[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

I'm not denying that the Jays had the better team. (You were down to your final 3 outs and you had Amed Rosario at bat. I rest my case.)

But when you traded for Devin, I seriously doubt that Cashman envisioned him as an unreliable 7th inning guy. So that's a notable downward spiral in one case.

Feast your eyes on this, from The Athletic, then see my comments afterward:

Why Yankees just wasted a golden opportunity they’ll never get back

By Ian O'Connor



Buck Martinez, the silver-haired broadcaster of the Toronto Blue Jays, was a popular man while wheeling his luggage out of Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night.

As Martinez made his way toward the bus, team staffers were hugging him and congratulating him as if he had just blasted a couple of home runs to send Toronto to the ALCS.

“You were proven right, Buck,” one shouted.

“They f—– it up, didn’t they?” Martinez responded.

Yes, the New York Yankees did all of that on their way out the October door.

An old-school major-league catcher from the 1970s and ’80s, Martinez had made this declaration about Toronto’s divisional rival on a broadcast last month: “They’re not a good team.” Manager Aaron Boone contested that claim before the Division Series, maintaining that his Yanks are “a really good team.” He said of Martinez: “He’s wrong.”

As it turned out, Boone was the one who was wrong.

“I never said it for any satisfaction other than I just thought (the Yankees) made a lot of mistakes,” Martinez told The Athletic. “And in these games, mistakes will kill you.”

Mistakes like the one Jazz Chisholm Jr. made in the seventh inning of Game 4, when he kicked a double-play ball into the outfield and helped Toronto turn a 2-1 lead into a 4-1 lead and, eventually, a 5-2 victory that ended yet another Yankees season painfully short of a ticker-tape parade.

“Turned the game around,” Martinez said. “And that’s what this team, Toronto, doesn’t do. Last night (Game 3) was uncharacteristic.

“I didn’t say what I said about the Yankees to be correct. I said what I thought was in my heart. Milwaukee and the Blue Jays play baseball like we used to play it.”

And the Yankees do not.

Truth be told, Boone indicted his club in advance. Before the start of the Wild Card Series with Boston, the manager said the 2025 Yankees were the very best of the seven teams he led to the playoffs.

Better than the team he took to last year’s World Series.

Good enough, in other words, to win the whole thing.

Judge agreed with Boone’s assessment that this 2025 team was better than the 2024 team that included Juan Soto.

However, Giancarlo Stanton, usually a reliable postseason weapon, provided next to nothing this time around, assuming Judge’s old October role. Trent Grisham and Chisholm were alarmingly quiet. Anthony Volpe was a strikeout machine at the bottom of the order. The starting pitchers not named Cam Schlittler were a problem, and Devin Williams spent Game 4 returning to his wayward ways.

If nothing else, Ryan McMahon played his butt off on both sides of the ball.

In the end, the Yankees just wasted another year of Judge’s prime at the worst possible time — when there was no team in the American League, Toronto included, that should’ve represented a serious threat to them.

Judge will turn 34 in April, when Boone will be starting his ninth year on the job. He is a good manager, not a great one, and at some point, someone with the last name of Steinbrenner has to ask:

When is good no longer good enough?

While all but assured of going down among the five greatest Yankees of all time, Judge is also in danger of becoming a tragic franchise figure. If he never wins a championship ring, Judge will end up as a New York, New York cross between another Big Fella, Patrick Ewing and the old Yankees superstar who was bouncing barechested around the winners’ clubhouse hugging people — Toronto bench coach Don Mattingly.

Across the way, in his Groundhog Day news conference after another early exit, Boone talked and talked about how connected his players were as a group. However, if clubhouse chemistry doesn’t show up on the field, well, who really cares?

Boone did say that he is confident the Yankees will break through before adding, “I have been every year.”

And every year, that confidence has been misplaced.

“It’s hard to win the World Series,” the manager said. “I’ve been chasing it all my life.”

The chase this year should have landed the Yankees in the Fall Classic. They had a favorable draw and, for the first time, they had their superstar slugger peaking in the playoffs.

However, in a bid to save their season in Game 4, they came out flat and threw it all away. This golden opportunity lost is one that the 2025 New York Yankees will take to their graves.

Now, you talk about a guy like Ahmed Rosario coming to bat in the ninth with the season on the line. I will counter that with this stat: Anthony Volpe, the Yankees' supposed shortstop of the 21st century (clue: they will not be retiring uniform number 11 for him, ever) who regressed in 2025 and struggled to stay above .200 all season, went 1 for 15 in the ALDS with 11 strikeouts. 11 strikeouts! But he keeps going out there, just like Luke Weaver, the guy who they thought would make up for dumpster fire Devin Williams and who turned in a 135.0 ERA for the playoffs (yes, the decimal point is in the right place).

But there is more that I need to say. This story is so typical; every year for 16 years now, it's been the same thing. The Yankees failed to meet the elevated expectations of its spoiled fans and the media feasts upon it. I am sick of it. Maybe if they did NOT have such ludicrous expectations to win a championship every year, they would perform better.

I am starting to feel like this guy: I Love New York, Except for the Yankees. It's part of what has been happening to me recently and you've probably seen references to it in other threads. Just as I am moving away from the Yankees (overhype, unrealistic expectations followed by grandiose displays of shock and dismay; stupid spoiled fans, Aaron Boone), I have left the football Giants (too many losing seasons, bad draft choices, stupid penalties and plays, inept management on-field and off) and the Knicks (ditto, but especially, especially the firing of Tom Thibodeau after he finally turned things around but made the mistake of not fulfilling the ultimate expectation).

Here, I will give you a visual clue. I just started a new league in OOTP. Note whom I am playing and note the nickname of the team in New York.



So I may have to start correcting you when you use the pronouns "you" and "your" to me in conjunction with the New York Yankees.