The Aftermath
In the aftermath of yet another noncompetitive playoff series by the Yankees, and with all of the vitriol floating around Yankee Universe, I wanted to do a quick deep dive and vent a little.
I deliberately waited a week or so to cool off (you be the judge of that!).
We can dig deeper over the next coming months, and we will. But let’s take a quick look anyway.
It is not much of a secret that the Yankees offensive philosophy over the last several years is rooted in the "Three True Outcomes" model—prioritizing power hitting (home runs), drawing walks, and accepting high strikeout rates.
Applying that systematic approach, the Yankees have won 281 games over the 2024, 2025, and 2026 seasons = 579% winning percentage.
Looks pretty good. That is 93.6 wins per season. Not many other teams can stake claim to that.
When you consider the injuries to key players and round hole square peg players Boone is annually given to work with, not bad at all.
But dig deeper. During that period:
They went 192- 117 against non-playoff teams---.621 winning percentage.
They went 89-87 against playoff teams---.505 winning percentage.
93 wins a season and making the post season nearly every year is still outstanding, but looking at their record against playoff clubs sheds a little more light onto their postseason record.
Remember folks, the Yankees are the only team (last time I checked) that does not hang banners for anything but a World Series Championship (which also sends a confusing message to me when I see them have champaign celebrations for winning a Wild Card).
So, clearly a World Series Championship is all that matters, despite the Wild Card celebrations.
Yankees post season record since 2024 is 13-13 -- a .500 winning percentage, which aligns very closely to their in-season record against playoff teams.
Since 2018 they are 27-30 -- .474 winning percentage.
Deeper, the last 2 teams that knocked them out of the playoffs, both times in the early Division Series Playoff round (another MLB joke), were Toronto and Tampa.
2025
Toronto had 191 HR , Yanks had 274.
Toronto had 1,461 Hits, Yanks 1,371.
Toronto closed them out in 4.
In the 4-game series the Yanks had 34 hits and 37 strike outs, Toronto had 50 hits and 24 Strike outs.
In 2026
Tampa had 169 HR, Yanks had 223.
Tampa had 1,405 Hits, Yanks 1,250.
Tampa closed them out in a 3-game sweep.
In the 3-game series the Yanks had 12 hits and 31 strike outs, Tampa had 20 Hits and 18 Strike outs.
See a trend?
Even with the lower team ERA in both years (Yankees actually had league lowest ERA in 2026 at 3.24), they got dominated in both series.
During that period, cumulatively the Yankees struck out 401 times more than Tampa and 695 more than Toronto.
That is an average of 274 more Ks per team, per year.
Let that settle in for a second or two.
A strike out is an “unproductive out” because nothing at all good comes from it. No runners can advance. No errors can be made. Nothing but the hitter putting his head down in defeat and walking back to the bench.
274 more unproductive outs per season, per team.
In the 2022 ALCS, which still bothers me, we saw the Astros sweep the Yankees in 4. In that series the Yankees had 21 hits and 50 strike outs, while the Astros had 30 hits and 25 strikeouts.
I can still remember Tim Flannery mocking the Yankee system afterwards:
“Congrats to the Yankees who struck out 50 times in 4 games. Tell me again how analytics work? It’s all a hoax, and fake boring baseball”.
It is not rocket science. You have to put the ball in play to score, and you have to score to win.
Don’t take this as me diminishing the significance of a home run. We all love them and they are exciting. Frankly, they are the most exciting and memorable single events in sports, IMO (breakaway slap shots come in 2nd!).
My point is and has always been (if you have read my pieces here since 2019), you can’t build your offensive approach around them. Yes, you have to have power hitters, but you need more, a lot more.
During the 2026 MLB regular season 3.42% of all at-bats resulted in a home run.
The Yankees build their teams, or at the very least put a strong emphasis on, something that occurs 3.42% of the time.
For the most part, and unless your name is Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth, home runs at the MLB level are very difficult and are most often hit off of pitcher mistakes.
The better the pitching staff, the fewer mistakes made. The better pitching staffs go to the playoffs.
Again, 13-13 in the playoffs since 2024, 27-30 since 2018.
I played the game up to the collegiate level, and I learned that there is a difference between going to the plate and trying to hit the ball far, vs. going to the plate and trying to hit the ball hard.
IMO based off of closely analyzing their swing paths over the years, it appears that many Yanks take an at bat and try to hit it far-- instead of just thinking to hit it hard.
It’s a subtle difference, but it has significant inverse results.
I cringe when I see young Spencer Jones upper cut high fastballs (as Andy Singer recently pointed out (https://www.startspreadingthenews.blog/post/spencer-jones-fatal-flaw) . Where did he learn that? I doubt his father or high school coach taught him that.
He struck out 37% of the time this past season. To me, it appears that he is being encouraged and/or taught to be the next Joey Gallo (another brilliant acquisition).
As a comparison using another sport, in my view there is nothing more exciting in football than a long bomb touchdown pass. Montana to Rice was something to see!
If you apply the Yankee philosophy, Pat Mahomes or Josh Allen should just throw bombs every snap.
Why not? In the NFL, the touchdown percentage (TD%) on passes thrown 20 or more yards downfield typically comes in at about 8% of all passes thrown in a season.
That’s a better percentage than a home run.
But they don’t do they? No, they do the little things to set up scores; solid blocking, screen passes, rushing yardage, sideline passes, option plays, field goal attempts, and if the opportunity arises, yes a long bomb; you get the point.
Yet, Yankee management still thinks, despite the over whelming stats to the contrary, that is wise to build teams that hit home runs to score and as a result strike out a lot more than their opponents and get fewer overall hits while doing so.
