David Lennon: Yankees need to change the narrative, but can they?
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman speaks with members of the media during Major League Baseball's GM meetings on Tuesday in Las Vegas. Credit: AP/John Locher
In the 1950s, with the Yankees coming off six titles in an eight-year span, a comedian quipped that rooting for them "is like rooting for U.S. Steel.”
These days, it feels more akin to cheering for Nvidia. Still a superpower, yes, but a tumbling stock because of self-sabotage, making them a target for cheap shots as well as deeper criticism directed at The Pinstriped Way.
This offseason, it’s been open season on the Yankees. Whether it was Brewers manager Pat Murphy using colorful language to disparage them minutes after clinching the World Series or Jorge Posada’s claims of betrayal, we’ve been witnessing the #LOLBronx recently despite the franchise’s 27th playoff appearance in the past 32 years.
Any team would gladly sign on for an 84% success rate of making the October tournament, but to outsiders, it’s become a source of mockery, primarily because of the 17-year title drought tarnishing the bulk of that historic achievement.
Earlier this month, owner Hal Steinbrenner, general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone did their annual mea culpa — this time on Zoom — but hedged their public apology by pointing to another 93-win season.
Bottom line? The Yankees very much remain a blue-chip stock, a money-making machine with no equal outside of Los Angeles. But from a baseball perspective, they’re also a wounded franchise with a damaged reputation, and restoring the pinstriped glory of yesteryear has become more challenging than anyone could have anticipated.
Certainly Cashman, who presided over the dynasty at the turn of the century, can understand the slippage. He was back in the spotlight this past week at the general managers' meetings, addressing the media for 75 minutes — going well beyond the allotted hour for his MLB colleagues — and didn’t duck the abuse he’s been taking since the Yankees’ early October exit, including the punches he never saw coming.
“We have a history of success that we're always trying to live up to,” Cashman said. “We're having a lot of things that we're always trying to do to the best of our abilities. The most important one is to deliver a championship. So I kind of recognize that. We need to do better. Always. At everything we're trying to attack.
“So do I get upset initially? Yeah. Do I get motivated? Absolutely. Always. I don't need anything to motivate me anymore. I feel like our fans and [the media] keep us motivated enough. And if that doesn't, we've got a cattle prod constantly stuck where you don't want it, nonstop with electrodes going. That keeps you alive.”
The Yankees’ 27 championships are what made the franchise special. The fruitless chase for No. 28 have made them just like anybody else. Since 2009, the Royals and Rays each have been to twice as many World Series as the Yankees’ lone trip in 2024. Never mind the three titles apiece for both the Giants and Dodgers or the two-spot for the Red Sox.
And despite the ultra-rich teams being blamed for the sport’s competitive imbalance, the Yankees have proved themselves incapable of even buying a championship. The Dodgers rode baseball’s highest payroll to back-to-back titles before falling in the NLCS this season, but it was the crafty, resourceful, small-market teams that wound up reaching the World Series, and the Brewers thumped the Rays.
By now, with more than $4 billion spent amassing on-field talent over the past 17 years, you’d think the Yankees would have won a 28th ring by accident. But for all of Cashman’s efforts to adjust to the game’s changing dynamics — investing in larger analytic staffs while maintaining a traditional scouting department — something always seems to be missing.
Aaron Judge didn’t play this October because of injury, but he earned plenty of attention for insisting that Steinbrenner be “all-in” to improve the roster this offseason. The Yankees did spend a franchise-record $340 million on the 2026 club — behind only the Dodgers ($430M) and Mets ($360M) — and none of them was the last team standing. Then again, neither were any of the MLB’s top 20 in payroll.
As for the Yankees being truly “all-in,” agent Scott Boras sided more with Judge’s opinion on the matter.
“I think the answer to that — always — is that you got to compete,” Boras said this past week. “And how you compete in a particular market is something that your performance and results have to be reflective of.
"There are many things about what the Yankees do — I can tell you’ve they’ve done a lot of right things. But on the other side of it, I have to tell you, is that have they achieved what they want to achieve? And you know what, the group of people they have, the ownership they have, they should achieve what they want to achieve. And I’m sure they have to look at that every day and say, I have to do more or I have to do it different. But the one thing I can’t do is I just can’t repeat what I’ve been doing.”
So far, however, it’s been status quo in the Bronx. Boone will be back for his 10th season, the final year of his contract, and Cashman just received a new extension. I’d suggest that neither one has been the problem, but they have yet to create a regular-season bully that doesn’t develop a glass jaw come October.
Until that happens, the Yankees will continue to be a punchline.
Cashman said Murphy called him the day after the World Series to clear up his hot-mic comments to Jake Bauers and added that he also spoke to Posada about the Core Four member feeling persona non grata in the Bronx.
“I’d remind any of our former players . . . that it might look like we’re not checking all the boxes,” Cashman said. “But that’s what losing looks like. It’s as simple as that. And it’s not because the care factor’s not there or the work’s not going on behind the scenes. We’re going to keep pushing at it, and if somebody’s got some good, constructive suggestions of how to get there, I’m open-minded and not shy.”
The Yankees already have gotten an earful this offseason. Now we’ll see how far they go toward changing the narrative.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
