Random Night Open Thread – for a rainy day Part Trois

So, as a long time Yankees fan, I’ve noticed a trend lately.

The star free agents they obtain come over and generally have some success, (hell, Gerrit Cole won a Cy Young), but never quite to the level they played at before, and they tend to get hurt, (Cole), or leave, (Juan Soto).

Other free agents, (looking at you Paul Goldschmidt) are basically playing out the string, were obtained on the cheap, and aren’t really doing much, but that’s what you paid for.

The players obtained through trades (Devin Williams, every reliever they just got at the deadline, Jazz Chisholm) come over and immediately forget every single thing that made them good at baseball before they got to New York.

The home grown players, with the notable exception of Aaron Judge, (and even he’s rapidly becoming just another Mike Trout, and I don’t mean that as a compliment), are at best average, (Ben Rice, and I’m being pretty generous there), or actually terrible, (Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe).

Their manager, the increasingly beleaguered Aaron Boone, has obviously been terrible at his job pretty much from the start, but can’t get fired no matter what. And quite honestly the most recent debacles can’t be blamed on him, other than that he sets the tone for the club, and that tone is that there’s no accountability for anything, so fuck fundamentals, go out there and make 6 errors and run the bases like a drunk trying to get away from the cops with his pants at half mast and his pecker in his hand, and damn the consequences because there will never be any.

Yes, Aaron Boone should be fired, and should have been fired 3-4 seasons ago. Yes, Jazz Chisholm should have been benched for general dipshittery multiple times this season. Yes, Anthony Volpe should have been sent back to AAA until he learns to field a two-hopper without acting like the ball’s made of uranium, and to throw the ball to first base on less than two hops. Yes, DJ Lemahieu should be DFA’d, and…oh wait, they actually did that, just a season too late.

The point being, the Yankees aren’t the Yankees anymore. They’re an income source, probably the only income source, for three families of Steinbrenners, and until that changes, (i.e. the Steinbrenners sell the team to some Saudi conglomerate for Eleventy Billion Dollars), and the entire current organization is ripped out, root and stem, nothing’s going to change.

Hate the Yankees all you want, but take some solace in the fact that they are unlikely to win another World Series in my lifetime. And even better news, there’s something like 13 Steinbrenner grandkids behind the three kids, so it’s probably going to be several lifetimes.

Oh well Yankees, much like American democracy, you had a good run.