The Tuesday Discussion: Just Bad Stretch or Worse?

May 19, 2026

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This week we asked our writers to respond to the following:

Do you see the 2026 Yankees as a championship-level team?  Has the current losing shown the Yankees for who they are or is this just a bad stretch?

Here are their replies...

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Ed Botti - Every team in the league, every year, has bad stretches, as we just saw with the Dodgers recent a 4-7 stretch. So, the current stretch does not surprise me – its part of the 162-game marathon.

Given the overall diluted condition of the AL, (there are 4 teams above .500 as of Monday) yes, the Yankees are a contender to win the AL and get to a World Series.

However, having been around long enough to know what real championship caliber teams look like and play, they are not there right now, IMO.

One obvious factor is their 3-10 record in one run games. Champs don’t lose 10 of 13 one run games. Champs thrive in 1 run games.

I do think the foolish Manfred Man to start extra innings is a contributing factor, but not the only factor.

As a matter of background, the last 5 World Series Winning Yankee teams were a combined 110-72 in one run games (.653)

Other factors contributing to my opinion; as I have been screaming for the last 7 months, the middle infield is a mess, they have no offense from a tandem of lefty catchers, they need a closer (I like Bednar, but not as a closer), and for maybe the 4^th straight season, they do not have a leadoff hitter- which blows my mind!

Before all the comments pour in, I understand third base and centerfield are also not hitting, but I believe they will do better, and their defense is elite. So, I am giving them a little more, not much, but a little more of a grace period, because of the value of their elite D.

Teams love 9-3 victories, but more importantly teams need 2-1 victories. Close games show strength of fundamentals and mental toughness and separate the pretenders from the contenders.

Fortunately for the Yanks, they have 115 games left to play. But hard decisions need to be made and things need to improve over a large portion of the diamond, for me to see a true Championship caliber team.

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Andrew Hefner - The Yankees losses have been brutal and embarrassing, but I still hold a tinge of optimism. The problems that the Yankees are having in this stretch can be easily solved, with relief pitching (now a closer I guess after Sunday's game) and another right handed bat being at the top of the to-do list. The best thing about one of those is that as soon as Stanton, who reportedly is making progress, is back in the lineup, that strong righty bat problem is solved. The injuries have not helped things over this stretch and I am excited to see what the rebound may be like. As usual, as well, the deadline is going to be pivotal to see if we are really still in that "win now" mode Cashman seems to imply is happening in the front office.

This is a bad stretch that has constantly been made worse by injuries and poor managerial decisions. Not championship level right now, but fixable down the stretch. 

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Paul Semendinger - We have seen this show before. It's the same show every year. The team is assembled with obvious flaws - with positions not addressed, with questionable players in key positions, with a lineup that wasn't crafted well, with players who play a poor brand of fundamentally bad baseball, and with a manager who gets outmanaged often.

The Yankees build their teams to be pretty good, not great. This is their design.

Might they get hot in the playoffs and win a championship? Sure. Are they built to be great? No.

The Yankees build teams to be slightly better than the other teams in the American League. They don't seek greatness. As such, greatness eludes them - and will mostly continue to elude them. The Yankees' plan is to hope that luck and good fortune gets them through the sometimes randomness of the postseason. It hasn't worked yet. It will one day, but it is not a plan for sustained success.

This losing streak has showed the Yankees for who they are because it is the same story we've seen for the entirety of the Boone Era. Unless big changes are made in leadership, it's the same story we will continue to see.

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Cary Greene - According to FanGraphs, the Yankees presently have the second best odds (15.6 percent) of winning the World Series this season. Meanwhile the Dodgers are overwhelming favorites (22.8%). With this information acknowledged, all I can do is tip my cap to the Yankees at this early juncture of the season, because I believe much can and probably will change between now and the end of the 2026 playoffs. Most contenders will use the mid-season Trade Deadline to set themselves up for the second half of the season and I don't think the Yankees are positioned well as buyers - considering they have MLB.COM's 26th ranked farm system. Not to mention, the Yankees can ill afford to give up what few quality prospects they have - names like George Lombard Jr, Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange. 

Contributing to my doubts that the Yankees are a championship level team is one major concern and one minor one. Surprisingly, the Yankees starting rotation ranks first in MLB so far this season as Yankees starters have accumulated 6.0 f-WAR to date! However, the Bullpen is leakier than the HMS Victoria, currently they rank 13th per FanGraphs, with a paltry 1.4 f-WAR and this would be my primary concern at this point in the season.  

In the postseason, good bullpens are often required to win a championship. Outside of Tim Hill (1.45 ERA) and Brent Headrick (2.31 ERA), the Yankees bullpen hasn't been good. Things might get a bit better if Carlos Rodon settles in and if Gerrit Cole comes back healthy and looking sharp. The Yankees might be able to put a few of their starters into the bullpen and they might also look to promote some of their top pitching prospects and slide them into bullpen roles as well. 

