Aaron Judge Says The Yankees Have Lots to Work On, Lots to Change

Sorry for the late arrival but I decided to send the newsletter after the series concluded and that didn’t happen until Monday afternoon thanks to tropical storm Ophelia. Give the Yankees credit - even though the Diamondbacks officially eliminated them from the playoffs Sunday, they took two of three against a team that still has a lot to play for in the NL wild-card race. Let’s get to it.

Realistically, the end of meaning for this Yankees season came last month when they followed a ho-hum 11-12 June with a lousy 10-15 July and an even worse 10-18 August and sank to last place in the AL East.

You had to be the most optimistic glass-half-full person on earth if you seriously thought the Yankees were still going to make a September push and get back into the wild-card race. That was never going to happen, not with this misfit roster of aging and declining players and young, not really ready for the majors kids.

For those of you who still had hope, well, Sunday must have been tough for you because that was the official end. The 7-1 loss to Arizona eliminated the Yankees from the postseason chase and thus, for the first time since 2016 there will be no October baseball.

After the game, Aaron Judge was surrounded by reporters in the Yankee clubhouse, and the captain made a few pointed remarks about the Yankees and their future. It’s not like he was asking for heads to roll, but for the normally boring-as-Derek-Jeter Judge, there was a little bit of juice in there, an indication that in the first year of his $360 million contract, he’s not happy with what he saw.

“We’ve got a lot to work on, a lot of things to change and a lot of stuff going on around here that needs to be fixed,” Judge said.

Well, like what the reporters asked with the hope that he would unload.

“I’ve got some ideas,” he said, though predictably he was unwilling to share what they were. “It’s gonna take all of us, it’s gonna be talking with everybody in the organization, all the way down through the minor leagues. If I’m not standing here talking to you guys after a championship, it’s a failure. After all of the work you’ve put in in the offseason, training, preparation, coming out here on a daily basis, rain or shine, to play a game - it’s about bringing a championship back.

“That’s why we play. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I came back to New York with this group of guys, to build something and get New York back to where it’s supposed to be. When you don’t show up and produce and get kicked out like this in the regular season, that’s a big failure right there. We’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot of internal talks, a lot of stuff we’ve got to get figured out.”

For Judge, that was a mouthful.

Who knows what Judge means, but this is what I hope he means:

First of all, the manager must be fired. Enough is enough. Aaron Boone might be a nice guy who the players like to play for, but things have gone stale and I just don’t think he’s the manager who will lead this team to a World Series championship anytime soon. And that’s not all his fault because look at the roster he’s been given.

However, while making the postseason in his first five years with two AL Championship Series appearances was nice, not only did the World Series drought continue, the Yankees never even got there. And as Judge said, fair or not in the Bronx, anything less than a championship is a failure.

Beyond that, this Yankees team was terribly deficient in just about phase of the game - bad approaches at the plate that have led to the second-worst team batting average in MLB, compounded by boneheaded plays in the field and on the bases. This is a fundamentally deficient team and some of that falls on Boone and his coaches. And then there’s Boone’s continued inability to have a feel for the game which has resulted in far too many managerial decisions or goofy lineup constructions that went awry.

Next, the Yankees need to change just about every aspect of their analytical and scouting philosophies on position players. They’ve done a decent job on the pitching side, but they are not finding and developing hitters and/or fielders who show much promise. Look at all the kids who have played in the last few months. Who really stands out?

Jasson Dominguez, probably. We’ll see after he returns from elbow surgery but he’s only had 33 career plate appearances so I’m not putting him in the Hall of Fame just yet. Anthony Volpe? Yes, he was pretty good as a rookie in terms of power (21 homers) and in the field, but his hit tool is lagging way behind as a .208 average and .284 on-base would indicate. Oswald Peraza? Oswaldo Cabrera? Everson Pereira? Ben Rortvedt? Austin Wells? Estevan Florial?

Monday some of those kids had nice games and led the Yankees to victory. But long term, does that look like a team with a bright future if all those players are going to be part of the core moving forward? I mean, maybe, but right now, I’m not seeing that.

