About The Off Day: Meanderings of My Mind

About The Off Day: Meanderings of My Mind

By Tim Kabel

May 15, 2026

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The Yankees just finished a road trip against the Brewers and the Orioles in which they went 1-5. After an off day, they will open a three-game series at Citi Field against the Mets tonight. Then, they will play the Blue Jays and the first-place Rays. Yes, that's right. The Rays are in first place, not the Yankees. Since I don't have a game to recap today, I will now move from topic to topic as if I was a woodchuck rushing from plant to plant in a vegetable garden, gorging myself silly.

·      The 2026 baseball season is still young. However, earlier in the season, the Yankees were white hot. They had an 8-game winning streak. Very recently, they swept a 4-game series from the Orioles at home. Then, last week they went to Milwaukee. They were swept by the Brewers before going to Baltimore and losing two of three games to the same team they swept a week earlier. The Yankees went 1-5 on that road trip. The Yankees are in second place right now, two games behind the Tampa Bay Rays. As hot as the Yankees were and as good as the Yankees were, the Rays were better. That has to be frustrating for Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone, and everyone else affiliated with the Yankees. During the loss on Wednesday, Max Fried left the game early due to problems with his pitching elbow. He was set to undergo tests yesterday. As I am writing this, there has been no information regarding Fried and his status. The fact that it is a concern is a concern. Again, this was a situation where the Yankees apparently knew about this for a few starts but said nothing. Whether there was anything said or done internally is unknown. However, it seems as if once again, the Yankees waited until it reached a potential crisis situation to have the player evaluated. If this turns out to be a situation where Fried is fine and misses maybe one start, that won't be an issue. However, if this losing streak that the Yankees are on also coincides with them losing Fried for any significant period of time, that will be a major issue.

·       As I have written many times, I took a disability retirement from my job of 30 years with the State of Connecticut Department of Children and Families. The primary issue was edema, which prevented me from going into the office. I require nursing services three times a week to change the dressing on my legs. I also have some mobility issues and require the use of a walker or a cane. If it's uneven surfaces or an area I'm not familiar with, I go with the walker because that gives me greater confidence. However, I have been making a lot of effort to improve my situation. I receive regular treatment at a wound center for the edema and yesterday, they began applying skin grafts using reclaimed placenta tissue. The hope and expectation are this will lead to my final wound healing. I won't have any idea if it's effective until at least two or three weeks from now. In the meantime, I have completed approximately 150 sessions of virtual physical therapy. I also do my own exercises every day. I have added in weightlifting under the supervision of my younger son, who is a bodybuilder and an exercise science major in college. Until recently, I couldn't sit in low chairs because with my arthritic knees and replaced hips, it was difficult for me to get up. Well, all that physical therapy and exercise I have been doing combined with the seventy pounds I have lost have paid off. I am now able to use the office chair I bought for my home office a few years back but could never use. It's all about consistent effort and progress headed in the right direction. Sometimes I look at the exercises or the weightlifting I do and think that it's insignificant. It's not. It all adds up. My point is that if I can do this, anyone can. If you are thinking about doing some type of exercise program or any other activity designed for self-improvement, my advice is to get started as soon as possible and stick with it.

·      I have decided that as a tribute to the late John Sterling, I will include a Broadway play or show tune reference and one example of “that's baseball, Suzyn” in every game recap I write for the season. I started it with my last one.

·      On the topic of Yankees radio broadcasts, I have been listening to the games on the radio a lot lately. This is the second year of Dave Sims working in the booth alongside Suzyn Waldman. Susan Waldman is fine. Matching her with John Sterling was a stroke of genius. They may not have been perfect, but they were an entertaining listen, and you knew they cared. To me, Dave Sims seems contrived and gimmicky. His interjecting of “hey now” reminds me of a 1960’s radio disc jockey. Occasionally when Sims is off, Ricky Ricardo substitutes for him. I find him to be a much more entertaining broadcaster. I hope that when Sims’s contract is up, the Yankees replaced him with Ricky Ricardo. If they need to bring Fred Mertz in too, that would be fine.

