About The Off-Season: Full Steam Ahead on the Titanic

About The Off-Season: Full Steam Ahead on the Titanic

By Tim Kabel

November 7, 2026

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The Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009. Aaron Boone will now be entering his 10th season as manager of the Yankees without winning a World Series. He has achieved less with more for longer than anyone in the history of the franchise.  The Yankees decided not to fire Aaron Boone at the end of the 2026 season. They did not extend him either, but he will be there, at least to begin the season. Who knows what will happen when the Yankees enter their inevitable Boone-Swoon. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “The only certain things in life are death, taxes, and the Boone-Swoon.”

So, Brian Cashman will be the Yankees general manager, having signed a new contract. Aaron Boone will be the manager for at least some portion of 2027. The Yankees are plowing forward with the same group in charge. It appears that the coaching staff will remain the same as well. There is some thought that Brad Ausmus may get a managerial job. If that happens, the Yankees will have to fill his spot. One thing we do know is they won't be filling it with Shelley Duncan.

Many of us here at SSTN, including me, were advocating for Shelley Duncan to be promoted. Ideally, he would have taken over for Aaron Boone but since Boone seems to have a stranglehold on the managerial job, it would have been more likely for the Yankees to make Duncan one of their coaches. They didn't do that. That was a mistake. An even bigger mistake was allowing Duncan to join the Major League coaching staff of the Boston Red Sox.

I ascribe no blame to Shelley Duncan whatsoever. He was offered a chance to coach on the Major League level. Why wouldn't he take the job? I'm sure the Yankees knew what was happening. They had the opportunity to make a counter offer to keep Duncan in the fold. They definitely should have done that. They didn't.

Now, there is the possibility that Duncan will coach with the Red Sox for one season and if Boone is dismissed after failing to win yet another World Series, Duncan could be brought back from the Red Sox, since becoming a manager would be a promotion. That is iffy at best.

What if Duncan likes it with the Red Sox? What if the Red Sox struggle and make Duncan the manager at some point during the 2027 season? The point is that the Yankees had an asset and someone who had worked with their younger players who would have been a worthy addition to their coaching staff. That would have also put him in the prime position to be the replacement for Aaron Boone should the Yankees decide to fire him at some point during the 2027 season. Yet the Yankees did what they always do. Nothing. They let Duncan go to their arch nemesis. Actually, these days, the Yankees have more nemeses than Batman.

There has not been much activity on the trade or free agent fronts in the Major Leagues thus far. I expect that there may well be a flurry of activity in the next few weeks, as teams are playing Beat the Clock in regard to the impending lockout. It is unclear if the Yankees will be participants in such activities. The last time this happened, at the end of the 2021 season, the Yankees did next to nothing. When it comes to moving quickly in these situations, the Yankees have become a three-toed sloth. 

I just read that the Yankees seem very likely and willing to go into the 2027 season with Giancarlo Stanton on the roster, penciled in at as the designated hitter. That is a somewhat foolish stance for the Yankees to take in my opinion. The only thing that is definite with Stanton is that he is incapable of playing a full season. Last year, he only appeared in 24 regular season games. Each year, Stanton seemingly plays fewer and fewer games. That would work out to about 15 games in 2027. The Yankees seem to be fine with that. Apparently, they just can't let go. It appears that the Yankees believe they will be paying Stanton, so they might as well keep him on the roster and see what he can do. Well, considering that he injured both legs last season, including one time when he hurt himself jogging to second base and another time when he injured himself while already on the IL, we know that Stanton cannot do much. The Yankees seem to be hoping that this year will be different and that in his final year, (unless they pick up the option in 2028), Stanton will play in a lot of regular season games and put up great numbers. He won't. A clean break would have made the most sense but as noted many times, making sense is not what the Yankees do lately.

I also read that the Yankees are considering moving Cody Bellinger, who won the Gold Glove in leftfield, to centerfield, and then doing Lord knows what with Spencer Jones. A few weeks ago, it seemed likely that the Yankees were going to have Spencer Jones play centerfield, sandwiched between Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge. Now, who knows what they will do. Why would the Yankees shift Bellinger back to centerfield after he just won the Gold Glove in leftfield and move Jones to either leftfield or the bench? Because it doesn't make sense, that's why.

Another rumor that I just heard was that the Yankees may be willing to keep Ryan McMahon at third base for one more year because he is under contract. Well, he is dreadful. They don't need to keep a dreadful player under on the team simply because he is still under contract. Think back to Aaron Hicks and DJ LeMahieu. McMahon needs to go and the Yankees need to get someone else to play third base. They may not be inclined to do so.

It's as if the Yankees are trying to sail around the world in a hot air balloon that has many leaks in it. Rather than getting a new balloon or fully repairing all the leaks, the Yankees are keeping their fingers crossed and blowing very hard up into the balloon. That won't work.

The Yankees are the Titanic, heading for that iceberg. Rather than slowing down, changing direction or something that would make sense, the Yankees are moving full steam ahead right into the iceberg. How did that work out for the real Titanic?