Some Yankees bosses may have been irked by Aaron Judge questioning whether they have gone all in enough, but Hal Steinbrenner insists he was not one of them.
On the night the Yankees were swept out of the ALDS by the Rays, the captain indicated the Yankees should go “all in” to win a championship and said it was “tough to say” when asked if he felt that had happened enough.
Those comments made their way to Steinbrenner — who said he had a “great conversation” with Judge on Tuesday — and claimed Wednesday he was not upset about them, with the understanding that those high expectations are a “two-way street.”
“If I was a player, I would have expectations that my ownership group would do everything in their power every offseason to field a team that can win a championship,” Steinbrenner said on a video conference call. “We did that this year. We had the highest payroll in the history of the organization [roughly $340 million for luxury tax purposes, per Cot’s Contracts]. … I definitely think we went all in this season.
“And by the way, I have expectations of my players. I expect them to obey the rules, to work hard, listen to their coaches and the trainers and the strength guys.”
Judge missed three-plus months of the season with a broken rib and then, after not going on a rehab assignment, came back to play in seven games before straining his right calf.
That injury sidelined him for the rest of the year, including both playoff rounds, despite him fighting to be included on the roster, to no avail.
General manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday that there was “no willy-nilliness” over Judge’s availability to play because “he just wasn’t physically able to post for us.”
As for the rib, Judge is set to have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Gregory Pearl, the specialist the Yankees consulted during the season, to make sure he is in a good spot entering the winter.
While the Yankees recently landed $2.6 billion in financing from private equity firm Apollo Global Management — giving them a 16 percent stake in the franchise — Steinbrenner said the deal was not a precursor to selling the team.
“The whole goal of the Apollo deal was to bring in capital into the company that would be there for us to give us more financial stability for years and years to come, including the years I’m out of here and the third generation is running the team,” Steinbrenner said.
The managing general partner said Apollo will have “zero” role in the day-to-day operations of the franchise.
“They have rights no different than our other limited partners,” Steinbrenner said.
In a long expected move, Cashman said Wednesday he has agreed to a new contract, with 2027 marking his 30th season as the club’s general manager.
“We just have to bang out some minor stuff at the back end of it, but yeah, we’re locked and loaded,” said Cashman, who was working in the final year of a four-year deal.
With a lockout looming and a potentially lengthy battle over the institution of a salary cap in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, Steinbrenner was not interested in speaking much on labor, though he reiterated his support for a salary cap.
“Let me put it this way as a member of the Labor Policy Committee: I helped craft one of the many proposals that we have given at the bargaining table and I support those proposals in their entirety,” he said.
While Steinbrenner blamed the offense for most of the Yankees’ failures this season and said they would be looking into everything, including the coaching staff, Aaron Boone threw his support behind the work of third-year hitting coach James Rowson.
“I think James leads a great hitting group,” Boone said. “I’ve been really impressed with the culture he’s created year in and year out over the last few seasons. There’s a lot of reasons that go into why there’s underperformance in certain areas of the club and you try to address those as best you can and saddle back up and take your shot at it next year.”
As of Wednesday, Boone said that no procedures or surgeries were scheduled for any Yankees.
One player that the Yankees will be keeping an eye on, though, is Max Fried, who had two stints on the injured list with a left elbow bone bruise.
“We think he’s in a good spot,” Boone said. “We reimaged him and the ligament’s in a good place. There’ll obviously be some downtime and then ramp up. I think there’s a lot of things possible, but we feel like overall and big picture, he’s in a good spot.”
