The 2023 season wasn’t supposed to go like this for Aaron Judge and the Yankees. Instead of preparing for another trip to October, New York enters Monday with a 78-77 record. Finishing over .500 is now the team’s top priority. They were officially eliminated from postseason contention over the weekend:
The Yankees have been eliminated from playoff contention pic.twitter.com/lQgypHX2P3
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) September 24, 2023
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For a team — and a fanbase — that’s used to having a “World Series or bust” mentality, this is unacceptable. It’s even gotten to the point where owner Hal Steinbrenner is actually going to do something about it. He’s hired an unnamed company to audit the Yankees’ operations. But, who knows if that will actually bring meaningful change?
It appears as though manager Aaron Boone’s job is safe for another year. That’s something Judge is likely happy about. He’s been a public supporter of Boone as the season continues creeping closer to Game 162.
We’ve previously heard that Judge and other top Yankees players have regular meetings with Steinbrenner. As the highest-paid player in franchise history and the current captain, you’d have to imagine Judge will get a chance to have his voice heard. Not only about what went wrong in 2023, but about what can be done this winter to make sure it doesn’t happen again in 2024.
Judge spoke with the media after a 7-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The slugging outfielder had plenty to say. Here’s a bit of his comments, captured by the New York Daily News’ Gary Phillips:
Aaron Judge on elimination:
"There's a lot that went wrong. We can hit it from a lot of different aspects, but what it comes down to [is] we just didn't come out here and do our job." #Yankees
— Gary Phillips (@GaryHPhillips) September 24, 2023
Aaron Judge added that he planned to be part of "internal talks" about what the #Yankees should do.
“I got some ideas.” https://t.co/FIyxkaEJbR
— Gary Phillips (@GaryHPhillips) September 24, 2023
I bet he does.
Judge also mentioned during this media session that he has no plans of shutting it down with winter on the horizon.
The outfielder’s “ideas” could be just about anything at this point. Could he also want the Yankees to go hard after Yoshinobu Yamamoto? He did say back in April that he was “excited” to watch Shohei Ohtani’s free agency unfold. While things for Ohtani look a lot different now thanks to a torn UCL, you’d have to think Judge would still like him in the Bronx.
Wouldn’t everybody? Ohtani does love Yankee Stadium, ya know.
But, I digress. It’s good that Judge has a seat at the table. He’ll hopefully take advantage of it as much as possible.
You can reach Matt Musico at matt.musico@xlmedia.com. You can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
