Yankees are exposed again by the Astros. Here’s how organizational failure led them here

New York Except for the return of the legendary baseball game that has only been performed once in the history of baseball, New York Yankees It will be sent home for the winter by Houston Astros At some point over the next four days. The Astros win Game Three of the ALCS on Saturday night and lead the chain of command 3-0. Another win and they will have their fourth flags in the last six years.

“Yeah, I mean, we have to[change the situation],” Yankees coach Aaron Boone said after losing Game Three. “It starts as simple as winning the courts, and then start putting quality players together to put ourselves in a good position. Whether it’s a big main kick, some slews, or something else. We just need to get a little spark and something to bounce in. We’re going our way and trying to grab the lead and play with it a little bit.”

The Yankees have been held for four runs in their three ALCS games, and as a team, they hit .128/.212/.223 with two home runs and 41 strikes in the series. The Astros didn’t rip the ball off completely – Jose Altov, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker are a 3-for-32 total in the ALCS – but they hit the half-ball quite often (19 times) during the comeback. More than double that (5).

So barring a historic comeback from a 3-0 series deficit, the Astros will soon end the New York season for the third time in six years. And for the Yankees, that’s the kind of deconstruction that sticks with you and should stimulate organizational reflection, because not only could the Yankees not beat the Astros, the gap between the two teams has never been wider.

The fact of the matter is that the Astros are better than the Yankees at literally everything. Better attacking, better throwing, better defense, better performance, better decision making, better player development, better at identifying talent, they are tougher, and they have a championship advantage that the Yankees clearly lack. The Yankees wither as much as they lose.

In 2017, the Yankees pushed the Astros to Game 7 in the ALCS, and only four players from that series remain with the team: Altuve, Alex Bregman, Lance McCullers Jr. and Justin Verlander. The Astros turned their core — Carlos Correa, Dallas Keuchel, George Springer, and others were allowed to leave as free agents — and they were seamlessly replaced. Game one champion Jeremy Peña replaces Correa, Game Two champion Framber Valdez replaces Coachell, and Game Three champion Chas McCormick replacing Springer. We could go over and over again.

Meanwhile, the Yankees’ side have stagnated since ALCS 2017. Aaron Judge and Louis Severino were the only Yankees to appear in both the ALCS 2017 and 2022 ALCS, and the promising young players who were destined to make up a team beyond fourth place, stopped Since then (Gleiber Torres), they’ve gone back (Gary Sánchez), or flamboyant (Greg Bird and Clint Frazier). When one or two prospects don’t succeed, well this is baseball. When that many don’t work, something is organizationally rotten.

New York’s failure to develop players other than Judge and Severino led to a series of trade and free-agent gaffes. Joey Gallo was acquired because Frazier was busted. Josh Donaldson was imported to play third base because Miguel Andegar was discontinued. The Yankees have used three different starting points in three ALCS games because they don’t trust Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was brought in to play center when the Yankees decided Torres couldn’t handle him. It was a mistake on top of a mistake.

After the Yankees lost AL Wild Card to Boston Red Sox Last year, Boone said “The league closed the gap on usAnd with all due respect, that’s an illusion. It was delusional then and seems more illusory now. You have to be top of the league to close the gap on you, which the Yankees weren’t. The truth is the gap closed a few years ago and it’s widening now. , with the Yankees on the wrong side of it, and this year the ALCS made it very clear.

Can the Yankees beat the Astros four games in a row to complete an impressive ALCS comeback? surely. It’s a good team and good teams beat great teams four times all the time. But it is very unlikely. The body language of New York in Game 3 was that of the defeated team, who knows not to be on the same level as their opponent. The stars are in the Yankees’ heads at this point. The Yankees will never admit it, but it’s clear from their game and their body language.

The Yankees are coming in for their most important season in the last 25 years or so. The judge is a free agent and so is GM Brian Cashman, who has been in the position since 1998. The Yankees have had 99 wins in their last four seasons of 162 games. They’re clearly not a bad team, but the Yankees aren’t judged based on their regular season success, and when one team continues to bully you the way the Astros did, the roster architect certainly deserves the blame.

Re-signing the judge and bringing in Cashman, and making some alterations to the list, would be justified. After all, Yankees are really good and anything can go wrong in a postseason short streak, right? 111 wins Los Angeles Dodgers And defend the world champion Atlanta Braves Sent for packing last week. Meanwhile, the Yankees looked on the verge of becoming a juggernaut after the ALCS trip in 2017…

• …because they had Bird, Judge, Sanchez, and Severino on the MLB roster, and none of them were older than 25.
• …because they have a file A highly regarded farm system Led by Andegar, Fraser and Torres.
• …because they were close to a financially clean slate with Marc Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez off the books.

…and they have failed to play in the world championship for the past six years, you just have to win one. The past six years, six years of Judge cheap control of the team, have been a colossal missed opportunity. Young players stagnated, bad deals were made, and chances for free agents squandered (why wasn’t Bryce Harper upside down?). Eventually you need a new voice and a new set of eyes at the head of the baseball operations department. Playing it back with the same individuals is untenable.

Maybe the Yankees come down swinging and make the Astros sweat before the ALCS is over. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Unless they miraculously return to win the series, the Yankees have been revealed once again as a second division MLS team. They’re looking at the Astros again, and that shouldn’t go down well with anyone in the establishment.