00:00Joel Sherman back with three up and the New York baseball season is now done.
00:04The Mets didn't make it to the playoffs. The Yankees survived seven games.
00:08They lose three games to one to the Toronto Blue Jays in the division series.
00:13The total run differential suggested that the Blue Jays really blew out the Yankees in this series.
00:20But it felt like there were certainly games, including game four, that the Yankees had a shot to win that they didn't.
00:26Instead, let's start here with number one.
00:30This is the 16th straight year the Yankees have gone without a championship.
00:33There's teams that have gone a lot longer, including the team that plays on the other side of the RFK Bridge.
00:39That's the Mets, who haven't won since 1986. The Yankees since 2009.
00:44The Blue Jays, by the way, since 1993, that they move on.
00:49The Tigers since 1984. The Mariners never.
00:52That's who is left in the playoffs in the American League.
00:55For an example, just to give some perspective.
00:57This is not an apology for the Yankees.
01:01Because I will point out that they have now, during the Aaron Boone era, played every team in their division, except for the Orioles in the playoffs.
01:11And they've lost to the other three.
01:13Twice to Boston, once to Tampa, and now once to Toronto.
01:16I get it. It's fickle.
01:20But at some point, it's got to be fickle on your side.
01:22When you have this talent level, when you have this investment, and when you have this history, there's got to be a moment where it's your time.
01:31And I'll lean on something that Giancarlo Stanton said.
01:34I think he's as sage a person as the Yankees have in their clubhouse.
01:38He doesn't just talk in cliches about the special group and special players who we thought could do special things.
01:45He said, you know, over the course of the long season, you can get some stuff wrong.
01:51And if you're talented enough, over 162, you'll win.
01:56But with the short life of the playoffs, when the big moments come to you, you've got to succeed.
02:03And can I argue, as much as the Blue Jays had a dominance on the final score,
02:10if Aaron Judge has a big at-bat like he did in Game 3 and Game 1 with the bases loaded and no out,
02:17and the Yankees trailing 2-0 and able to get their better relievers in the game if they score a lot of runs that inning,
02:24can they steal Game 1?
02:25Game 2, Max Fried was their ace this year and pitched great down the stretch and then just completely fell apart in Game 2.
02:34Didn't give them a chance, and obviously they were dominated by Yesavich.
02:39And if Jazz Chisholm turns the double play in the 7th inning and keeps a 2-1 game
02:44instead of allowing the Blue Jays to break way ahead and kind of make this obvious that they were going to advance,
02:52does something happen?
02:52The Yankees, more than the Blue Jays, didn't have the big moments.
02:58Aside from Judge in specific and the team in Game 3, it was a lot like the World Series last year.
03:05The Dodgers, you know, the Yankees didn't have the big moments.
03:08They won a singular game when they were already facing elimination.
03:12This year, 2-0, last year, 3-0, and then had a chance to win Game 5
03:15and made defensive mistakes that cost them, and Jazz's defensive mistakes certainly cost them yesterday.
03:22So that's what I say for number one.
03:23At some point, it's got to go your way.
03:26Number two, we'll talk a lot about the future when overcoming episodes of three things.
03:36The most obvious thing to say here is I know the feeding frenzy that is going to start on Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone,
03:45and I'm not here to say that they should keep their jobs because at some point they're Supreme Court justices with the Yankees.
03:54They have jobs for life, it seems, and if you wanted to change, you could change.
03:59My thing is always it's easy to fire.
04:02You've got to be certain that you could hire better before you do it.
04:06And I would say that this year that Brian Cashman actually had a very good year transitioning from Juan Soto's team,
04:14you know, the Juan Soto-Aaron Judge team to this.
04:17This was a better version of the Yankees that didn't go as far.
04:20They got a great draw last year with two AL Central teams.
04:23This year's team got these Blue Jays who are clearly better than them and better than the teams they played last year.
04:31So I thought the team, you know, the baseball operations, I thought, generally had no less than a B-plus a year to kind of get them here.
04:41And I don't think this was manager decisions in this series.
04:45I mean, you've got to start Max Freed.
04:48If Max Freed has a good game, they might win the series.
04:51You know, this was the team.
04:54I don't – the most obvious place with Boone is even down five, six runs in game two.
05:01Do you want to try to get in the Blue Jays bullpen and have to try to do better than Will Warren?
05:06Okay, maybe.
05:08But should he have pinch hit for Anthony Volpe down a bunch of runs yesterday?
05:12Okay, sure.
05:13But this didn't feel like manager decision stuff.
05:16This felt like Toronto outplayed them.
05:19The Yankees didn't come close to getting anything from the chorus like Varsho, Kirk, and certainly Ernie Clement.
05:27Is that manager?
05:28I don't know.
05:30Again, this team loses a lot at this time of year under Aaron Boone to other teams in their division in the Houston Astros and last year the Dodgers.
05:38When the opposition rises, the Yankees don't.
05:41Is that managing?
05:42Is that a failure in team construction by Cashman?
05:46Maybe.
05:46I thought this was a pretty good team.
05:49I didn't think it was manager issues.
05:51I understand what's coming.
05:53This is the game.
05:55I also believe what's coming is Hal Steinbrenner is going to stay status quo with his – who's running his baseball operations and who's managing.
06:02But let's stay tuned on that.
06:04We haven't heard from Hal yet.
06:05Number three, again, we'll do a lot moving forward in the coming days.
06:09But just deal with a reality here.
06:13When next season begins, Gary Cole will be 34.
06:17Aaron Judge will turn 35 in April.
06:21And John Carlos Stanton will be 36.
06:23For more than anyone, those are the faces of this era, Judge in particular, because he's been here since 2017, predates those guys, predates even Aaron Boone by the year.
06:35And they're getting older, and the sands of time are running out for this group to do something special.
06:42Who knows what Cole is post-Tommy John surgery in his mid-30s.
06:48I wouldn't bet against him.
06:49He's a baseball savant pitcher, very motivated, and historically pretty great pitcher.
06:55Will he get it back?
06:56I don't know.
06:58Stanton had double elbow situations this year.
07:01He's a big guy who breaks down a little every year, at least, and misses time.
07:06What do you got?
07:07Judge is still great, but at some point, that's going to stop.
07:11It's just the history of the game.
07:12You don't keep going at this level forever.
07:16He probably will win another AL MVP at worst finish second.
07:20But those are the three guys.
07:22They kind of built their payroll and the team around in a lot of ways.
07:27And it has continually fallen short at this time of year.
07:31There's been a baton pass from the end of the Core 4 era, you know, with this thing beginning in 2010, where the Yankees haven't won.
07:41And Core 4 handed off pretty much to kind of the judge era.
07:46And it's 16 years without getting this done.
07:49There's a lot of soul searching that obviously has to be done.
07:53There's some roster reconstruction, especially because they have some key free agents, Cody Bellinger, Trent Grisham, Devin Williams, Luke Williams.
08:00And they're going to have to make some decisions.
08:07What will Hal Steinberg do with the payroll?
08:10Again, I'll be doing these for a while.
08:13And we'll get into all of this.
08:16Right now, though, we have to talk about the very unsweet 16.
08:21That is 16 straight seasons of kind of mainly getting to October every year.
08:27And every year having a clubhouse have to talk about special players, special teams, but not doing the special thing, which is getting the 28th championship.
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