored. Their offense was all Judge and Stanton, the remainder a wasteland.
In the AL. It wouldn’t make sense to compare AL teams with a DH, to NL teams without.
Uhhh, so 10th in the AL out of 15 teams is terrible. Your point is still off.
The Yankees were I believe second in the league at having runners thrown out at the. plate with 22…….Nevins had to go!
I don’t think it’s Thames fault, you work with what you are given. It was Cashman who signed a bunch of strikeout artists who couldn’t get on base for Rizzo, Judge, and Stanton to go to work. You want high OBP guys to be on base for your all world sluggers. Gallo needs to work on striking out less, a sac fly scores runs too…..
Gallo is a bad contact guy, bad hitter, always has been, always will be.
He looked less so in Texas (but still wasn’t good) because pitchers were willing to pitch around him in the thin lineup, hence more BBs.
Rarely goes oppo, K rate in 1st percentile. Bad hitter.
I don’t think those on the coaching staff are allowed to be free thinking. They’re just rearranging the deck chairs for next year.
Not his fault that only Stanton and Judge hit this year, but batting coaches are the easiest to scapegoat.
Hitting coaches are pretty much useless this days. Most players have their personal trainer, who should be the one to blame for their trainee woes, not the coach
Maybe personal trainers are the problem and players aren’t listening to the coaches? Remember, all the players are playing for their next contract and it doesn’t pay to have singles and doubles and a .300+ BA It pays to hit .240 with 200Ks and 30+ HRs. Owners need to stop paying for Ks & HRs and start paying for guys who will get on base and try to disrupt the pitcher, get singles, and doubles, steal a base, etc. Home Runs and strike outs are destroying baseball and it is the fault of the incentive program.
Agree, to the extent that the Yankees have way too many high K guys–Gallo, Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, Voit, Odor and not enough good BA guys. Horrible balance.
Are you saying there are 25 Personal trainers running around the field every time the team gets together?
There needs to be a complete overhaul and fundamental change when it comes to each players approach at the plate. I think I’m all fairness this lineup was built to hit home runs and what happened is they mostly strikeout especially in big spots. Now they are leading the league in double plays so that also is interesting. Time for changes to the lineup as well.
Also they led or were tied with the league for outs (22 or 23) created at home plate. I’m going to put that on Nevin. In the WC game, Judge getting tagged out required two perfect RS plays which is not on him.
The first throw bounced on its way to Bogaerts. It wasn’t perfect. That said, I would focus more on the circumstances. One of the things that Nevin has to consider is the on-deck hitters. With 88 strikeouts in 188 ABs, do you trust Gallo to deliver the run? The NYY’s #4/5/6 hitters had an OPS+ of 93, 93 & 90.
That puts a lot of pressure to score runs when you can. If this was Bogaerts, Verduoo & Renfroe, I’d be more inclined to hold the guy up, and hope for a bigger inning.
Nah, a bad send. Not even close.
Totally agree. The Sox executed the relay. Nothing was happening for the Yanks.
There are perfect plays in baseball. That’s why they make the big bucks. You don’t send him in that situation.
The team is full of big guys trying to hit home runs every time. The team has big issues on offense and defenses Boone just sits there each and every game. I didn’t watch a ton of games, but he doesn’t engage or inspire anyone or anything.
That is all managers do now. They play who they are told to play. Salaries dictate who plays 99% of the time. Managing is done with a book of numbers.
Well that solves all their problems.
This is just the first domino.
Cashman = second domino
Jane Seymour was the best Domino.
@YankeesFan45 From your lips to God’s ears.
Derek and the Domino’s…..my fave
The impact of hitting/pitching coaches these days is minimal. What does a coach make, 200K at the top? So the guy making 25M is supposed to listen to him?
They CAN be useful, offering a suggestion here and there and translating analytics. But at some point the responsibility is on the player, It’s not unlike when some prospects “fail”; we always blame the organization. When the prospect indeed fails, it’s MOST OFTEN the fault of the prospect. This isn’t the NFL, where some players thrive only in certain systems. It’s still “see ball, hit ball” no matter the coach.
They still need to communicate and be proactive. Does the 25m guy playing for his next contract completely change approach? Probably not often.
But should a coach see when a guy starts to change mechanics and timing as his production falls off a cliff? At that point offer help to return the swing to what worked before? I’d say yes. And if you don’t see it and can’t communicate effectively enough to fix it, you’re the fall guy.
Was there a problem in the offense much of 2021? Also yes. There’s no reason the yanks should’ve been in a wild card game. A better offense claims a couple wins here and there and the 2021 division was theirs to lose.
