With another lifeless loss to the Braves, the Yankees are now below .500 for the 2023 season and some Yankees deserve to lose their job over it.
Whatever you would consider worse than a disaster — perhaps an unmitigated catastrophe might apply — that's where we're at with the New York Yankees in the 2023 season.
On Wednesday night, they dropped the second of a two-game series against the Atlanta Braves in embarrassingly flat fashion to get swept. More pressingly, though, that loss puts the Yankees at 60-61 on the season, falling below .500, further out of the wild card race, and even closer to the brink of blowing it all up.
Frankly, blowing at least some of it up is wholly necessary at the end of the 2023 season. Something — or many things — is broken with the New York Yankees right now. And if those changes include firing people within the organization, then we have a good idea of three places that Hal Steinbrenner and the decision-makers at large should start.
Yankees who should be fired, No. 3: Josh Donaldson
Currently on the 60-day IL while still feeling good enough to work out and jog on the field, former AL MVP Josh Donaldson has become emblematic of everything that's wrong with the Yankees in the 2023 season.
For starters, the underperformance in the 33 games he played when healthy this season was staggering. He slashed just .142/.225/.434 with numbers that back up the eye test that he was either hitting home runs (10 on the season) or striking out (32 on the season, or just under once per game).
While the problems with the Yankees are numerous, it's crucial to note that one of the biggest pitfalls the team has been hostage to is paying for past performance without looking into future projections. Donaldson was clearly on the decline since 2019 and his first season with the Yankees a year ago, but those signs were ignored and he was continually relied upon when healthy.
On top of that, the move to the 60-day IL from the initial 15-day assignment, seemingly a way to just keep him out of the lineup, highlights the dysfunction currently running rampant within the organization.
Some of that is not Donaldson's fault. But at the end of the day, he's a 37-year-old infielder who is a shell of the player he once was. And that has no place on a team trying to win a World Series, the expectation New York has set for itself over franchise history.
Yankees who should be fired, No. 2: Aaron Boone
To put it bluntly, Aaron Boone's seat has been scorching hot for months now, or at least it should be.
Whether it's been mismanaging the likes of Isiah Kiner-Falefa early in the season, botching how to handle the rotation or young arms, throwing Anthony Volpe to the wolves, or a litany of instances just from this season alone, Boone hasn't even performed like a competent Assistant to the Regional Manager, much less as a competent manager.
Sure, he's tried to say the right things about belief in this team and demanding more from his players. But at a certain point, those are just words when the results aren't there.
Admittedly, you do have to feel a bit sorry for Boone being put in this situation. The Yankees roster was not constructed in a way to win consistently or compete for a World Series, nor was it notably improved to help that at the trade deadline. That's not his fault (we're getting to that). At the same time, though, going under .500 this late in the season with the talent New York does have is simply unacceptable.
Unfortunately for Yankees fans, as recently as the end of July, SNY's Andy Martino reported that the organization does not plan to fire Boone at the end of this season, even if the club doesn't make it into the playoffs. But this isn't about "will they be fired", it's about "who should be fired". And given the job that Boone has done, it's hard to mount a compelling argument against why he should be out of a job after the 2023 season.
Yankees who should be fired, No. 1: Brian Cashman
I'm just going to tap the sign above this for a second.
For all of the faults of Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman put him in an untenable situation. The pursuit of Aaron Judge and keeping him on the Yankees was obviously the right move for the pinstripes — the problem was that it seemingly came at the cost of making enough meaningful additions to keep New York as a contender.
Granted, there has been plenty of bad luck for this team, whether that's been the injuries with Frankie Montas (acquired at the 2022 trade deadline) or Carlos Rodon. But there have been so many "unfortunate" outcomes with the team that it's hard to not start thinking that Cashman is the root of the problem and something is wrong with the decision-making process, which yields the unfortunate results.
Fans have already gotten full-throated behind firing Cashman, who has also reportedly been deemed as safe for the 2024 season no matter how this year ends up for the Yankees. With the growing calls for his job, though, that may be a more difficult decision for Hal Steinbrenner than previously anticipated.
All told, though, the Yankees look the part of a team that needs a complete reset. That goes from Cashman down to Boone down to numerous players on the roster. But for this proud organization to spark actual much-needed change, it certainly needs to start with ousting Cashman.
