About the Off-Season: Meanderings of My Mind

About the Off-Season: Meanderings of My Mind

By Tim Kabel

December 22, 2025

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The Yankees were eliminated from the postseason in the ALDS, so there will be no more games to recap until March of 2026. The off-season is underway for just about every team except the Yankees, that is. The Yankees really have not done anything significant so far in the off-season. That needs to change soon, or a very long winter could very easily become a very long 2026 season. Since we will have a lot of free time on our hands waiting for Spring Training, I will be able to ponder and speculate about a variety of issues. I will now move from topic to topic as if I was sampling tray upon tray of Christmas cookies. 

·      I'm starting to take this personally. I keep preaching optimism and telling everyone to be patient and that the Yankees will soon make a move. What has happened? Brian Cashman keeps making tiny deals that are completely underwhelming. The latest was the signing yesterday of Paul Blackburn. I had suggested that the Yankees do this at the beginning of the off-season. Unfortunately, I wasn't clear at the time. I viewed this as a minor, complementary move; something to just fill out the roster. Blackburn could be useful at best. He is not a key acquisition. However, for the Yankees in this offseason, that's exactly what he is. Blackburn fits right in with Ryan Yarbrough and Amed Rosario. It's like going to the grocery store to buy a roast for dinner along with potatoes, vegetables, and other items. On that list you have ketchup. If you come home with the roast but forget the ketchup, you can make do easily enough. But if you come home with the ketchup and forget the roast, dinner is not going to be fun. Thus far, the Yankees have just brought home the ketchup.

·      This is going to be a strange Christmas for me. My children are in the Dominican Republic with their mother. Normally, they spend Christmas Eve with her and then Christmas Day with me. Somehow, she unilaterally decided to change that tradition. That's fine. I will see them when they come home, and we will celebrate Christmas on December 27th. My daughter has been living on her own for a couple of years now, so I don't always see her on Christmas. However, this will be the first Christmas that I do not see my sons for the day. While it is true that Clancy is almost as big as they are, it's not the same. My wife's family will be coming on Christmas Day so, if my oven is willing, I will be making two Christmas dinners this year. I'm going to make two types of macaroni and cheese. I have not yet figured out my cheese combinations, but one of them will have chicken with a tangy Buffalo style sauce. The other will have diced pastrami. I have a spiral ham for one of the meals and a beef tenderloin for the other. After all these years, I have finally perfected my mashed potatoes. I now use a potato ricer and in addition to half and half or cream and butter, I use ricotta cheese to give it a very creamy texture.  I'm going to make an extra tray of macaroni and cheese and freeze it because we are having company in early January. I feel like the galloping gourmet even though I haven't galloped in years. I'm sort of the limping gourmet.

·      Munetaka Murakami signed with a Major League team yesterday. Well, sort of. He signed a two-year $34 million contract with the Chicago White Sox. I'm not saying that the Yankees should have signed him. He was not the best fit for them. However, he is better than anyone else they have signed. Think about this, the White Sox have made a bigger splash this off-season than the Yankees. The Yankees biggest move was extending a qualifying offer to Trent Grisham and having him accept it, which many people feel the Yankees did not really want him to do. Regardless, other than bringing back a few marginal roster pieces, such as Ryan Yarbrough Amed Rosario, and now Paul Blackburn, the Yankees have done nothing. They haven't signed anyone of import, and they haven't made any major trades. One could say that the Yankees still have time, which is something I say myself. However, time eventually runs out, unless you are Dick Van Dyke.  The deadlines for both Tatsuya Imai and Kazuma Okamoto are fast approaching. Those are both players who fit the Yankees’ needs much more than Murakami.  It won't matter if the Yankees don't make either player an offer. It's as if the Yankees are playing musical chairs and are about to have no place to sit.

·      In addition to being a Yankees fan, I am also a Jets fan. As frustrating as it is watching the Yankees this offseason, watching the Jets at any time of the year is significantly more frustrating. The Jets are creeping closer to the number one pick in the 2026 draft. Currently, they rank 4th. The Jets are unlikely to win another game and two of the teams ahead of them, the Raiders and the Giants, play each other next week. Although it is extremely difficult to be optimistic about the Jets, the fact that they have two first round draft picks this year and three first round draft picks next year will give them an opportunity to rebuild the franchise. As long as they don't go to Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner for advice, they should be fine.

·      I read an article yesterday that stated that in about 40 at bats in winter ball, Jasson Dominguez was batting less than .200. The conclusion of the article was that this should convince the Yankees to run out and sign Kyle Tucker. Many people feel that Kyle Tucker would not be a good fit for the Yankees, as he would be extremely expensive and would also demand a very long contract. The Yankees do not need to be saddled with such a contract. Also, I think that's going a bit overboard into Chicken Little territory. We have no idea how Dominguez looked, or what he was working on or anything else other than the raw stats. Besides, 40 at bats is a very small sample size. I would rather look at what he did last year. When he played, he was a solid offensive player I know the Yankees need to do something to improve the team but overreacting to Dominguez’s 10 games in winter ball is a bit much. 

·      I woke up this morning to find my wife hugging my right arm. I looked over and Clancy was lying in the bed wrapped around my left arm. Part of me found this to be endearing and comforting. The other part of me was worried that they were having a tug-of-war.

·      I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the Yankees will make a major move before Christmas. I don't know what it will be. And no, I'm not talking about the Blackburn signing. I don't believe it will be Cody Bellinger. I think that signing with whichever team he goes to, will not happen for a while. However, I could see them signing Bo Bichette. As far as Tatsuya Imai and Kazuma Okamoto go, I am still hopeful that the Yankees will sign them, but their deadlines are not until after Christmas. Imai’s is January 2nd and Okamoto does not need to be signed until January 4th.