Well, if you have the right coach, then he can make an impact. Tigers picked up an excellent pitching coach in Chris Fetter and he HAS made a difference. But, everyone has to be on the same page and team oriented.
Yankees are hired guns, not a team. Making 25 million your not trying to ‘go the other way’ to win games.
I don’t recall any arbiter suggesting you deserve a higher pay because you “went the other way”….means you’re a team player and all that, and that you’re probably a nice guy, but it doesn’t put any money in your pocket.
A lot of position players on the Yankees were subpar this year. It’s inescapable. It might not be Thames’ fault, but having only Stanton and Judge over 100 OPS+ is a statement in itself.
He’s taking the fall for them, but he also couldn’t get them better over the course of the season.
Who was the hitting coach when DJ put up a .922 OPS the past two years and won a batting title and led the league in OBP?
Maybe they should bring back that hitting coach.
What baseball was being used when those numbers were put up vs now? A lesser level of power produced different levels of results with the same swing and launch angle between 2019/2020 and now in 2021.
GASox, the league average OPS in 2019/2020 went from approx .748 down to .728
DJ’s OPS went from .922 in 2019/2020 to .711 in 2021
DJ’s OPS didn’t exactly go down in tandem with the league average.
Ahah, people bashing coaches but it comes down to the players playing to their levels consistently
Why is it that they always make scapegoats out of the lower-level guys while the ones who hired them aren’t held accountable? If Marcus Thames was a bad hitting coach, doesn’t that reflect poorly on Boone and Cashman? Their jobs are to put the right people in the right position and they apparently failed at least three times by today’s announcements. Mr. Steinbrenner, your orders?
@for love of the game
So going by your logic if someone in any job is not performing well for a period of time it’s the manager or boss that should be blamed? I’m baseball very very rarely is any player always doing great, it’s about being great when it matters and putting together solid stretches. All players get cold, that’s baseball, that’s why they have coaches in place. A hitting coach isn’t just there to tweak your mechanics, he’s there to share ideas with and be a overall productive member of the team as a whole
A pretty steep drop off year over year, from a 118 OPS+ to exactly 100. Most of that is DJ. If DJ went from an OPS+ of 93 at Colorado, to .136/178 in NY, back to 97, does Thames get credit for the increase in NY, or the blame that DJ regressed?
I don’t think it’s DJ. I believe he gets a pass for the year considering he played with an injury. The problem is after this group broke out in 2017, they never got better. In fact, other than Judge, they mostly regressed.
Cashman is the real problem.
Did Thames not do a good job this past season? Sure, and what has happened to Torres and Sanchez under his watch is definitely a mark against him. What’s not his fault is Cashman saddling him his personal pet projects like Gallo and Hicks who struggle to hit above the Mendoza line and Gardner who clearly has little to nothing left. Cashman and his poor roster construction and asset allocation are far and away the biggest reason the team has flopped in the playoffs over the last decade-plus.
If Steinbrenner wants real change, he must move on from Cashman.
lol
Exactly, 3rd longest streak in Yankees history without a title. Since 2004 Boston has 4 titles, the Yankees 1 and believe me to fans at least that matters. Cashman been GM for too long his ideas have gotten stale. I mean you need runners on base so Judge and Stanton can take turns going hulk smash. You do not need a team of smashers, you score by having baserunners not experimenting with launch angles.
Nevin could read the manager’s arm incorrectly and send in the wrong relief pitcher.
thank god he is gone.
Cashman is there until he doesn’t want to be. Boone will be brought back. The three coaches were chum for the sharks (the fans).
The Yankees led the league in getting thrown out at home. Nevin was the 3b coach. He had to go if no one else.
Just remember hitting coaches,fielding coaches can only pass on info but the old saying
stands truc you can’t polish a TURD.Players won’t respect some guy who has limited experience as a MLB player they think they know it all.This is what this game has come too.
Nevin was actually fired as he was waving around Judge, but they just bothered to tell him today.
If George was still around, he’d have fired Nevin on the spot.
If Billy was still around he would’ve punched Nevin in the throat after chugging a dugout beer!
A modest correction here:
If Billy was still here, he’d punched Nevin WHILE drinking a beer, and not spilled a drop.
I’m a confirmed Yankee hater, but Billy was a fine manager. I had a few quid on the Yankees on a Saturday afternoon game. He was down 4-0 in the 5th, but it didn’t stop him from ordering a double-steal with -0- outs. The surprised catcher threw the ball into CF, and it was 4-2 about a minute later. Then the pitcher was shaken. It took me longer to figure out which pub to spend my winnings at than for the Yankees to catch them.