Not to mention whether or not some of their players actually fit defensively. But that topic we will get into later this offseason.
The Yankees GM has argued over the years that team with more home runs usually advance in the playoffs. That may be true, but my question to him is, are those hitters taking an at bat trying to hit a home run, or is the home run the residual effect of trying to hit the ball hard?
Again, those are two very different approaches. One ends up with a massive amount of unproductive outs (strike outs), and the other ends up with hard hit balls all over the field that can find holes or the seats, or results in the opponent having to make plays to record an out, and even some strike outs.
As one recent example, I could name many more, when Miguel Rojas turned the 2025 World Series around with his 9th inning home run in game 7, he was quoted afterwards saying that he just wanted to “get on base to pass the baton to Shohei Ohtani and avoid making an out”.
In other words, he just tried to hit the ball hard and not strike out.
Similar to what Bucky Dent told Scooter Rizzuto one fall afternoon at Fenway Park on WPIX.
This past Wednesday night, we saw an unbelievable 11 pitch at bat by Jake Bauers of the Brewers that ended in a dramatic 2 run Home Run.
During the broadcast, some were calling it the best at bat in Brewers history.
He explained afterwards that his goal was to make hard contact?
No talk of a launch angle, no mention of his exit Velo. He just wanted to hit the ball hard.
Baseball is really a pretty simple game. That’s why kids can start playing it at 5 years old.
You hit the ball, you catch the ball, you throw the ball, and you don’t stop running hard until you hear someone yell safe or out!
The team that usually wins is the team that does those 4 things better and doesn’t make mistakes.
Lately many try to make Baseball seem a lot more complicated than it actually is and invent all sorts of new stats to show us all how smart they (think) are.
Just spend 15 minutes listening to the MLB Network talking heads, guys who did not play the game.
They have fancy stats for every possible movement made on an MLB field.
It’s nonsense.
It seems teams are finally starting to move away from the trendy 3 true outcome boloney that infested our game. But in the Bronx, they double down and defend it.
As Derek Jeter rightfully stated after game 1 of the NLCS with regard to the Milwaukee Brewers, it’s not “small ball” it “situational hitting”.
Jeter (who knows a thing or two about winning baseball), expressed his frustration with modern front offices and analytics. He contended that organizations are finally trying to re-incorporate these skills after years of dismissing traditional fundamentals in favor of optimized "spreadsheet" data and advanced analytics charts. He emphasized that teams need to return to “building consistent lineups, playing sound defense, and leaning heavily into baseball instincts”.
Well said Derek!
Let me ask you guys something. Do the Yanks have consistent lineups? Do they play sound defense? Do they rely on baseball instincts?
If the answer is no to any of those questions, you shouldn’t be surprised by their failures.
I can distinctly remember Billy Martin saying something similar. Billy said, “it’s Yankee baseball taught to me by Casey Stengel.”
That is why both of them earned 5 rings each! They played (and Managed) Yankee Baseball. Not some trendy numbers-based system developed by college kids.
Those same “college kids” introduced the shift a few years ago. How’d that turn out? It was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in this game, and I have seen a lot.
CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances & Alex Rodriguez, to name a few ex-Yankees, are now bringing up “Standards” when discussing what the Yankees are bereft of these days.
I applaud them for doing so. It’s about time someone at their level brought that up. Those standards are long gone thanks to the current ownership and management.
CC Sabathia and Dellin Betances also mentioned something this past week on a podcast when discussing the team leadership and culture, that shocked me.
When the Yankees went to Tampa for games 1 and 2, they practiced at George M Steinbrenner Field, and not at Tropicana Field, where the games would be played.
Tropicana Field has not been very good to the Yankees over the years, it’s a tough field to play on as a visitor (turf, dome ceiling, odd corners, unique foul lines, stingrays swimming around, lighting, whatever else) and these guys think it’s best for their team to practice at a completely different facility instead of on the actual field you’re going to be competing on?
Instead of working their tales off to get better in a place they do not play well in, they chose the easy and convenient route.
I think the word used by them was asinine, but it might have been even worse.
No leadership whatsoever. Poor preparation.
Maybe if they spent a few hours on the field before hand they would not have kicked the ball all over Tropicana Field and embarrassed themselves, and the franchise.
So, stage 1 of getting the Yankees back to being the Yankees is the organizational philosophy and run scoring approach. If that isn’t changed, the results discussed above will not change, IMO.
Next, we can discuss it all winter, are 2) correct type of players, 3) team culture, 4) team preparation, 5) coaching staff.
Lastly, did anyone notice that in game 1 of the NLCS Pat Murphy benched team Captain Christian Yelich because of his stats against Skubal? The Brewers won.
Does anyone reading this think Boone would have done that?
That is leadership. By the way, Yelich did not pout or complain and was in the Game 2 starting lineup hitting 5th.
He went 2-5 with 2 clutch RBI.
In that 2- 1 Brewers victory in game 1, Luis Lara drove home Garrett Mitchel for the game winning hit with a 5th Inning single. Mitchel was in scoring position because Cooper Pratt bunted him over.
Last time I checked that run counted just as much as home run.
I wonder if they tracked the “Exit Velo” or “Launch Angle” of the bunt?
It is now the 17th consecutive winter without a Yankee Championship, their longest drought since changing from the Highlanders to the Yankees in 1913.
Based on recent results and current philosophies, will that extend further? Or are you confident that this current system and philosophy will win it all in 2027?
RIP Mike Ditka.
OUTSTANDING.
Amen. As long as they're striking out more than getting hits, this drought will soldier on.