Judge is absolutely right. There is so much that needs to change in the Bronx in 2024. The Yankees need left-handed batters. They need players who are athletic and can give opposing pitchers and defenses some angst. They need to be sharper in the field and on the bases. They need depth in their rotation. They have to re-tool their bullpen. They need to stop getting hurt at the ridiculous frequency that they have for three years running. Oh, and they also need to eat the money and get Giancarlo Stanton off the roster.

That’s not asking too much, right?

Judge would never say all that publicly, but I sure hope he was thinking all of that and plans to communicate his sentiments to Hal Steinbrenner once this slog of a season is over.

Here are my observations on the three games against the Diamondbacks.

Sept. 22: Yankees 7, Diamondbacks 1

➤ Judge had been scuffling and no one could deny that, but he sure had a bonkers night in this one as he became the first Yankee in history to have two three-homer games in the same season. Babe Ruth played for this team. So did Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez. None of them ever had two three-homer games in the same season.

“He’s just different than everyone else,” Boone said. “That’s greatness.”

➤ All three bombs went to right field, a three-run shot in the third that broke a scoreless tie; a two-run shot in the fifth which stretched the Yankees lead to 6-0; and then a solo shot in the seventh. Unfortunately, he was left standing in the on deck circle in the eighth when Florial flied out with the bases loaded, costing Judge the chance of becoming just the second Yankee to hit four homers in a game - Gehrig is the lone member of that club, having done it in 1932.

➤ Judge, who also had a double for a 4-for-4, 14 total bases night, led the way but the Yankees had good production throughout the lineup with 12 hits. Even Stanton had a single. Two of the kids, Florial and Peraza, combined for three doubles and three runs scored.

➤ How about Luke Weaver? He made his second Yankee start and this one was excellent as he threw 5.1 scoreless innings allowing just four hits with no walks. He doesn’t throw hard, but he was hitting his spots. He was backed up by Jhony Brito who handled the final 3.2 innings and gave up just one hit, a solo homer by Christian Walker in the ninth. Brito has really pitched well down the stretch and will be an interesting pitcher to watch next spring.

➤ Before the game, Wandy Peralta joined the infinitely long list of Yankees who will finish the season on the injured list. Later, Tommy Kahnle did the same. For Peralta, it might be the end of his Yankee career because the 32-year-old will be a free agent. Peralta has been an excellent piece of the bullpen as he put up ERAs of 2.95 in 2021, 2.72 in 2022, and 2.83 in 2023. But this year he struggled more than he ever had as he allowed seven homers and walked five batters per nine innings which might signal the Yankees will move on.

BOX SCORE

Sept. 24: Diamondbacks 7, Yankees 1

➤ It seemed wholly appropriate that the Yankees’ biggest offseason acquisition, Carlos Rodon, would be the guy saddled with the loss in the game that eliminated the Yankees from the playoff race given the year he’s had. It’s among the worst inaugural seasons we’ve ever seen for a big-money free agent factoring in all his missed time due to injury, and then poor pitching.

➤ The first two men Rodon faced singled and they both scored on sacrifice flies for an early 2-0 hole. And with Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen dealing, the anemic New York offense stood no chance. Rodon did settle down and pitched well through the sixth inning, but then he faltered in the seventh. Three singles, the last a two-run rip to left by Evan Longoria, made it 4-0 and then Randy Vasquez relieved and allowed Rodon’s last run to score thanks in part to Isiah Kiner-Falefa butchering a fly ball in left for an error. Vazquez then gave up single runs in the eighth and ninth.

➤ Gallen blanked the Yankees on three hits over six innings with eight strikeouts, but Luis Frias blew Arizona’s shutout in the ninth thanks to doubles by Jake Bauers and Cabrera and walks to DJ LeMahieu and Judge. In all the Yankees had six hits and they were 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position which was basically the quintessential Yankees game this season.

BOX SCORE

Sept. 24: Yankees 6, Diamondbacks 4

➤ Because of the rainout Saturday, the series finale was pushed to Monday and Yankee Stadium hadn’t been that empty since the COVID year. You can’t blame anyone who had tickets Saturday for bagging it. The weather was still lousy Monday and people have work and school.

