Still Think The Yankees Have What It Takes To Compete?

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So, here we are. Again. Staring at the flaming wreckage of another Yankees rotation that somehow, someway, no one in the front office thought to fix. Remember when people were giddy over the “new-look” lineup like they’d just discovered fire? Goldschmidt! Bellinger! Woohoo! Yeah, well, guess what? Bats don’t mean a damn thing when your pitchers are giving up touchdowns.

Let’s get this out of the way: Max Fried is a beast. The guy pitches like he’s on a mission from the baseball gods. He deserves better than this clown show surrounding him. Because right now? He’s basically alone in a burning building holding a garden hose.

No Gerrit Cole. Carlos Rodón? He’s a mood ring with cleats—brilliant one start, unwatchable the next. Carlos Carrasco? Looks like he needs a nap just getting out of bed. And Marcus Stroman, the only halfway-dependable guy in the rotation, just got shelled so hard against the Giants he might qualify for FEMA aid. Five runs before a single out. Five. Boone had to yank him after 46 pitches, and only 23 of those found the strike zone. His ERA is now sitting at a grotesque 11.57. That’s not an ERA. That’s a distress signal.

But sure, let’s boo Stroman. Real smart. The guy’s out there bleeding for a team that left him for dead the second Cole hit the IL. You want to boo someone? Boo Brian Cashman. Boo Hal Steinbrenner. Boo the whole smug brain trust that decided “standing pat” was a competitive strategy.

This isn’t hindsight. Everyone saw this disaster coming the second Cole’s elbow barked in March. Bleeding Yankee Blue was screaming about it. But did the Yankees front office act? Of course not. They did what they always do lately: shrug, leak a few excuses to the press, and hope the fans buy the smoke. Cashman gave us his usual “we’re trying” routine. Translation: “We have no plan.”

This franchise is worth $8.2 billion—with a B. And we’re being told they’re strapped? That they’re hoping to snag guys based on facial hair policy changes now? What is this, Yankees or ‘Shark Tank: Beard Edition’? They rolled back the grooming rules to maybe attract some dude with a nice goatee. Incredible. That’s their “big swing.”

Meanwhile, the so-called solution was apparently to cross fingers, squint really hard, and pray Rodón magically turns into Sandy Koufax. He didn’t. And they never got another ace. Because hey, why act like a serious franchise when you can just pretend?

They gave us Goldschmidt, Bellinger, Fried and Devin Williams and expected us to clap like seals while the rotation hemorrhages runs. And now even Devin Williams is a question mark. He’s not himself, the bullpen’s already showing signs of wear, and Luke Weaver—bless him—is about to get over worked and no work at all cause we keep losing.

The offense? It’s good. It really is. But this team can’t win 9-8 every night, and that’s what they’re being asked to do. This isn’t sustainable. It’s not competitive. It’s not even respectable. It’s just the same broken logic year after year—patch the lineup, ignore the rotation, and watch the season bleed out by August.

The Yankees aren’t cursed. They’re just incompetently run. And until someone in the ivory tower takes responsibility and actually acts like they want to win, we’re all stuck watching another bullpen meltdown while Cashman dusts off his “we tried” press quotes.

What a disgrace.