Lol, yeah, good catch, Joe! Ugh, a Billy / George tandem would do wonders for this team right now.
Yankees hitting Coach over all these past 4 yrs is also responsible for the constant swing & miss at low & away pitches by the “sluggers” and not having put in place alternate strategies x player to mitigate this and get on base ( reduce GIDP too). Let’s get a new set of coaches that can contribute to WIN divisions, League and at least 1 WS in the next 3 years ! Boone pitching changes decisions and toying with infilled has cause too many losses- what is he going to change ?
I think it’s hilarious that most Yankees fans want Boone gone while the Padres have expressed interest in interviewing Boone for their managerial opening should they Yankees choose not to re-sign him. While Boone doesn’t have much postseason success, he has a really good regular season W-L record as the manager of the Yankees. He has certainly made some blunders over his career (which manager hasn’t), but IMO he’s done a very good job given the flawed nature of their roster construction. With the exception of DJL and Urshela, Cashman has tried to build the Gashouse Gang with the rest of the lineup and that’s not a recipe for success. As the saying goes, chicks love the long ball…so does Cashman. The Yankees need to improve their player personnel in order to get back to prominence. It really doesn’t matter who the manager is if the players aren’t good enough to win it all. Compare the Yankees lineup to Houston’s and that should tell you all you need to know why this team can’t get back to the World Series.
1. That report that the Padres were interested in Boone could have very well been manufactured by Boone’s agent.
2. Preller’s record of hiring managers sucks so I wouldn’t even see it as an endorsement of Boone if the Padres were interested in him.
3. If your overall point is that Cashman is a far bigger problem than Boone and should be fired before him, you would be 100% correct.
There’s no doubt there is plenty of blame to go around but Boone is not a good in game manager. He was completely overmatched against Cora.
Joe, those are completely fair points. With that being said, Cashman is still the problem above all else. I would have little confidence in his ability to hire a replacement for Boone – Cashman’s narcissism will just drive him towards another yes-man without managerial chops who will take orders from him and Mike Fishman.
The gap between Cashman and the best GMs in the game is significantly wider than the gap between Boone and the top managers.
Grandslammer, yeah I agree it’s time for Cashman to at least move out of his role as GM. He has one more year though and not likely to go this year.
Cashman should go, he’s constructed a swing and miss team, that is playing the game from 20+ years ago, when all that mattered was hitting home runs…..
@joe. That’s nonsense, was he overmatched when the Yanks swept them in Boston a week earlier? Boone is a puppet taking his queues from Cashman/analytics. And I’m not a Boone fan
And yet the Yankees beat Houston 4 out of 6 head to head this season.
Here’s the major issue with Cashman, paraphrasing someone else’s words: Cashman is great, highly intelligent, and experienced beyond most other GMs. His greatest flaw is he keeps trying to put together the same type of roster, each and every time he redoes it.
An interesting fact of note regarding Boone’s responsibility – I agree not everything falls on him; however, Boone’s in-game management reflects his lack of experience and certainly cost the Yankees games.
Nonetheless, what about the fact that they only shift roughly 11% on RH hitters (lowest in the league), with an out-of-position, below average defense to begin with. That seems counterintuitive to giving poor defenders the greatest opportunities to make plays, and that, imho, is also on Boone.
But, if everyone else likes him so much, ask your team to hire him. Give me Bucky, Pena, or someone of their ilk.
I also forgot to mention: control. Cashman will not, under any circumstances, forego roster control, which is another major dose in this case and yields predictable results.
Good point, @Mantooth
Preller strikes me as a similar GM to Cashman. I can definitely see him wanting to extend his influence into the dugout too. I think GM’s should put the roster together. Not manage it. But that is just me.
Anyway, we know Le Booner can follow orders with the best of ’em. He’s pretty cheap, too. So, yeah. I definitely get the “appeal” to SD.
Guess you don’t watch much if any Yankee baseball…..Dusty Baker and Cora are HUGELY better tactical in game managers than Boone….those in game blunders you mention happen way to often……his regular season record really doesn’t matter as long as its good enough to get into the playoffs which frankly he has done, but they’ve fallen flat on their faces once in….if the Padres want him, the Yankees can package both he and Stanton and get a jump start on reviving the quest for 28!
Por fin una buena noticia!
Antes de concluir la temporada debierin hacerlo.
Boone should goto SD. Showalter needs to be brought back and make Randolph his bench coach.
Purging the coaching staff is one thing, fixing the problem is another.