➤ Clarke Schmidt continued a rather disappointing finish to his season. There was a lot of good with Schmidt this year, including 24 starts where he allowed three or fewer earned runs, though the caveat is that in 10 of those starts he did not pitch past the fifth inning because his struggles the third time through the order were prominent. That happened again in this game as he gave up two first-inning runs but only made it through four innings as his pitch count climbed to 79 so Boone took him out.

➤ Schmidt gave up two runs in the first thanks to a walk, a hit batter, a wild pitch and a two-run double by Alek Thomas, then pitched three scoreless before Greg Weissert relieved to start the fifth.

➤ Down 3-2 in the seventh after Arizona scored a run off Nick Ramirez, Peraza hit a solo homer to tie it, but in the eighth Ian Hamilton coughed up a run on Corbin Carroll’s two-out RBI single.

➤ Here the Yankees showed some moxie. Torres and Wells - who back in the fourth hit a long two-run homer that tied the game at 2-2 - had back-to-back singles and Volpe walked. After Cabrera whiffed, Peraza worked hard to draw a game-tying walk, Florial followed with a go-ahead sacrifice fly, and Pereira tacked on an insurance RBI single. So yeah, a nice day for the kids.

➤ Clay Holmes pitched a clean ninth and with that, the home schedule is complete as the Yankees finished a mundane 42-39 at the stadium.

BOX SCORE

➤ Sept. 24, 1920: In the first game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds against the Senators, Babe Ruth hit his 50th home run of the season, a feat that when measured within the context of the times is still hard to fathom. The momentous blast came in the first inning off Washington’s Jose Acosta and was New York’s only run in a 3-1 loss.

Considering no player in the history of MLB had hit 30 home runs in a single season, Ruth proclaiming early in the 1920 season - his first with the Yankees - that he would hit “half a century” seemed bombastic even for the Bambino.

Ruth had set the MLB single-season record with 29 bombs in 1919 playing for the Red Sox, and that had been more than all but five complete teams had hit. Hitting 50 seemed like an impossibility, especially since Ruth didn’t even swat his first until May 1 in his 12th game. But then he went on a tear with 12 homers in May, more than anyone had hit all season in 1918, and then hit 12 more in June.

Ruth broke his old home run record on July 19 with Nos. 30 and 31 off Chicago White Sox lefty Dickey Kerr at the Polo Grounds, the Yankees’ home ballpark. There were 66 games left in the season so it still seemed like a reach. Instead, Ruth hit 18 in the next 53 games he played - during which he had a 1.302 OPS - so when he stepped up to the plate for his first at bat against Acosta, No. 50 was inevitable.

The New York Times wrote, “He placed himself upon a pedestal in the baseball world from which no landlord living can evict him. … Ruth has hit almost as many home runs as Heinz has pickles.”

Ruth would finish with 54, more than every MLB team in 1920 except the NL’s Phillies who, led by Cy Williams’ 15, hit 64 as a team. His record would last just one year because in 1921 he raised the bar to 59 homers, and then he set the standard of 60 in 1927 that would last until Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961.

The Yankees head to Toronto and have another chance to hurt a rival, though the Blue Jays are in pretty good shape sitting in the second wild-card spot, two games up on Houston, 2.5 on Seattle. Still, wouldn’t it be great if the Yankees made the Blue Jays squirm and sweat. Nothing would please me more to see a Yankees sweep against a team they’ve certainly had a few skirmishes with in the last few years.

Here’s how the pitching matchups look: Tuesday at 7:07 p.m. on YES it’s Michael King (2.66 ERA) against Jays Kevin Gausman (3.29 ERA); Wednesday at 7:07 on Amazon Prime it’ll be Gerrit Cole’s (2.75) final start of what looks like a Cy Young season against Jose Berrios (3.58); and Thursday at 7:07 on YES it’s Luke Weaver (6.47) against Chris Bassitt (3.74).