Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- The Yankees have repeated the same organizational mistakes throughout the prime years of one of baseball's elite hitters.
- Ownership has shifted focus from tradition to branding while tolerating managerial stagnation and player accountability failures.
- A critical leadership decision elevated Aaron Judge over proven vocal presence, leaving the franchise stuck in a cycle of near-misses.
You have to give the New York Yankees credit for mastering consistency to the level that they have during the Aaron Judge era. The summer swoons, over-reliance on struggling players, and overall lack of organizational awareness are a mainstay of any Yankees season. It’s honestly remarkable how the more things are supposed to change, the more they’ve actually managed to stay the same.
Although Judge remains indefinitely out with a rib injury, the Yankees are on pace to make the playoffs for the eighth time in Aaron Boone’s nine seasons. But if you’ve tuned in at any point during that time, then you already know how this goes.
The most significant failures of the Yankees’ last decade only have so much to do with contracts or trades. Those are cop-out answers that take away from the true flaws that have derailed a franchise that, frankly, lives on the lie that this is the year that things change.
The Yankees have chosen to forget their history
This is itself worthy of its own deep dive, because it speaks to a bigger problem of how Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine seemingly view the Yankees as a brand more than a tradition-rich organization.
Ownership removed the facial hair policy because they felt it could scare potential free agents away. The manual scoreboards, which were a throwback to the old stadium’s pre-renovation days, have been replaced with digital screens and tickers. We even learned earlier this year that the Yankees have an alternate uniform, though they’re still yet to debut it.
Maybe I’m biased because I grew up a Yankees fan during the Core Four years. I still have a photo of me at the final game at the old Yankee Stadium in September 2008. You know that I was young because I was actually smiling in the photo.
The pinstripes are supposed to mean something. George Steinbrenner took any loss, even an early-season nail-biter, as a personal insult, during the Joe Torre years. But the Yankees have chosen to become just another franchise and accept being one of 30. That’s perhaps the greatest tragedy of the last decade.
Allowing the Aaron Boone show to go on this long
If we’re being objective, the first time that the Yankees really should have considered a managerial change was after the 2023 season. They’d already given Judge the long-term contract he’d been seeking, and the Baby Bomber era was all but over. It was time for a new voice.
By that point, Boone had been the manager for six seasons, and the Yankees had never reached the World Series. The only season he should have gotten a pass for was the 2020 COVID season. Had the Yankees fired Boone after 2023, his legacy would have been as a fine regular-season manager who couldn’t get it done in October. So be it.
Instead, the Yankees opted to maintain the status quo. And while I refuse to subscribe to the revisionist history about Joe Girardi, I find it impossible to understand how the Yankees are content with Boone only reaching the World Series once in eight seasons.
Girardi got the benefit of the doubt and some breathing room because he won his title early. And speaking of Girardi…
The Yankees have no sense of accountability or responsibility
Honestly, Boone’s loyalty to his players is to be admired. But it’s been the same story with Gary Sánchez, Anthony Volpe, Devin Williams, and many others. Boone refuses to bench or demote those who should no longer have major roles.
Compare that to Girardi, who famously called out a young Sánchez over his defense. Off the top of my head, the only egregious instance of Girardi being unreasonably stubborn was sticking with Stephen Drew at second base in 2015. Let’s not forget when he pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez during the 2012 playoffs or how he benched franchise icon and former teammate Jorge Posada in 2011. Keeping Derek Jeter hitting second during his 2014 retirement tour is a far different conversation.
Girardi wasn’t afraid to make the “difficult” moves. Boone chooses not to, and it doesn’t help that Judge seemingly isn’t involved in that process either. What has Volpe done to still be the everyday shortstop? Boone insists on using struggling reliever Camilo Doval in high-pressure situations.
So we’ve acknowledged that Steinbrenner, Cashman, and Boone all deserve blame for wasting the Judge era. But there’s one more figure who doesn’t deserve a pass:
Aaron Judge never should have been named captain
Judge has been a phenomenal regular-season player and is a Hall of Fame lock. But being an elite hitter and perennial MVP candidate isn’t what makes you a captain — or, at least, it shouldn’t.
Jeter wasn’t afraid to speak the hard truth sometimes, even if it involved other players. Brett Gardner and CC Sabathia were de facto captains, and it became quickly apparent that Judge couldn’t come anywhere close to their leadership presence when both. I don’t fault Judge for accepting the captaincy. That said, the Yankees should have never offered him the position. All he had done to earn it by was hitting home runs and becoming the face of the team.
But Albert Pujols was the face of the Cardinals, and he was never the captain. The same goes for Mike Trout and the Angels, or Dustin Pedroia and the Red Sox.
Like I said, these are the real problems of the Aaron Judge era. We could nitpick about the DJ LeMahieu contract aging poorly or Giancarlo Stanton’s inability to stay healthy, but those kinds of moves come with the territory.
When the major figures of a franchise fail at such a systemic level, it’s hard to win a championship. Not even a future Hall of Famer can carry you that far.
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