Steinbrenner Lays Blame for Yankees Playoff Loss With Players

The Yankees are running it back next year with their current leadership, and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner is laying blame for the club’s latest playoff exit squarely on the club’s roster. 

In a Wednesday conference call with beat writers, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said he has reached an agreement on a new contract, keeping him in a role he’s held since 1998. Cashman and Steinbrenner also levied praise on manager Aaron Boone, who is entering the final year of his contract in 2027.

Following a decisive American League Division Series sweep to the Rays and rising fan unrest, Steinbrenner said the team’s players are responsible for extending the Yankees’ title drought into an 18th year.

“The bottom line is the players didn’t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs,” he said. “The offense, not the pitching, had a big part of … why we didn’t get to where we strive to get every year.”

In the ALDS against the Rays, the Yankees batted just .130 and slugged .239. 

As was the case last year in an ALDS defeat to the Blue Jays, the Yankees fell in the playoffs to a club with a lower payroll but one that excels at core fundamentals and exposed New York’s weaknesses.

“They played clean baseball,” Cashman said regarding both the Rays and National League champion Brewers. “That’s the thing you stress in the postseason. You’ve got to play your best at all times. It’s also about personnel.”

The Yankees had MLB’s third-largest luxury tax payroll this year at $341.9 million, and early figures for 2027 show the club in second place, behind only the Dodgers, at $348.4 million.

Labor Talk

Steinbrenner, meanwhile, again called for a broad reconstruction of MLB’s economic model, echoing comments he made in a similar postseason press conference last year. MLB’s labor policy committee includes Steinbrenner, and he actively supports management’s push for several sweeping reforms, including a hard salary cap. 

“Let me put it this way as a member of the labor policy committee: I helped craft, one of many, the proposals that we have given at the bargaining table,” Steinbrenner said regarding a potential cap. “And I support those proposals in their entirety.

“We are working hard on our end. We are completely focused on the task ahead of us, on the negotiating. And I’m optimistic we’re going to get a deal done, and we’re going to get a deal done that’s favorable for both sides. That’s really all I’ll say,” he said. 

MLB and the MLB Players Association remain sharply divided on many fronts, including the cap and owners’ proposed restrictions on free agency and an overhaul of the MLB draft. A management lockout is expected when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in December. 

Steinbrenner also said there is no plan for his family to relinquish majority control of the Yankees, even after a recent $2.6 billion deal with Apollo Global Management in which the alternative asset manager acquired a minority stake in the franchise and is helping the club restructure some of its debt. 

“It is not a precursor to selling the team,” Steinbrenner said regarding Apollo.