Bronx Bomber Ball

Photo credit: USA Today

The speculation started during the regular season, even prior to his trade from the Baltimore Orioles to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Where would Manny Machado go upon his free agency at the end of the 2018 regular season? And, with that, which teams would be knocking on his door? No sooner did the Yankees’ regular season come to a close after their fated ending in the American League Division Series, the talks of Machado coming to the Bronx took off as though pushed by a speeding 4 Train behind Yankee Stadium. The truth of the matter is that the rumors started even prior to Machado’s free agency being on the horizon -- they started at the trade deadline . Photo Credit: USA Today Sports

Photo via The Informer As many Yankees fans will know by now, Clint Frazier was forced to cut his hair this past Friday. According to Joe Girardi, Frazier’s hair did not violate the team policy of nothing below the shoulders, but it was “distracting.” Frazier later tweeted this: one goal - to be the best baseball player i can be. happy to be a yankee & play for this organization & honored to donate to Locks of Love 🦁 — Clint Frazier (@clintfrazier) March 10, 2017 …of which, of course he did. Twitter was blowing up at the time, and it would not have been a good idea for Frazier to say anything else. However, I have a few thoughts on this whole debate.

For those Yankee fans that are about my age in their 20's (give or take a few years) it may be difficult to remember a time when Brian Cashman was not the General Manager and calling the shots in the Yankees’ front office. Such a time did occur however and even though he has occupied a few different roles in the organization throughout his tenure with the team, on February 3 rd,  1998, Cashman was promoted to the role he has become synonymous with over the years, General Manager of the New York Yankees.   Photo Via Bronx Pinstripes

Over the course of baseball history, New Year’s Eve has remained relatively uneventful.   By this time of year, the Winter Meetings are usually over, and any teams planning on making a big splash in the free agent market most likely would have done so already.   This wasn’t the case in 1974. Photo via Si.com

Brian Cashman no longer has the unlimited budget to build a winner in New York as he once did. Though, he still faces the same pressure from the New York media, the Yankee fan base, and most of all his bosses, to be a contender year in and year out. There certainly have been growing pains under the new Hal Steinbrenner way of operating. Over the past four seasons, the Yanks have only seen the playoffs once and it was an abbreviated appearance, losing a one game wildcard playoff to the Astros in 2015. The idea of the Yankees NOT making the playoffs year in and year out is a difficult one for some of the most spoiled fans in all of sports. But this recent spell should not be considered a knock on Cashman, as much as it is on the “old guard.” Photo Credit: Brad Penner | USA TODAY Sports

The year 2016 has been an underwhelming year for the New York Yankees, to say the least. GM Brian Cashman and the rest of the Yankees front office are in an odd position right now, as they are trying to balance the act of competing and “rebuilding”. I put quotes around the word rebuilding because in the case of Yankees’ brass, they don’t believe in that word. This comes as a result of the the Yankees mindset that we’re all used to. It comes from always trying to have a packed house every night, when that’s been far from the reality. Or the attempts to boast about the history of the illustrious ball club, nice throwbacks, but not relevant to the team today. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Michael Dwyer