How do you negotiate a contract with THE star player? Not a star player, not a guy you love having around, but the face of the club and indeed arguably at the time the face of baseball itself? How do you negotiate while at the same time attempting to secure personal control over the sport’s […]
7 days ago | 4 reads
The past few seasons of Yankee baseball have produced a familiar pattern when it comes to closing games. The first option the team tabs to handle the ninth inning invariably falters, forcing Aaron Boone to thumb through his bullpen to find a suitable replacement, or for Brian Cashman to acquire one from elsewhere. In 2022, […]
7 days ago | 2 reads
For 99.99999% of major league baseball players, the fact that they made the major leagues is the most historically notable fact about their life. For at least a brief period of time, they were among the best X-number of baseball players in the world. That’s a pretty incredible thing. However, in some very rare cases, […]
7 days ago | 0 reads
Good morning everyone, we’re one day closer to actual, bonafide MLB baseball being played. As we draw nearer, we’ll be using our first posts of the day to ask One Big Question about the Yankees. Today, let’s focus on Cody Bellinger. The offseason saga of Bellinger and the Yankees was a slog, but after months […]
8 days ago | 2 reads
MLB.com | Joe Trezza: This time of year is one where you’ll see a lot of prospect rankings released by the various outlets that track and profile the future stars of the sport. According to MLB.com, the Yankees ended up with four players in the Top 100 prospects across baseball, led by George Lombard Jr. […]
8 days ago | 4 reads
It’s Sunday, and you know what that means — it’s time for our weekly social media roundup! While the Big Apple will thankfully not be hit with a Sunday snowstorm for the third consecutive week, Boreas (the Greek northern wind, for the non-Classicists among you) has continued to hound the Northeast, with single-digit temperatures rampaging throughout […]
8 days ago | 1 read
With the Yankees’ $162.5 million outlay to keep Cody Bellinger in the fold, word around the league is that the front office does not have another big move up their sleeves. However, that does not preclude the team from making improvements through additions to the margins of the roster. They still feel a pitcher light […]
8 days ago | 1 read
Since we began our Yankees’ birthday series at the start of the new year, we’ve generally gone back in time to celebrate a Yankee from the distant past. However today, we don’t have to go back very far at all. In fact, we’ll almost certainly see this player take part in further games as a […]
8 days ago | 0 reads
Hello everyone and welcome to February. We’re trying out something new this month with “Today on Pinstripe Alley” in alignment with many of our fellow SB Nation sites. Instead of getting two occasionally random questions per day at the end of the Today on PSAs, we’ll be choosing one and offering our own answers before […]
9 days ago | 1 read
SNY | John Flanigan: A couple of weeks ago, the Yankees sent four prospects to the Miami Marlins to acquire exciting, yet injury-prone lefty Ryan Weathers to fortify their rotation. Weathers, who posted a 3.99 ERA in 38.1 innings last year with 37 strikeouts, still hasn’t hit his ceiling according to pitching coach Matt Blake. […]
9 days ago | 2 reads
Hello everyone and welcome to February. We’re trying out something new this month with “Today on Pinstripe Alley” in alignment with many of our fellow SB Nation sites. Instead of getting two occasionally random questions per day at the end of the Today on PSAs, we’ll be choosing one and offering our own answers before […]
9 days ago | 4 reads
Back in August, I began a series here at Pinstripe Alley, where I was going to put together an All-Star Yankee team of players who were born in a given month. Since then, we as a staff have started doing daily posts for the year 2026, highlighting a Yankee from history whose birthday happens to land […]
9 days ago | 2 reads
If you look at Baseball Reference WAR, pitcher Duke Maas was technically a below replacement level pitcher over his seven year MLB career. He finished with a -0.2 rWAR, -2.2 of which came with the Yankees. FanGraphs vastly differs, having him at an above par 6.1. The difference likely comes from having high ERAs over […]
9 days ago | 2 reads
I write three or four posts a week for this site, so I will beg an indulgence in this one. Writing in the offseason is challenging, especially when the Yankees adopt the “run it back” strategy they seem to have this year. There are endless rumors, smoke with little to no fire, and occasionally debates […]
9 days ago | 1 read
January is all wrapped up after today, and with that just 11 days separate us from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring camp. The month saw the team make their biggest move of the offseason, securing Cody Bellinger’s return on a five-year deal, though the inevitability of said deal after being discussed as the frontrunners […]
10 days ago | 1 read
MLB.com | Sweeny Murti: Two-time Yankees reliever David Robertson has announced his retirement at the age of 40 after 17 big league seasons. It marks the end of an era, as Robertson was the last remaining active player in MLB from the Yankees 2009 World Series winning roster. The Yankees drafted Robertson in 2006, and […]
10 days ago | 1 read
Earlier today, former Yankees reliever David Robertson took to his social media platforms to officially announce his retirement from baseball. At 40 years old entering what would have been his age-41 season, this news hardly comes as a surprise, especially considering how the past few years went for the former Olympian. Still though, for anyone […]
10 days ago | 2 reads
Everything comes down to winning. This is something we hear constantly in the world of sports—the sacrifices to win, the ability to do so, all of it. But, in some instances, one might argue there are bigger things than winning, and for the Yankees in the 2010 offseason, bringing back Mariano Rivera meant more than […]
10 days ago | 2 reads
There are 365 days in a year, with a Yankee born on each of them over the years. Recounting each of these 365 days may not always bring us a Ruth or a Jeter; sometimes we may spend a day looking back on the likes of a Hipólito Peña. It is no small feat to […]
10 days ago | 1 read
The Yankees offseason hasn’t been as bad as the average fan believes: it has been worse. All kidding aside, things haven’t been explosive on the player acquisition front, but the Bombers have done plenty of work. They brought back Cody Bellinger, Trent Grisham, Amed Rosario, Tim Hill, Ryan Yarbrough, and Paul Blackburn while also trading […]
11 days ago | 2 reads
We’re nearly ready to close out January, which means we’ve almost run out the clock on the last month without any professional Major League baseball being played. By the end of February, spring training games will be in full swing, and not long after that, we’ll have genuine, high-stakes international baseball in the form of […]
11 days ago | 1 read
FanGraphs | Dan Szymborski: All winter, Dan Szymborski has been running the ZiPS projections for each team for the 2026 season. Now, with all 30 teams done, he ran one million simulations of the 2026 season. Unsurprisingly, the American League East projects to be a dogfight, with four of the division’s five teams having at […]
11 days ago | 0 reads
The 2009 season marked a transitional year for the Yankees, coming off the final season in the original Yankee Stadium and the team’s first season without a postseason appearance since 1995. The team’s aging core was still producing, but veteran slugger Jason Giambi’s contract expired after the season, leaving a hole at the cold corner. […]
11 days ago | 1 read
Happy 62nd birthday to John Habyan, a local boy done good who was a key cog in the Yankees’ bullpen for parts of four seasons. Habyan was born on Long Island and pitched well enough at St. John the Baptist High School in West Islip to garner the attention of the Orioles, who picked him […]
11 days ago | 1 read
Last year, on July 31st, the New York Yankees traded prospects Roc Riggio and Ben Shields to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for right-handed reliever Jake Bird, who had a 3.49 FIP to that point, albeit with a 4.73 ERA, in 53.1 innings. Unfortunately, he imploded upon reaching the Bronx, and just three outings were […]
12 days ago | 4 reads