From Bryan Hoch:
Frustration was evident in Carlos Rodón’s body language as he labored through a fatiguing fifth inning, including a 14-pitch battle with Davis Schneider that produced a laughable number of foul balls.
To Rodón’s credit, that exasperation didn’t carry over after his defense let him down during a 40-pitch, four-run frame. The left-hander returned to the dugout cheering for his teammates, hoping for a comeback that never materialized.
Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe committed costly throwing errors that led to runs as the Yankees’ struggles north of the border continued in Monday night’s 4-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.
“Our goal is to not only win this division, but to go out there and get a chance to go to the World Series,” Rodón said. “It’s tough. They’re playing good baseball right now; obviously, you can tell. They strung together some really good at-bats.”
You KNOW it’s bad when even the Yankees.com headlines are negative, and not, like, “Giancarlo Stanton Crushes a Home Run in Yankees Defeat.”
I mean, this is really the key right here. Toronto doesn’t even have some great offense, but what they have is no real dead spots in their lineup. There’s not this huge breather that other team’s pitchers get like the Yankees’ 7-8-9 guys.
The big problem with regards to changing the Yankees’ #7-8-9 guys is that no team will trade anyone until they absolutely HAVE to, so the Yankees are going to have some extremely shitty hitter in the #9 spot until the end of the month, and that helps the other teams’ pitchers a lot. Here, we saw Rodon have to work EVERY INNING until he finally collapsed in the fifth.
A lot of that is on him, of course, as he should be better than walking their back of the lineup guys, but some of it is Toronto, which is the only team in baseball with a collective batting average over .260.
Kevin Gausman is a weird pitcher. He occasionally can dominate ANY team, so I really don’t even take that much from the Yankees sucking against him, but I DO take issue with stuff like Jazz batting fucking THIRD, and Belli not playing at ALL.
At least Boston and Tampa Bay both lost (Narvaez with the game-losing catchers interference in the 10th).
Featured image is the first of TWO wild throws by Yankee infielders with two outs, that led to a 2-1 Toronto lead becoming a 4-1 Toronto lead. Just disgraceful shit.
Yeah time for another anti/Cashman rant. When do I think he lost it? I’d say after 2012.
1) he let post-season hero Ibanez go and signed Travis hafner instead. Pretty much a dollar for dollar move. And it was a Bad bad move.
2) in 2013 it because clear Cano was going to become a free agent. Rather than trading him for some young players of value he held on and got nothing.
3) after he left he then signed Jacoby Ellsbury. Argh.
To me that’s when he lost it. He’s just an average GM with a gigantic payroll that makes him look better than he is.
I dunno, I think if you look at 2013-16 in a vacuum, as the GM of Team X, to go from that 2013 team to the 2017 team (which basically carries over until today), he managed to completely rebuild a shitty team into a long-lasting very good team without ever bottoming out, while also dealing with bizarrely applied payroll limits (like having to let go of your very good catcher to effectively just go without a catcher for a year in 2013). That’s extremely difficult to do.
It just so happened that the 2017-2023 teams were in the same league as a generational team in Houston (plus one really good Boston team).
They’re literally coming off of a World Series appearance, and this current team, missing its Cy Young-level star pitcher, is still ten games over .500.
That said, sure, some of the moves were bad, like not trading Cano was stupid. Luckily, he traded Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman in 2016, and got a lot of value out of those deals (and his Beltran trade that year got him the guy he traded for Zack Britton).
andrew heaney / joey gallo was awful
donaldson
at some point it’s tough to care about the “wins” like a rp from the pirates, the blunders are just too much.
same with boone.
he managed to completely rebuild a shitty team into a long-lasting very good team without ever bottoming out
I don’t know if that’s some amazing thing. There are teams who are always “rebuilding” but they are also teams who are not committed to ever be fully built because annual profits are more important. But sometimes resets are necessary to clear the roster and re-focus the team composition.
I’m just looking at the last ten championship teams (I could do more, but I do have work to do):
Year/Team/Last Losing Season (years in between)
2024 – LA Dodgers (2010) 15 Years
2023 – Texas Rangers (2022) 1 Year
2022 – Houston Astros (2020) 2 years (*non-COVID season 2014, so 8 years)
2021 – Atlanta Braves (2017) 4 years
2020 – LA Dodgers (2010) 10 Years COVID, but whatever
2019 – Washington Nationals (2011) 8 years
2018 – Boston Red Sox (2015) 3 years
2017 – Houston Astros (2014) 3 years
2016 – Chicago Cubs (2014) 2 years
2015 – Kansas City Royals (2012) 3 years
2014 – San Francisco Giants (2013) 1 year
2013 – Boston Red Sox (2012) 1 year
It’s an interesting factoid that the Yankees haven’t had a losing season since 1992 and at the time it was 17 years since then when the Yankees won in 2009. However, I think this particular stat is more about the Yankees having a higher floor than most every other team. They can afford to keep trying every year and throw money to band-aid a problem instead of focusing on correcting issues.
It was over for me with Cashman in 2017 when he decided not to pursue a trade for Verlander. The Yankees lost to the team that did trade for him in seven games, with Verlander winning two games.
Oh, that was terrible, to be sure, but that was all Hal. Cash wanted Verlander, Hal told him no, as he cost too much, but then after Houston beat the Yankees, Hal then authorized MORE money to get Stanton. That’s what I mean about the ridiculous cap rules they’ve been dealing with. “No to Cano, but yes to Ellsbury, Beltran, and McCann!” I agree with you that that was probably the worst turn of events in that whole era.
I don’t believe a word of it, that Cashman wanted Verlander.
Spencer Jones eval, neither overly optimistic or critical. High ceiling, good Joey Gallo or Matt Wallner Quad A floor. BA just moved him down to their #3 Yankee prospect after Lombard and Schittler despite his monster AAA numbers.
https://www.pinstripealley.com/2025/7/22/24471256/spencer-jones-yankees-milb-prospect-mlb-trade-deadline
I mean, it’s weird, Schlittler obviously looks like a fucking STUD, so I get it, but man, it seems so weird to be not a lot more optimistic about Jones after his AAA stretch. He’s just DESTROYING everything!!
Well, it is a SSS in AAA for Jones, so we’ll see. But sometimes things just click for a player.
Especially when Lombard hasn’t shown any sign he can handle AA
“Sometimes things just click,” Jorge was nothing until age 26, and didn’t get good until a couple of years later. Jose Bautista wasn’t league average until age 28 and didn’t become a star until the following year.
Bautista was a guy using those special shakes.
If they moved phenom to the 2 hole they could go LRLRLR
T Grisham (L) CF
C Bellinger (L) LF
A Judge (R) RF
J Chisholm Jr. (L) 2B
G Stanton (R) DH
B Rice (L) 1B
A Wells (L) C
J Vivas (L) 3B
A Volpe (R) SS