Fire Brian Cashman

By EJ Fagan

July 7, 2026

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The following post comes from EJ Fagan's Substack, Baseball Is Life. It is shared with permission.

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Brian Cashman is the problem.

I’ve written this post before, including almost exactly one year ago today. The story is the same: the Yankees depth gets tested by a few routine injuries, their young hitters flop, and all of the sudden the team can’t score runs or play defense.

The core Yankees problem is that, with a single exception, the team has been completely unable to develop major league hitters. And it’s Brian Cashman’s fault, as it has been for decades.

Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe, Spencer Jones and Jasson Dominguez were all first round draft picks. We can add Trey Sweeney, Anthony Seigler, Blake Rutherford and Kyle Holder to the list as well. They all had success in the minor leagues. And to a man they have all completely flopped at the plate in the major leagues.

The last above replacement level hitter the Yankees picked in the first round was Aaron Judge in 2013. Before Judge, it was Derek Jeter in 1992 (!). Their failure is not for want of trying either. They have only taken two pitchers over the last decade: Clark Schmidt in 2017 and Ben Hess in 2024.

The lower rounds are almost as bad. Since 2010, the Yankees have drafted or signed and then graduated the following above average major league hitters: Ben Rice, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez.

You can’t make a full MLB roster without a bunch of decent enough hitters who came up through your farm system. You certainly can’t play through a few injuries.

The team has been propped up by Aaron Judge for the last four years. Without him, you’re looking at a bunch of 78-win, $300 million train wrecks like the 2026 Mets. With Judge out, you’re seeing the seams on full display. They don’t have the budget to pay for more than one or two big money free agent hitters, so they are left to run out five or six awful hitters for an extended period every season, hoping for another miracle season from Judge.

I don’t know what the cause of the hitting development problem is. It could be major league coaching. It could be minor league development philosophy. It could be amateur scouting. I’m just a dude with a blog. None of us have the answers.

But I don’t care. The buck has to stop with the person on top. Results are eventually all that matters. Brian Cashman’s baseball operations departments are completely built from Yankees lifers.

The front office is entirely his creation. It needs to be burned down and rebuilt from the ground up.