Pitching staffs are going to keep exploiting an offenses weakness if adjustments aren’t made. Baseball as a whole has developed the weakness of swing up out of your shows to try to hit Home Runs. Exposing the notion that if you throw around the knees/shins or eyes/chest hitters can’t do anything but chase and miss, and chase they will. Hank Aaron, Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, those guys didn’t use launch angle and hit lots of Home Runs.
If you look at the middle of the Yankees lineup as it projects right now with Judge/Stanton/Gallo/Sanchez they may combine for 180 HR’s but that is also, easily, 1000 strikeouts
Chipper Jones said of launch angle, “What’s launch angle gonna do, make me hit a longer home run? What do I care as long as it’s a home run!”
Judge leveled his swing and started driving the ball consistently the other way and had a great season. Stanton swings very level, although a pull hitter, and that’s why he hits so many line drive home runs at 120EV, as opposed to say, Gallo, that hits moon shots.
Well since none of them has ever struck out 250 times it’s highly unlikely they all will. Math … A lost art.
Maybe the Mets will check in on Thames. I really hope they hire someone who has actually had some success with a bat in his hands and rely strictly on data. A hitting coach needs to also understand what makes each individual player click. Cookie cutter doesn’t work for everyone. Each player has his triggers mentally as well as physically. Plus, I can only imagine a coach’s philosophy and approach would be more accepted by players if they know he has actually stood in a major league batter’s box.
Two down. Two to go (Boone and Cashman),
Boone needs to go to, but I take this as his coaches being the scape goat and more mediocrity from Boone to come
I worry this may be the case.
If they fired all the coaches who began tenure when Boone did, then maybe he’s on his way out too.
The last time I played baseball video games I had Marcus Thames on my team as a dodger. I think it was his last year playing and might of even got cut.. but he crushed every ball that he made contact. So why cut him now?
Several months too late.
Kind of a Yankee trait now.
No hitter had anywhere near a career year. Nearly the entire lineup performed well below their projections. Gallo & Rizzo didn’t hit as well after they were traded for. & our young hitters all went through disturbing negative regressions. All of that is true.
This club reached home plate more than anyone else in MLB from ’17-’20. We finished 19th this year. Nineteenth! There were NL clubs that outscored us. Unacceptable. Whatever he was doing was absolutely not working.
Should have happened in June.
@Bucky Don’t disagree with anything you said, however, the hit or miss no D roster was put together by Cashman. As one of the contributors said above Cashman keeps building the same unsuccessful roster.
Interesting a large part of Boone’s staff is gone, in St Louis they fired the manager and kept the coaching staff.
Roger that, @Mick.
So…Cashman.
He is probably always going to do things with personnel & resources that we don’t care for. But I think he is getting the results that ownership wants. Meaning: play hide & seek with the “luxury tax” while putting a playoff team on the field.
Viewed through the lens of ownership, Cash has been doing his job. & well. We are probably never going to see a Dumbrowski type offseason out of him.
Having an owner who is committed to bringing (lucrative) playoff teams every year to the field seems….man, kind of strange to “complain about”. But it is a difference from the ownership goals most Yankee fans grew up with.
That is interesting. Guess we know whom St Louis is blaming, uh?
I agree Ducky, and as Mick7s pointed out, Cashman trades for Gallo, as opposed to say, Ketel/Sterling Marte, and I don’t know that anyone can fix his big, looping swing, bro. And, I’m a Gallo fan, I was super excited about his arrival in NY; I now question whether it’s the right place/environment, but it’s only been half a season. The right hitting approach, (level swing, shorter to the ball), with his eye at the plate, and he’d be a complete monster.
But there’s a silver lining; if it’s not, he’s got decent trade value for a team that needs a multi-position OFer.
Gallo is what he is.
Some of the young fellas on the board convinced me to view him as a glove first player. Which is actually fair. He is one of the top 25 defensive players in MLB.
Bigger uppercut than Reggie maybe.
& he – nor the Yanks – will contemplate “fixing” or changing it. It is what they both want.
Joey Gallo can be a really ugly AB. I get it.
But he is a good player whom Cash has coveted for years. I would be shocked if a concerted effort is not made to retain him moving forward.
“It is what they both want.” 100% true. Also, you’re right, I do view him as glove-first, but In the hitting order, he needs to protect Judge/Stanton and he can’t do that with his swing. Bump him down the order to, say, #8, and get some protection in that lineup.
Hey, good morning, Clip.
I’m a tad higher. I like him as pseudo-protection for the Big Boys in the 6th(ish) spot.
Catch you later this afternoon.
Add offense. First & foremost. SS & leadoff.
