Hal Steinbrenner finally realizes just being the Yankees isn't enough anymore
Hal Steinbrenner, chairman and managing general partner of Yankee Global Enterprises, looks on during retired New York Yankee Paul O'Neill's number retirement ceremony before a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays on Aug. 21, 2022, in New York. Credit: AP/Corey Sipkin
PHILADELPHIA -- Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t have his dad’s fire-first, ask-questions-later mentality, so the Yankees’ owner saying Wednesday that the team’s recent Tampa meetings got “heated” is the most Boss-like behavior he can muster.
It’s nowhere near enough.
What Steinbrenner described to Newsday’s Neil Best was a Yankees group therapy session. Hugging it out seems woefully inadequate in this situation. We get why GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone still have jobs, despite Steinbrenner spending a franchise record $294 million for 82 wins. All it did was buy him more time for apple picking this October.
But we’re going to need some concrete solutions in the wake of these Tampa tough-love sessions, whether they come through some front-office shuffling, stale-salary eating or opening his wallet this winter. It’s entirely possible that Steinbrenner lit the fuse for a few seismic changes in the near future. The Yankees should be smart enough to realize business as usual blew up in their faces this season. If these Steinbrenner-sparked discussions lead to significant movement, we’ll consider that progress.
“It was very respectful, but it did get heated at times,” Steinbrenner told Newsday, “and that’s good as long as some constructive things come out of that, and I think they will.”
The Yankees failed across the board in missing the playoffs for only fifth time in Cashman’s 25-year tenure, and narrowly avoided their first losing season since 1992. They ranked among MLB’s worst teams in a number of key offensive categories and had the third-most players on the IL along with days lost to injury, costing them $81 million, by far the highest sick pay in baseball.
At some point, these numbers represent more than just bad luck. And Steinbrenner, who vowed to seek answers at season’s end, needs to come up with a few. He told Newsday that a “hundred” topics were discussed by a group that included among them Cashman, Boone and two of his nephews involved in the organizational decision-making process.
Hearing this, it’s only natural to ask if these same people, year after year, are still the right people to handle these decisions. Sitting around spit-balling in a Tampa conference room gives the impression of being productive, but if the personnel doesn’t change, can real progress happen? Steinbrenner apparently believes that Cashman & Co. will figure things out — or after a quarter century together, is simply more fearful of the unknown.
Steinbrenner isn’t just trusting Cashman this time, however. He also mentioned his Tuesday sit-down with Aaron Judge at Yankee Stadium, a meeting that the Yankees’ captain alluded to before the regular season wrapped up. Enlisting Judge as a $360-million consultant shouldn’t be all that surprising — he’s Steinbrenner’s highest-paid employee, and his opinion should carry significant weight.
We already know that Judge is a big Boone fan. He’s rallied to the manager’s defense plenty of times. Where Judge stands on Cashman, however, feels a bit more up for debate. The relationship chilled considerably when the contract negotiations got frosty — before Hal’s final intervention — and Judge also has spoken recently about the team having to improve their analytics methodology.
Not that Judge is entirely blameless, either. While the banged-up toe was a freak injury, caused by the cement base of a Dodger Stadium fence, to hear Judge express concern over the team’s “level of urgency” is a team deficiency that falls under his jurisdiction as captain. The Yankees can’t get by on just being the Yankees anymore. Not when they haven’t even been to a World Series since 2009, their last title. Judge provides the MVP-caliber production, but also has to fill the clubhouse void left by the likes of Derek Jeter, CC Sabathia and even Brett Gardner.
“To have a captain that I can really talk to that is a true leader of the team and respected by young players, veterans, everybody, it’s a benefit, because you have to get their perspective,” Steinbrenner said. “It’s good to have that sounding board. Gerrit Cole, same thing.”
Cole has done his part. As this year’s presumptive Cy Young winner, he’s continuing his run as one of the more durable and dominant pitchers in the sport, making Cole almost underpaid at $324 million. Cole’s insight also should be valuable to Hal regarding this season’s autopsy. It’s just a matter of the owner acting on all this intel he’s collecting.
Last winter, Steinbrenner was able to solve the Yankees’ most pressing issue by writing a gigantic check to Judge. This time around, it’s not so simple. A late-night phone call from Italy won’t get it done. If Steinbrenner refuses to make any headline-worthy changes to his management group, they’ll have to justify his faith in a system that has gradually corroded. The Yankees can no longer point to a track record that didn’t even get them to the playoffs this year.
Steinbrenner finally has come to that realization, and he sounded confident after the Tampa meetings that “everything they wanted to say got said.” But those are merely words. The Yankees have plenty to prove in the coming months, and that’s going to require a lot more than conversation, heated or otherwise.
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.
