Instead of playing in the ALCS on Thursday, the Yankees conducted an autopsy of their season.
With the team bounced from postseason play by the Blue Jays in the ALDS, three men took the press room stage in the bowels of Yankee Stadium as bulldozers and grounds crew employees went to work on the field a level above. First, manager Aaron Boone spoke for just over half-an-hour. Then came general manager Brian Cashman, who came closer to 40 minutes. Both were accompanied by team spokesman Jason Zillo.
Neither were joined by Hal Steinbrenner, so Cashman had to share the Yankees owner’s thoughts and feelings after another season that “failed” to achieve the organization’s “ultimate goal.”
“He’s frustrated, disappointed,” Cashman said. “He wants it. He wants a championship here, another one, for him and his family. So I’ll speak on behalf of Hal and his family. They believed, not just recently, but many times, that we had a chance to do something. But it’s not a given.”
Steinbrenner hasn’t held a press conference since the Yankees ended their longstanding ban on facial hair back on Feb. 21. Even after a 16th consecutive season without a championship — the second-longest streak in Yankees history — Steinbrenner did not attend the postmortem presser that took place Thursday.
That is not a surprise, as Steinbrenner is far less attracted to the spotlight than his late father, George, was. The same goes for rolling heads and publicly putting his employees on blast. Right or wrong, he is not prone to wholesale changes, as evidenced by Boone and Cashman’s continued tenures.
But Cashman insisted that Steinbrenner is upset with this season’s outcome, as well as others. The executive also shared his own dissatisfaction, even as he made it sound as if the Yankees will return with a similar approach and non-playing personnel next season.
“All you can count on is trying to put together a strong process with really good people, try to get as many quality players that care and are committed and can stay healthy and play to the best of their abilities for six months and then into the postseason, and then keep trying to do it again and again and again and again and again,” said Cashman, who chose not to retain a few coaches. “So [Hal is] frustrated because he knows [it’s an] opportunity lost for all of us, whether you’re a player putting the uniform on or you’re in the front office.
“People might get surprised at times: I’m more focused on the ones that got away. Yes, I’ve won some World Series, but there’s a lot of them I feel like we should have won, could have won, but it is tough. It is really difficult to do, and it’s easier to talk through, or what have you. But actually, for those guys in the competition, it’s obviously something that we aspire to do once again and, in some cases, aspire to do for the first time.”
While some teams have suffered for much longer — the Championship Series-contending Mariners and Brewers have never won a World Series — the Yankees’ title drought has lasted eons in Bronx years. They played in and lost the Fall Classic in 2024, but fans have become “frustrated” and “disappointed,” like Steinbrenner is said to be, as the club keeps running it back year after year to no avail.
Cashman’s mention of trying “again and again and again and again and again” will remind fans of that quote about the definition of insanity. But Steinbrenner evidently trusts his people and their methodology, even as he repeatedly invests one of base baseball’s biggest payrolls — though not the largest — on a team that hasn’t won it all since 2009.
“With all that, it doesn’t guarantee the outcome we’re all fighting for, but the guarantee is always that we’re going to be fighting for it,” Cashman said during a lengthy endorsement of Boone. “That’s the one thing that the Steinbrenner family provides for this city, is constantly having a team that you can put forth that you can believe is capable of a championship. That’s the job we’ll be doing once again next year.
“I’d rather be talking about a World Series title right now, but we’re not. But the championship caliber intent is always there.”