Usually, the cost of relief pitching at the Deadline is extremely high, so I'm not counting on the Yankees receiving much bullpen help from outside the organization this season. However, if all goes well with Rodon and Cole, the Yankees rotational depth could combine with a few of their pitching prospects, potentially allowing the Yankees to be able to right the ship to avoid sinking further in the standings. If the bullpen eventually comes alive, the Yankees could become legitimate contenders. 

My secondary concern is that the Yankees lineup is simply too short. Outside of Ben Rice, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, the Yankees simply don't get enough production. There were plenty of free agents this past offseason that could have helped the Yankees lengthen their lineup, but due to Hal Steinbrenner's unwillingness to spend for depth, Cashman was forced to cobble together low cost solutions and its become obvious that the Yankees are going to need to trade for some offensive firepower. Glaring needs exist at DH and third base. 

I've scoured lists of the top, available trade targets that each MLB team might look to move at this year's Deadline. Cashman might look to trade for a DH, if he does, Jorge Soler is a name that will be in the rumor mill. The Dodgers blocked outfield prospect Ryan Ward would be, in my eyes, a preferred candidate due to his two-way ability to not only hit, but play the outfield. The Yankees will likely need to replace Ryan McMahon with either Anthony Volpe or George Lombard at some point, especially if McMahon continues his lack of production. There aren't any available, attractive third base trade targets out there that are good fits with the Yankees, so I'm in favor of anyone but McMahon. Heck - put Rosario at third base for the rest of the season. I'm not even sure platooning McMahon is a good idea at this point. 

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Mike Whiteman - As long as the starting pitching stays strong, I think the Yankees can be very good and go on a postseason run. 

The recent stretch shows to me that there's still work to be done. Unfortunately reloading again on the fly will cost young players at the deadline as opposed to dealing with it in the offseason when the Yanks could have just flexed their dollars. 

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Tim Kabel - I have consistently said that the Yankees are not a Championship Level team this year. I know that Gerrit Cole is coming back. I also know that Carlos Rodon already came back. Rodon needed more time to get ready. The rust is showing. So,the Yankees’ solution appears to be that they will rush Gerrit Cole back.

On top of that, the offense is uninspiring beyond Aaron Judge, Ben Rice, and Cody Bellinger. Jazz Chisolm, Junior might be getting back on track, but he certainly isn’t going to have the 50/50 season he predicted for himself. As I said before, it’s 50/50 that he’s on the roster at the end of the year. Austin Wells, Ryan, McMahon, and Trent Grisham are automatic outs for the most part. Anthony Volpe has had two good days and the announcers are ready to put him in the Hall of Fame. The offense is mostly offensive and not in a good way.

The bullpen is a disaster area right now, Cam Schlittler, and Will Warren are the two most consistent pitchers in the starting rotation.

There is not a lot of hope on the horizon for the Yankees. I think the Boone-Swoon started earlier this year. I think it will last longer and be deeper than they usually are. I would not be surprised if the team does not even make the playoffs.

Don’t forget, Aaron Boone, who has managed the Yankees longer than anyone else without delivering a World Series victory, is still in charge. He finds new and interesting ways of blowing games. Sometimes he does it early, sometimes he does it late. He keeps you on your toes. As I have written many times, the Yankees will never win the World Series with Aaron Boone as the manager it seems that ownership and management don’t really care. 

As the saying goes, some days you have to eat the horseradish. I see heaping helpings of horseradish on the horizon for the Yankees all year long.

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Andy Singer - I come at this question from a slightly different angle. I don't really think any team begins a season as a genuine championship caliber team. Sure, you can look at teams on paper coming into the season and make educated projections, but I always go back to a famous quote by Mike Tyson: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

The baseball season is a game of attrition. Almost no team comes through a regular season unscathed in a meaningful way. Even players who don't appear on the injured list throughout the year are often playing through things that most of us would consider injuries. The team that looks fantastic on paper might not be by June. The team that looked pretty good, but flawed, in April might have some young guys flourish and add players prior to the trade deadline that changes their outlook. Just in recent memory, the Dodgers, Rangers, and Astros all made huge deadline moves to significantly improve their teams prior to World Series victories. The foundation for championship teams can be built in the offseason; almost no teams are championship teams based on that foundation alone.

With that in mind, yes, I do think the Yankees' foundation is good enough to be a championship caliber team. Is it perfect? Far from it? With some positive regression from some regular players (which is already happening) and supplementation from the minors and outside acquisitions (a near-certainty), can the Yankees claim to be the best team in the American League? Absolutely. Over a long season, I do not see a team in the American League that is legitimately better than the Yankees, even before we talk about the roster shuffling that will surely occur in June and July.

The Yankees' elite starting rotation and fantastic offensive core of Aaron Judge, Ben Rice, and Cody Bellinger give the Yankees quite a performance floor. Jazz Chisholm has already woken up (and there's a good reason for it...post coming soon!); there's recent performance evidence that Camilo Doval may yet be an impact arm; Anthony Volpe and Jose Caballero have been very good; and Paul Goldschmidt has proven me incredibly wrong by being one of the best part-time bats in the big leagues. Add a couple of minor league studs to this core and a bullpen arm or two, and suddenly this is a very interesting team in the postseason. Yes, I think that the Yankees are championship caliber.