Tag: Yankee Stadium

The Yankees Better Win This Series

The headline is quite obvious. Yes, the New York Yankees need to win their Wild Card series against the Boston Red Sox or else they cease playing baseball for the rest of 2025. They not only better win this series in order to continue on a quest for a championship, but they also need to do so because of the potential implications of defeat. For if the Red Sox beat the Yankees, I believe the reverberations will be felt all the way up to the front office. I like to call it an organizational earthquake.

Does Aaron Boone survive another Red Sox playoff defeat? Credt: New York Post

A loss to the Red Sox in this round in this year would be the one scenario where the jobs of Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman would be in jeopardy. To be clear, I am not calling for the dismissal for either man. Plenty of other people will do that for me. However, look at the records of both organizations over the last 20 years, beginning in 2005. Boston has won three World Series under three different managers and three different front offices. The Yankees have won the World Series just once during that time. Cashman has been the team’s chief decision maker during these last two decades. More recently, let’s compare the managers. Boone and Alex Cora each assumed the helm prior to the 2018 season. Cora’s Red Sox beat Boone’s Yankees in the divisional round on their way to winning it all. The two teams also squared off in the 2021 Wild Card game with Boston once again coming out on top. The Red Sox have been flat out better. Why do I believe a loss this year could be almost, if not more catastrophic than the 2004 meltdown?

Not only have the Sox won more recently, but they have also fallen down and gotten back up. Yes, the Yankees have been a model of consistency, with playoff appearance after playoff appearance. Cora was suspended for the 2020 season. Boston has finished last three times since 2018. The front office changed again. The Red Sox were roasted for trading Rafael Devers in May. Yet, here the Red Sox are, threatening to derail another Yankees’ postseason run. It’s bad enough they owned the Yankees during the regular season. Can you imagine Alex Cora and company once again celebrating a playoff series victory on Yankee Stadium soil? How does Yankee ownership not make wholesale changes should they lose this first round? Their arch nemesis, the one that has owned them over the last 20 years, the one that has risen, fallen and then risen again all the while the Yankees go another year without a championship is pretty humiliating.

There has to be repercussions for this specific failure. I’m afraid Boone might be the one who pays the price. If not, expect a cataclysmic meltdown from both fans and the media. If you thought last year’s World Series defeat triggered this group of people, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Where Have You Gone, Jasson Dominguez?

Remember the good old days of “The Martian”? No, I am not referring to the 2015 movie starring Matt Damon. I am talking about Jasson Dominguez. You know, the guy that once upon a time was the most talked about player in the New York Yankees’ minor league system. Heck, the only other player with more hype in the entire organization was Aaron Judge. We loved his September 2023 callup at the age of 20, finally getting a glimpse of the player we had heard about for four years. He did not disappoint, slugging four home runs in 33 plate appearances.

What a difference two years makes.

Will we ever see Jasson Dominguez in a full time role with the Yankees again? Credit: Yahoo

Dominguez has had seemingly nothing but issues since his highly anticipated debut. His 2023 campaign was cut short because of a torn UCL. When he returned the following May in the Minors, he appeared in 23 games before an oblique strain sidelined him. He finally returned to the Majors in August and received significant playing time in September. However, a .179 batting average made him a spectator for the Yanks’ World Series run. Fast forward to today, and Dominguez has once again been relegated to the bench. He has not started any of the games against the Minnesota Twins this week and most likely will be the odd man out until Judge returns to the field full time.

Actually, there is no guarantee Dominguez becomes a regular for the rest of the season. No way Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton are coming out of the lineup. Trent Grisham seems to be more trusted than Dominguez. It feels as though he will get one, maybe two starts per week from now until October. In fact, Domingez may not even be on the team in 2026. Even though Grisham will be a free agent and Bellinger could very well opt out of his contract, can’t you see the Yankees attempt to re-sign both players? That would once again relegate Dominguez to a part time role, a return to the Minors, or a trade out of town. Any of those three scenarios seemed laughable two years ago.

Should Domiguez fail to earn a full time role in 2026, he will just be another in a long line of “can’t miss” Yankee prospects that did not pan out in the Bronx. Think of guys like Everson Pereira, Deivi Garcia, Estevan Florial and Oswald Peraza. You can argue that none of these players were given a long enough rope to see whether or not they could play at the Major League level. They certainly were not allowed to fail and try to get back up like Anthony Volpe. Unfortunately, it appears Jasson Dominguez is headed for the same path as the aforementioned Pereira and company. Is his trade value cooked? Maybe not as toasted as the other players. However, Dominguez’s best chance to land an every day role in the Show may only come with a change of scenery.