·       Over the past few weeks, I have been waking up in the middle of the night with discomfort in my chest. At first, I thought I was having some type of a heart malfunction. It turns out that my year-and-a-half-old Maine Coon cat, Clancy, has decided that the best place to sleep in the whole house is on top of my chest. I have no intention of discouraging him from this activity because it is a sign of deep affection.

·      The Yankees offense remains a problem. They currently have three regulars batting under .200, Ryan McMahon, Trent Grisham, and Austin Wells. In addition, Jazz Chisholm, Jr. is batting 203. For all the hoopla regarding Ryan McMahon's recent surge, the end result is that he is batting .196 with three home runs and thirteen RBI. That is basically four players of the nine in the starting lineup who are abysmal offensive players right now. A few people have lumped Jasson Dominguez into that category as well but realistically, he had just come up from the minors and although he was batting .200, he only had a total of 30 at bats and missed some playing time as a result of being plunked by Nathan Eovaldi. Once Dominguez returns from the IL, he should be able to put up respectable numbers. Similarly, Spencer Jones has only had 12 at bats on the Major League level. Let's give him just a bit more time to get adjusted.

·      Let's face facts. Anthony Volpe was promoted recently not on merit but out of necessity. He was barely hitting above .200 in Scranton. In his first game back on Wednesday, he was 0-3 with an error. Basically, he was in mid-season form. I suppose you could justify playing Volpe as the regular shortstop if he was a defensive wizard. He's not. I saw some footage of him while he was in the minors and his fielding was still shoddy and he made a crucial base running blunder. The reality is that after three full seasons in the Major Leagues, Anthony Volpe is not a very good baseball player. I suspect that the Yankees will be moving on from him at some point. They definitely should. Reportedly, Aaron Boone has said that when Jose Caballero returns from the IL, he will resume being the starting shortstop. That should definitely be the case. Just because Boone is saying that now, does not mean that it will happen. Boone has been extremely stubborn when it comes to playing certain individuals over the years. Boone seems to be particularly confident in his ability to choose lineups and assess the ability of his players. Considering that he has managed the Yankees longer than anyone else without winning a World Series, I'm not sure how he reached that conclusion. I could easily envision a scenario in which Volpe has a minuscule hot streak over a two or three-game stretch, and Boone uses that as a justification for keeping him as the starter and benching Caballero when he returns.

·      I have long been a proponent for the Yankees to give their young players opportunities. Other than Anthony Volpe, Aaron Boone has been reluctant to do this unless he had no other option. However, when a youngster proves over a sustained period that he is not a very good player, then that player should be replaced. That certainly applies to Anthony Volpe, who definitely should be replaced in the short-term with Jose Caballero and in the long-term quite possibly with George Lombard, Jr., if not directly at shortstop at least in the lineup. The same applies to Austin Wells. Austin Wells came up touted as a potential offensive juggernaut who would struggle defensively as a catcher. The reality has been quite the opposite. He is a top-notch defender and a completely underwhelming offensive player. Wells operates in what I would describe as a reverse slump. In other words, all great players have slumps. They are productive hitters throughout most of the season but every now and then, they hit a streak over a few games or perhaps more during which they struggle mightily at the plate. What Wells does is the exact opposite. Throughout most of the season, he is mediocre at best as an offensive player. On rare occasions, he has hot streaks. They don't last long. This is why it is a reverse slump. I think the Yankees need to move on from Wells and Volpe. They were given more than enough chances to show improvement. They did not. It is now time for the Yankees to move on from them. That does not mean the Yankee should not give opportunities to young players. Ben Rice, and Cam Schlittler have excelled, and Will Warren has developed into a solid starting pitcher. I believe that if Jasson Dominguez is given a solid run at playing every day once he returns from the IL, he will do the same. The point is that the young players deserve an opportunity. They don't deserve a blank check.