Don Mattingly played 13 full seasons for the Yankees and never played in the World Series, making him the greatest Yankee to never do that. Aaron Judge has made it as far as the American League Championship Series three times, something Mattingly never did. But Judge has now played seven seasons with the Yankees. It means he is more than halfway to being Mattingly.
And now Judge, by missing the postseason, does what Mattingly did for all of his career until October of 1995. That was when Mattingly, even at the end, he went toe-to-toe with future Hall of Famers like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Edgar Martinez and Randy Johnson, and showed what October had missed before that by not having him in it.
Judge was a rookie in 2017 when the Yankees led the Astros in the ALCS three games to two before losing, mostly because Judge stopped hitting along with everybody else in pinstripes. The Yankees finally lost that series in seven. Two years later, they lost in six to the Astros, before getting good and swept last season.
No. 99 is one season into a contract that is worth $360 million, the biggest investment the Yankees have ever made in one player. He isn’t going anywhere. But where are the Yankees going? And when you look at teams like the Braves, and look at what a bunch of kids for the Orioles just did at the top of the American League East, either Hal Steinbrenner or Brian Cashman maybe needs to reassure Judge that he is going to make it to a World Series himself before he plays through his prime.
Because if Steinbrenner and Cashman are already trying to tell themselves that it was just bad luck that knocked the Yankees to fourth place in the East then they are kidding themselves, which is a lot easier than kidding their fans. Yankee fans are well past the point where they are the ones getting reassured because the Yankees somehow managed not to have their first losing season since the ’90s. To them it matters not at all. They know where the bar used to be set with their team, at least until the Yankees have now managed to go 14 seasons without being in a World Series despite having spent over $4 billion on baseball players.
If Steinbrenner is now going to be convinced by Cashman that this is all simply the fault of the analytics department, if some of them are going to be fall guys the way the former hitting coach Dillon Lawson already has been, then the owner of the Yankees will look even more out of his depth than he ever has.
We hear a lot about Cashman’s track record with the Yankees, and it is certainly impressive, even if he first came through the door being the general manager of teams that he simply did not construct. But for all of the winning seasons in a row, and the fact that the Yankees did make it to the Final Four three times in the last seven seasons, there has never been a time since 2009 when the Yankees had the best team. They still persist in blaming October of ’17 on sign-stealing, but no one has yet explained to me how sign-stealing was responsible for the Yankees scoring one run in Games 6 and 7 that year.
It is now a full decade since Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, part of the legendary Core Four on which the last Yankee dynasty was built. What they did and who they are has become as irrelevant as invoking the names of Mickey and Whitey and Yogi out of the ’50s and ’60s. Going forward, their track record doesn’t help the Yankees any more than Cashman’s does.
Here is what Judge himself, the captain of the team, said in a recent interview with NJ Advance Media:
“There are a couple of quick fixes and then there’s some other things that are going to take some tough conversations and some long talks with a lot of people in the room. I won’t get into that right now. I can sit here and talk about it all I want, but it’s about us sitting down and getting it figured out and getting it done. It’s going to take a lot of people. You have a season like this, it opens eyes with some people. You can mask some things by winning. This season puts us in a different light. It’s going to give us a chance to get some things right.”
It’s not Judge’s job to get things right, however. It is not Aaron Boone’s. Cashman needs to fix this. He is the one who thought trading for Giancarlo Stanton (and what was left on the $300 million-plus contract he had signed with the Marlins) was a good idea. He is the one who signed Aaron Hicks for seven years, who brought in Josh Donaldson and Joey Gallo and, well, you can do the roll call on the bad decisions of recent seasons the way the Bleacher Creatures call the roll at every home game.
This is about the Yankees not having developed, and sustained, a frontline starting pitcher since Andy Pettitte, another storied member of the Core Four. This is about the Yankees getting older and slower as their own division gets younger and faster. And if the Yankees actually think that the way they won some games in September is some sort of indication on what might have been, then they’re kidding themselves there, too. The truth is they stopped playing meaningful games in August even if they did beat some playoff contenders along the way, it was all really part of what the great Marv Albert used to refer to as an extended gar-bage time.
So, the Yankees didn’t finish in last place, the way the Red Sox did again. But the Red Sox have won four World Series since 2004 at a time when the Yankees have won one. And even as recently as two years ago, the Red Sox were within two games of going back.
Judge isn’t getting any younger, and got hurt again this season. Gerrit Cole, the other star of the team, a total star of the team and another $300 million-plus contract, will turn 34 next season. It is also fair to wonder just how much left he has in his own prime. Again: Judge isn’t going anywhere. But Cole has the right to opt out after next season.
Aaron Judge, though, is the one. It is Judge around whom the Yankees present and future is built. It is Judge who signed over the rest of his prime to his team. Seven years a Yankee now. Halfway to being Mattingly.
Mike Lupica: Whining about Zach Wilson quarterbacking the Jets is turning into the national pastime
BRYCE GETS MONEY’S WORTH, COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEEDS ‘BAMA & A SALUTE TO THE GREAT BROOKS ROBINSON …
The Giants aren’t going to lose to Geno, are they?
You know who got his money’s worth the other night after getting ejected on a phantom check-swing call by the truly awful Angel Hernandez?
Bryce Harper did.
That would be the same Bryce Harper for whom the Yankees should have waited, but went for Stanton instead, and didn’t that turn out to be a sparkling decision?
My friend Barry Stanton says the Jets should try to get Springsteen to the game on Sunday night, just to make it a fair fight with Taylor Swift.
The way Michael King has pitched for the Yankees as a starter just proves all over again, not that it needed proving, that you can never go wrong with a Boston College man.
Raise a hand if you had Josh Dobbs outplaying Dak Prescott last Sunday, the week after Dobbs nearly did the same to Daniel Jones.
Aroldis Chapman still has it, right?
College football is always more interesting when Alabama is a serious contender for the national championship.
If you’re keeping score at home, the Red Sox are about to have their fifth general manager in the baseball era when they’ve won four World Series.
I’m happy that Damion Lillard is going to have a shot at a ring with Giannis, and I’m just as happy that the Blazers didn’t give in to a shakedown from the Heat.
The Red Sox trading Mookie Betts to the Dodgers really is the dumbest thing they’ve done in Boston since they sold The Babe to the Yankees.
By the way?
Ronald Acuna Jr. is probably going to win MVP for the National League, but you simply cannot ignore that Mookie played both the infield and outfield for the Dodgers.
The rules changes in baseball did so many good things this season, none more important than faster games.
But the stolen base coming back to baseball wasn’t far behind.
How many players lately have gotten a lot better once they got with the Yankees?
It is worth mentioning again, after the passing of Brooks Robinson, that no one ever played any position on a baseball field better than Mr. Robinson played third base for the Orioles.
And here is something else worth mentioning:
We can no longer be surprised when Saquon Barkley, as gifted as he is, gets hurt again.
September is when managers are presented a bill for over-using their bullpens.
The Mets and Yankees spent over $600 million in payroll this season.
The Orioles and Rays combined for $150 million.
The Detroit Lions are really good.
Wait … what?
I was thinking about this when I happened to be on the NC State campus the other day, but how cool is it that Ray Romano is going to play Jimmy V. in the movies?
It’s been practically a month since the Knicks signed an ex-Villanova player, right?
Somebody tell the mayor it’s been raining outside.
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Mike Lupica’s new thriller with James Patterson, “12 Months to Live,” is on-sale now.