Ketel was hurt just before trading began and subsequently wasn’t even shopped…..and Marte was going to cost way too much Yankee capital to make that trade…..Cashman didn’t really have lots to choose from…..Gallo was always more miss than connect which is why he likes ad should be batting 6-7 rather than cleanup which was another huge Boone blunder during the wildcard game…..and Rizzo just wasn’t the same after his Covid issues…..
Rizzo’s NY numbers are identical to his numbers before the trade. Yankee fans just built him up too much in their minds.
OPS of .798 in Chicago. .768 in NY.
I will stick with, “didn’t hit as well…”
…And also adjusting to new league.
The Yankees also have yet to put together a starting rotation that will get them to the WS. This needs to be addressed also.
The Yankees have more holes than swiss cheese. It’s time to make a bold move like Olson for Judge
Noooooooooo! IF we were to trade Judge as a rental it needs to be for high-level prospects or controllable good talent. Otherwise, it’s not worth it, and it may not be worth it anyway, but I’m just a voice in the wilderness…
The Yankees wouldn’t need to trade Judge to get Olson… but I would love to see them make a strong play for Olson.
Good points Murderers Row. I just read several articles detailing trade propositions for Olsen, which are all similar in personnel. The Athletic has some combination of: Voit, Torres, and German for Olsen.
@Clipper, did you read the article by Jim Bowden on The Athletic? He went total fanboy on how to fix the Yankees problems. As a Yankees fan, I was embarrassed. It was like every bad thing people say about Yankees fans all rolled up in one article.
Aiming way too high when you say Judge for Olson….Beane has always been smart about trade “gets” and 3 0r 4 for Olson is probably the route any kind of discussions would need to take….and the 3 or 4 just can’t be throw ins….it would most likely cost Torres, Voit, German and possibly Gil or Abreau to make that happen….And I would vote to do it in a heartbeat…….but Judge for Olson is over-estimating Olson’s value….I mean he’s a very good player but let’s not make him out to be Ted Williams!
Why would the A’s do that when Olson is under control for three more years while Judge’s ’22 arb salary will be expensive?
Because, even if it was feasible and the Yankees would actually consider it….Judge puts fans in the stands….who goes to an A’s game to see Olson?
Judge’s jersey is either the #1 or top 3 sellers if you need any further proof….and that kind of revenue draw would make this a very unbalanced discussion.
If ya trade Judge you may as well do a wholesale fuc**** take down. A full reset, meaning you trade Stanton as well and every significant piece on the team for top-line controllable prospects and see how many of them turnout to be serviceable major leaguers. A Judge or Stanton trade is tantamount to waving a white flag and telling the fans we will be horseshi* the next couple seasons. Cole, Stanton, and Judge did their jobs and are your cornerstones, everyone else should be expendable.
Their pitching staff was in the top 5-6 of MLB.
the impact of hitting coaches is usually overstated, but in this case thames had 2 years to figure out that 2019 was a juiced-ball outlier and anyone not named judge or stanton needed to adjust their approach
It also seems to be a clear trend with MLB teams this offseason. It’s like each manager/coach gets called in one by one and asked, “Who’s fault was this steaming pile of Chris Davis that you called a season?!”
Each one says, “I don’t know, we have to ask the _____ coach. The hitting coaches are always thought of last and there’s nobody else to call in…….
At this rate why would anyone ever want to work in any coaching staff in MLB. Zero accountability in the FO for hiring the wrong people. If teams fired and hired FO executives like they did coaches nobody would interview for these positions.
While I don’t disagree that the-all-or-nothing approach isn’t the most fun thing to watch, I think the whole “The Yankees are just a swing for the fences team” sterotype is a bit overblown. Everyone praises the Tampa Bay Rays approach, yet they had the same amount of home runs as the Yankees and a higher team K-rate. No one is complaining (at least nearly as much) about the Braves’ 24% team strikeout rate and still 3rd in the MLB in long balls.
Tampa lost to Boston because they struck out way too often and Boston cut down on the amount of walks they have been giving out. At the end of the day, solo shots don’t really hurt ya if you can put innings together which the Red Sox did. Atlanta won’t beat San Francisco or LA either, both teams will stifle the bats and put together rallies.
Money and perks.
Cashman’s got to blame someone for his flawed roster.
Yankees should broom out both Cashman and Boone.
The roster is a mess and has holes
The Defense needs improving.
The starting pitching has been mediocre for years.
Too many beer league softball players on the team etc…
Fix the mess in the Bronx!
Yeah, it’s all Marcus’ fault. He should’ve taught Judge and Stanton how to hit from the left side, back in April, when he found out that he’s gonna have an all righty hitting lineup for the next 4 months.