CLEAN SLATE
Yanks open camp hoping to leave stench of 2023 in past
TAMPA — The stench of an 82-80 season is still wafting through the Yankees’ airspace, but the scent of spring and its promise of wiping the slate clean is about to offer a welcome diversion.
It will require more than a quality offseason of roster transactions or an encouraging spring training for the Yankees to fully fumigate what happened in 2023. But they have to start somewhere, and as pitchers and catchers report to camp Wednesday, they will try to begin turning the page on the franchise’s worst season in 31 years.
While the first full-squad workout is set for next Tuesday, the Yankees have had a growing number of players already in Tampa over the past weeks and months, using the disappointment from a season that general manager Brian Cashman described as a “disaster” to try to make sure it does not happen again. “[In] all aspects we’re going to try to hit the ground running, as you do every year, but obviously this year is even that much more important and meaningful given how last year played,” Cashman said last month. “I think every player, every staff member, anybody in the front office, ownership all understands and knows that. No one wants to have that experience that we had last year of underperforming, failing, however you want to characterize it. We’re better than that. And our fans deserve better than that. And we’re intending on running a 2024 season in a much better light.”
The Yankees will do so with a revamped lineup bolstered by the arrival of Juan Soto, one of the game’s best hitters joining one of the game’s worst offenses from a year ago. The superstar only has one year left on his contract before hitting free agency, and while the Yankees will likely try to keep Soto around long term next offseason, the guarantee of just one year heightens the pressure to go all-in this season.
That blockbuster trade with the Padres (which also included outfielder Trent Grisham) came a day after the Yankees acquired Alex Verdugo from the Red Sox, reshaping their outfield with a pair of lefthanded hitters on either side of Aaron Judge, who will shift to center field.
The other half of Cashman’s dream offseason fell through, though, as Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto picked the Dodgers’ 12-year, $325 million deal over the Yankees’ 10-year, $300 million offer. Turned off by the steep prices for the other highend pitchers on the free-agent and trade markets, the Yankees pivoted to sign Marcus Stroman to a twoyear, $37.5 million contract to fill out their rotation.
And yet, despite the offseason additions raising the Yankees’ luxury tax payroll north of $300 million for the first time in franchise history, questions linger about the state of their rotation. Its potential hinges on the health and bounce-back abilities of Carlos Rodon, Nestor Cortes and (to a lesser extent) Stroman behind reigning AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole.
“I think we’ve improved,” said Cashman, who also traded for a pair of lefty relievers from the Dodgers in Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonz
alez. “I think our team was better than how it finished, regardless of last year. But despite all that, we’ve jump-started a lot of areas, especially the offense, which was a difficult run for us last year. So I think we’re improved. But it doesn’t matter what I think, it just matters how it’s gonna play. But we’re excited about the possibilities.”
The offseason began with the Yankees pledging to make big changes following their nightmare season. Besides the roster moves, plus a new bench coach (Brad Ausmus) and hitting coach (James Rowson) to replace coaches who left on their own, the rest of the changes appear to be of the behind-the-scenes variety (including a year-long partnership with the analytics firm Zelus to see if the Yankees are satisfied with their internal numbers).
And so manager Aaron Boone enters the final year of his contract for the second time in his tenure, tasked with meshing a few new personalities into the clubhouse and trying to get the best out of a roster that failed to play up to its potential last season.
“I think the players that were here are very hungry, had a bad taste in their mouth from last year’s experience,” Cashman said, “and nobody wants to have that experience again.”
AYEAR ago, there wasn’t a Mets fan extant who couldn’t wait for this week. There had been a brief mourning period in the days and weeks after Josh Hader had coaxed a weak ground ball off the bat of Starling Marte, tidying up a 6-0 win for the Padres in Game 3 of the wild-card round of the 2022 playoffs.
There’d been some appropriate handwringing at a 101-win season dying with the Mets sending only two hitters over the minimum to the plate against San Diego, scraping out only a hit and a walk, falling and failing quietly.
But as time faded, there wasn’t a fan base anywhere who counted down the days until pitchers and catchers as loudly and as exuberantly as Mets fans did. Steve Cohen had thrown a few more buckets of cash at another Hall-of-Famer-to-be, Justin Verlander. He’d made a big play for Carlos Correa before Correa’s medicals started clanking bells.
It was the Mets’ time. That much was clear.
And now … well …
It’s difficult to know exactly what to feel, or to think. A year later, a veteran manager with over 30 years of experience, Buck Showalter, has been replaced by a first-time skipper, Carlos Mendoza, who cut his teeth the last few years as Aaron Boone’s bench coach. There’s a new front-office boss — David Stearns in and Billy Eppler out. Cohen’s kept a lock on his vault so far.
More importantly, it’s not like the Braves have gotten any worse.
Or the Phillies.
Or the Marlins.
Or even the Nationals, for that matter, who only finished four games in back of the Mets last season.
And as for the Mets?
Well, the bookend Hall of Famers, Verlander and Max Scherzer, are long gone. The roster does look different, but in a cost-effective way. There are still a lot of good players here — Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo. Edwin Diaz is back after having not pitched an inning in 2023, and Marte is back after taking only eight at-bats since July 16. Luis Severino used to be good. Harrison Bader has had his moments.
The kids? Francisco Alvarez looks like he could be a star someday. Brett Baty and Mark Vientos are intriguing. The Mets themselves insist that they are not mailing in this season. Despite their mass sell-off at the deadline last year, despite staying mostly quiet in the lead-up to spring training this year.
“One of the really fascinating parts of my first weeks on the job was talking to a bunch of our players, and they were trying to convince me how good they are,” Stearns said on the streaming show “Foul Territory” last week. “And I was like, ‘No guys, I get it.’ This is a talented group we have here, and we’re going to add to it, and we’re going to be a good team next year.”
Of course, it isn’t just the players who need convincing. But it starts there. Look, there are no guarantees in baseball, and the Mets have spent the past two years reinforcing that ancient truth. The ’22 group was supposed to enjoy an innocent climb under Showalter, and instead exceeded expectations by 10-12 games, spending most of the year in first place.
Things started to go sour last year even before the first pitch of the first game when Diaz tore up his knee in the World Baseball Classic. Losing a closer alone isn’t enough to guarantee the misery that came after, but as omens go it sure was a doozy. And then the games began, and there was never quite enough hitting, never quite enough pitching, never quite enough bullpen, never quite enough health.
The Mets were like a car whose engine was never quite able to fire, and the result was 75-87, and some conflicting reports from the owner and the former general manager that hinted the Mets may punt on 2024 before they walked that back.
The Mets aren’t punting on ’24, though they aren’t printing up bold postseason slogans just yet, either. And baseball is a funny game, as we saw last season, unless you were one of about 17 people who saw a Rangers Diamond backs World Series coming last March. There is a lot of wait-and-see surrounding this team as it reports to Port St. Lucie, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Mets always seem more comfortable as underdogs than overlords, after all.
Part of that is they’ve had a lot of practice at it. And so it is again as we prepare to jump feet first into the 2024 fray. Every year, without fail, there is a team that surprises us. The Mets took to that role gleefully in 2022. They could use an encore.