Carlos Rodón blowing a kiss to Yankees fans after they expressed their displeasure of his performance against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Wednesday at Anaheim is the least of Hal Steinbrenner’s problems along with his inept performance so far.
Neither is the Yankees losing nine of 11 that relegated them to last place in the AL East at 50-47.
No, this is about the future. Where do the Yankees go from here? This is a baseball operation that is rotten to the core right now. The foundation stinks to the point the losing culture seeped in now. Players are playing awful with no consequences and accountability. There’s so much indifference from the team after a loss. Yankees manager Aaron Boone has this tired go-get 'em-tomorrow approach.
It’s been clear this is not just part of the ebb and flow of the season. This has been a constant theme this entire season. This is who they are. It’s getting late now, and reality may have sunk in altogether after hideous post-All-Star break performances against the Colorado Rockies and Angels, who won’t be known as great teams anytime soon.
This is a Yankees team that can’t hit and pitch. They lost their identity altogether since Aaron Judge has been on the injured list. Even when he was healthy, they were mediocre at best. If this is a team that is predicated by Judge, then they are just not a good team. Baseball is not like basketball where one player makes such a difference.
There are no quick fixes. Not even making trades will make a difference at this point. This is who they are. This is why it’s foolish to even think firing Dillon Lawson as the hitting coach would make a difference. His firing came off as desperate at best.
We can blame Yankees general manager Brian Cashman since this is his team. He picked the players that form a lifeless team. He hired a manager that would follow his orders rather than hire a traditional manager who actually manages such as ordering a hit and run or emphasizing bunting or stealing bases or making a pitching change on his own intuition than what the spreadsheet tells him.
We can blame the players since they are not producing, not to mention they are old.
We can blame Boone for his incompetence.
But it starts with Hal Steinbrenner. He is the owner of the team. He controls everything. He hired these people to run his baseball team.
There comes a time he is going to have to be involved and fix what’s wrong with the Yankees. Right now, Cashman has shown he has no idea how to fix what’s ailing the team. Why should anyone trust him to get it right when he hasn’t figured it out in years now?
When the son of George Steinbrenner oversaw the team’s baseball operations, he figured he would be in the background and let this team be run on autopilot with the idea the Yankees general manager knows what he is doing.
The problem is his general manager has lost his way of building a team for a long time ago. Young players such as Anthony Volpe, Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres have failed to develop in the majors. His eye for talent such as Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu played like their best days are behind them. He certainly hasn’t found guys who can pitch whether it’s the bullpen or the starting rotation.
It just could be Cashman’s vision of building a baseball team has been stale. This happens when a general manager has been in the organization for a long time.
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He lost me altogether when he fired Joe Girardi and replaced a manager that has no feel for managing a game in Boone. As tense as Girardi was, he knew how to manage a game and was winning games. His players played for him. It was odd to fire him after he led the team to the 2017 American League Championship Series and lost to the eventual champion Houston Astros in seven games. The smart money would have been to stay the course and let him get a chance to get this team to the World Series the following season.
Instead, the Yankees general manager made a mess of a managerial situation rather than go hire a proven winner like Bruce Bochy. This should have been a sign to the younger Steinbrenner that something was adrift. This is where he had to take control of the situation rather than let his general manager make the decision.
I always wondered if the young Steinbrenner was interested in doing the dirty work that his father would do. Say what you want about George, but he cared and he knew something about baseball. He knew how to hire the right people even when he fired them. Shoot, he would hire, fire and rehire some like Gene Michael and Billy Martin. Whatever it is, he had an eye on getting the right baseball people.
Does George’s son have it in him to even interview candidates or pick the right one to oversee a mess? Does he even have an interest in really running the Yankees?
He knows he can’t keep more of the same next season. The Yankees need more than a managerial change. They need to do housecleaning altogether from the front office to the dugout. This means hiring a new management team. Can he deliver? That’s another question.
Here's the important question of all the questions: Does Hal even want to make a change?
Only he knows.
He also may have to ask if he knows what he has gotten himself into because this is not going to be a quick fix as he thinks it is.
You can read Leslie's Jersey Sporting News columns on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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