Okamoto a Blue Jay

January 3, 2026

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Breaking News - The Blue Jays have signed Kazuma Okamoto.

Another player who might have helped the team is gone - again to a rival.

Many say the off-season has been quiet around baseball, but teams are signing players. Just not the Yankees.

The Yankees are telling their fans, very loudly, that they're mailing it in for 2026.

I hope the fans tell the team that they too are mailing it in - that is walking away from the once proud team.

The Yankees have gone from Great to Good and have been satisfied with that (as have some of their fans) for most of the last decade. The progression is in the wrong direction.

The best thing that can happen for the future of the franchise is for the Yankees to crash and burn in 2026 and maybe even 2027 to show the people running the team that their approach does not work, at all. Maybe then necessary changes will be made. Maybe then will the advertising dollars dry up. Maybe then will the stadium will be half empty.

This was once the most aggressive, most determined franchise. This team was once the team the great Japanese players wanted to play for.

Remember the excuses with Yamamoto. "He only wanted to play with Ohtani" and "The Yankees made a nice offer (even if it was less than the Dodgers)." Years later, we see the truth - the Yankees weren't really in on him. They didn't go all-in. They went in enough to be outbid. They wanted to make it look like they tried.

Now they don't even make it look that way.

The talking point said at the time, "All the Japanese players want to be Dodgers," and/or "The west coast is so much better for Japanese players" falls way short as the three Japanese star players to sign in 2026 go to Houston, Chicago, and Toronto.

I am tired of the Yankees' excuse making. I don't buy any of it.

Winners do not need to make excuses. The fact that all the Yankees could do was make excuses spoke volumes. Now they're not even pretending to try. They sit on the sidelines as the rest of the league improves.

This was once the game's proudest franchise. No longer. No longer.

What a shame.