The Yankees suffered another disappointing finish in the postseason, and while there’s plenty of blame to go around, owner Hal Steinbrenner pins it directly on the players, specifically the offense.
Speaking alongside GM Brian Cashman in the team’s end-of-year news conference Wednesday, Steinbrenner on numerous occasions talked about the position players’ failure to perform in the ALDS against the Rays while defending his GM and manager.
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“I don’t think you can pin the season and the unacceptable end to it on Aaron [Boone]. I don’t think you can pin it on [Cashman],” he said. “When you look at the subpar season, that certainly ended in an unacceptable way, is [Boone] really responsible? In the end, the majority of the responsibility, I’ll say it for the fifth time, in my mind, in my opinion, lies with the position players and the inability to score on a consistent basis throughout the course of the entire season, for the most part, and not on the shoulders of Aaron Boone does the blame lie.”
The Yankees (93-68) finished with the second-best record in the American League, but failed to capture the division. Despite injuries to various players throughout the season, including long-term IL stints to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, which Steinbrenner cited, the Yankees finished 11th in MLB in OPS (.720), second in home runs (223), but were 26th in average (.235), 24th in OBP (.311), and 29th in hits (1250).
But that inconsistency permeated into the postseason.
The Yankees scored a combined 18 runs on 26 hits in the two-game sweep, but just five runs on 12 hits in the Rays’ three-game sweep in the ALDS.
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Cashman was asked about the inconsistencies and whether it’s a clubhouse or personnel issue.
“Every day’s different. Every play can cascade into something. We were perfect for two days in the Wild Card Series against a formidable opponent. A few days later…it didn’t happen for us for a lot of different reasons,” Cashman explained. “You have to be consistently playing your best baseball on all sides of the ball, or you’ll be sent home. And that’s what happened that day.
“Our players are prepared, they are wired the right way and they care. Every year is different. The environment in Tampa, we did not perform.”
Boone saw the same inconsistencies this season, and
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“There’s years where we were at times in the year one of the best teams in baseball and you get to the finish line and you’re not that same team,” Boone said. ” At different times this year, the run scoring was a problem for us and proved to be a problem in the Tampa series, too. The Red Sox series we played our best baseball at any time all year, but then got shut down, unfortunately, in three games by the Rays.”
This upcoming season could be make-or-break for Boone and the Yankees. The longtime skipper will be managing on an expiring contract, and there will be potentially hard decisions to make regarding certain position players like Stanton.
But Boone remains confident the organization will continue to work towards the goal of winning the Yankees’ 28th World Series.
“The ending always, obviously, hurts, but that’s being in the arena,” Boone said. “There’s one happy team at the end of the year. That’s what we’re working hard to get back to that point.”
