About the Off-Season: Meanderings of My Mind

About the Off-Season: Meanderings of My Mind

by Tim Kabel

January 18, 2026

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The Yankees were eliminated from the postseason in the ALDS last season and that has been the best thing that happened to them since the regular season ended in 2025.

This off-season has been worse for the Yankees than their performance in the postseason. They have done very little. While other teams have made big moves, the Yankees have seemed to be content with window shopping. I suppose window shopping can be fun, but it doesn't really get the job done if you are looking to improve your team. We have about a month before Spring Training starts. Since I don't have any games to recap, I will now move from topic to topic as if I were Sir Alec Guinness inspecting the construction in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Kwai not?

·      I love movies. Well, I love good movies. One of my favorite movies is The Godfather. I have watched it many times and will do so again. Many times, either while I'm watching it or after, I think of different questions. For example, what if Michael's first wife, Apollonia, didn't start the car? What if neither she nor Michael were killed in the explosion? Obviously, Michael never would have gotten back together with Kay. But what else would have been different? Here's another one, what if Vito Corleone was not strong enough to reassume control of the family after Sonny was killed at the toll booth? What if Fredo Corleone had been the one to run the family? Well, we don't have to wonder about that. We are seeing it with our own eyes. Hal Steinbrenner is the real life equivalent of Fredo Corleone, with George being Vito. Except for an occasional big move, Hal's tenure as the Yankees’ owner has been characterized by ineffectual and hesitant leadership. The Yankees are still on the periphery but now they are no longer really that important. It's as if they have been pushed out and are no longer among the “five families." Now they are just distant relatives. Unfortunately, there is no Michael to step in and take the team away from Fredo.

·       My younger son, Oliver, went back to college yesterday and my older son, Jack is in Basic Training. I have been writing him letters and since I was provided the address to do so, I have written 9 letters. I should be hearing from him today and I am looking forward to that. The point is that when my wife is at work, it will just be me and the cats roaming around the apartment looking for mischief. I know I will be able to get a lot of writing done. I did some baking in the past few weeks, as I had hoped to do. I made Oliver his favorite pie, which is a cranberry-pear pie with a crumb topping. I had a small slice, as did Stacey but he enjoyed the rest. I also made buttermilk brownies with a frosting. I was very pleased with the way they came out.

·      Well, Kyle Tucker is now a Dodger. That move doesn't disappoint me. I never advocated for the Yankees to sign him in the first place. I certainly never would have wanted the Yankees to spend $60 million a year on him. However, Bo Bichette is now a Met. I did want the Yankees to sign him. Alex Bregman is a Cub. Again, that wasn't a move I thought the Yankees needed to make. But since they didn't sign Kazuma Okamoto or Tatsuya Imai, or well, anyone, it all sort of adds up to a general malaise and the off-season is a disappointment. The Yankees needed to make upgrades. There were players available who would have been significant upgrades. Instead, the only thing they did was acquire Ryan Weathers, which may or may not be a good move.

·      I would be afraid to take my sister to Yankee Stadium. After all, her name is Penny and the way the Yankees operate these days, she'd be likely to get pinched.

·      Today, I will be making a soup that a friend of mine posted on Facebook and it really caught my eye. It is a Hawaii dish and was imported there by the Portuguese immigrants in the 1870’s. It is a bean soup. Actually, it has many things in it besides beans.  I have been boiling ham hocks and ham bones starting early this morning. The meat from the bones and the stock will form the base for the soup. It will then have onions, peppers, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, sausage, and macaroni. It will be red because it will have tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. It sounds like a very hearty soup and perfect for a cold winter night.

·      If the Yankees are going to make upgrades around the infield, it will have to be via trade. Apparently, Brendan Donovan and Nico Hoerner are available. Unfortunately, they will cost players in return. Signing Bo Bichette or Kazuma Okamoto would only have cost money. It seems that signing any free agent is practically anathema to the Yankees, as just about every player is too rich for their blood these days. However, even the players they acquire via trade will have to be paid at some point. Otherwise, they will simply leave, winding up as a net loss of prospects. I think the Yankees at this point should sign Jazz Chisholm, Jr. to an extension. I doubt they will. If they do acquire Nico Hoerner, he could very easily walk at the end of the year as well. The same is true for Freddy Peralta. The team mascot for the New York Yankees should be Silas Marner.

·      One of these days, I am going to smoke a brisket in my indoor smoker for a couple of hours and then finish it in the oven low and slow with mushrooms and onions. I'm going to get a corned beef brisket as well in March, when I can get one at a very nice price and smoke that, making my own pastrami. Since I am home all the time, I can do things like that and still work on my writing or other activities.

·      As I am writing this, Cody Bellinger has not yet signed with any team. I am beginning to doubt very seriously that he will sign with the Yankees. I think he will wind up with either the Blue Jays, the Mets, or some other team. Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman will snap their fingers, kick the dirt in front of them and complain about how they were close, but it just didn't work out. Now to be clear, I am not advocating that the Yankees sign Bellinger to a seven-year contract. That would be absurd. However, I don't think they will sign him to any contract. They will come up short because they want to come up short. Now, a further point of clarification, unless Bellinger was brought back to play first base, I would have preferred the Yankees to sign Bichette and/or Okamoto. If the Yankees signed Bellinger to play the outfield, there would be no point to keeping Jasson Dominguez and/or Spencer Jones. Bellinger would be the primary starting left fielder. Even though I, along with many others, did not want the Yankees to bring back Trent Grisham, he is here. And we all know that Aaron Boone will put him in the lineup every day, even if he reverts to the form he demonstrated in every year of his career except last year. Boone will keep thinking that Grisham is just about to get hot. He will say, “He's getting close,” or, “His at bats look really good, even when he struck out three times, he looked good doing it.”

If the Yankees do not bring back Bellinger, they may be forced to allow Dominguez and Jones to develop. Regardless, I think the Yankees will do very little for the rest of the off-season unless it's to make a trade and I hope if they do it is not for a rental or one that costs many more top prospects. The cupboard is beginning to look bare.