Perspectives: The Thrill is Gone
- Paul Semendinger
- Dec 21, 2025
- 3 min read
by Paul Semendinger
December 21, 2025
***
B.B. King might have been singing about the way I feel about the Yankees.
The thrill is gone. It's over. Done.
Right now there is no great joy for me in being a Yankees fan.
The Yankees, a team that used to define greatness, and excellence, and winning, is nothing more than any old franchise now.
The Yankees have an uninspiring owner. They have an out-of-date general manager. And they're run on the field by a manager who is in over his head.
The Yankees have done practically nothing this winter. Yankees fans keep hoping that they'll do something big. And maybe they will, but I don't believe it will happen. We hear rumors that the Yankees are in on this player or that player, but then we hear that they didn't even engage with that player. The Yankees aren't even making offers. Instead they are signing players like Paul Blackburn. They certainly aren't building a championship squad.
We have entered the era where the team seems very comfortable being complacent. They seem fine taking a back seat to practically the rest of the league. Sure, they still might sign a player, maybe two, and announce that they're "all-in," but the days of believing that are long gone. The team's actions speak way louder than words.
As much as some might protest, the Yankees haven't been all-in for a long time.
***
Quick Aside - If the Yankees have been all-in and haven't been able to win a World Series since 2009, that might be an even worse reality. In that case, they would be stating, "We're all-in, but we do not know how to build a championship team."
Think about that for a moment. There are only two possible results here. Either the Yankees don't go all-in (as I have been saying since this site began) or they are going all-in and can't seem to figure out how to win. Those are both very bad results.
Either they're not trying to win or they can't figure out how to. It's one or the other.
Neither result speaks well for the team or the franchise or the leaders therein.
But, the fact that the same leaders are in the same positions year-after-year in spite of the lackluster results indicates, very clearly to me, that winning a World Series is not the team's priority. What other conclusion can be drawn?
The Yankees are content with the results they put up. If they didn't they would make changes to the leadership - the ones who are failing to produce the results that they promise the fans year-after-year.
***
The sad reality is that the fans seem to care more about the success (if success means winning World Series) of the Yankees than the team does.
It never used to be that way. The Yankees used to be different. They used to operate differently. Every decision seemed to be focused on creating the very best team possible - in every way. That's no longer the case. We are seeing that very clearly. We have been seeing this for a long time. It's so obvious and plain to see that no other rational conclusion can be drawn.
It has gotten to the point where I am bored by the free agent rumors and the proposed trades and all that, because that doesn't seem to be the Yankees way any longer. They have been showing this to us all, very clearly, all off-season.
It used to be fun to be a Yankees fan in December. The off-season used to be filled with big trades, big signings... big excitement.
No longer.
For this fan, the thrill right now is absolutely, and completely, gone.
MLB aggrieved fan index: The 10 most frustrated fan bases of 2025
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47335875/mlb-2025-10-most-frustrated-fan-bases-red-sox-mets-twins-cardinals
...... until I met a fan who had no feet
My 2 cents, they believe they are all in but do not know how to actually build a championship team. Which is worse, IMO. They have become followers, not leaders.
Hal doesn't want to spend money, then you better have the best farm system in the League, but they don't. While I might be higher on the Yankees overall talent than most, but my take on their development is total and utter garbage.
Hal lets BC get away with not even trying to put together a complete team , with the yearly trade of prospects for relievers, at least. Yes this YDG has put Cam Schlittler & Will Warren in the rotation, Austin Wells, at catcher, and Ben Rice at 1B. And I'll even throw in SS Anthony Volpe and OF Jasson Dominguez, as the fact is, they either hadn't or barely played in the minors before this group to…
Thank you, Paul for expressing what I’ve felt for the last few years. Having been a diehard fan for almost 60 years, I hate feeling the way I do about the Yankees. It is almost like a loss in the family. I keep hoping it will change, but I really don’t see an end in sight. I didn’t expect anything else this off-season. They tied for the most wins in the league, and I’m sure made a lot of money, so why change anything. It was a successful season as far as they are concerned. The bottom line is the primary goals of most fans are not the same as the administration. We either reconcile to the Yankees philo…
Yeah, how bad does it suck that the Yankees tied for the best record in the American League last year? Their misfortune was losing the season series to the other best-record team, and then losing to them again in the post-season. Terrible how they match up so poorly against the Blue Jays. You're right; we should abandon all hope and wallow in despair over how bad our team stinks.