Do it Again

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Like the Beach Boys back in 1968, Hal’s Yankees are singing let’s get back together and do it again.

Hey now, hey now, it’s not like these are the Horace Clarke years so take what you can get Yankee fans… and be happy about it.

Run it back.

And if the Yankees win 94 games in the regular season in 2026, like they did in 2025 and then get ousted in the ALDS again, at least they had some highlights.

What are you expecting? World Championships?

Yes, another paint by number season is on deck for the Yankees but maybe there will be a masterpiece in there, even though it is pretty much the same Brian Cashman lineup as 2025.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It could be worse.

So, what if another season of Aaron Judge heroics does not end with a World Series trophy? Judge will only be 34 this season, there’s plenty left in the big man’s game.

Are you surprised it went this way Yankee fans?

Are you surprised Hal Steinbrenner is once again acting like Hal Steinbrenner, not his father, George? Everything Hal does is the opposite of George, including how he runs his baseball team.

Are you surprised Brian Cashman is once again acting like Brian Cashman — doing the necessary, not going for broke?

Hal and Cash have this act down perfectly. Upset Yankee fans either blame Hal or Cash, but the truth is this is a tag-team effort.

Run it back, baby.

You could see all this coming. Once all his other options closed down, Cashman had painted himself into a Cody Bellinger corner – and Bellinger had painted himself into a Yankee short right-field porch corner – and there was nowhere else to go for either side; so the Yankees and Bellinger agreed on a five-year $162.5 million deal on Wednesday with a stunning $85 million coming to Bellinger the first two years of this contract. There are opt outs too, but to tell you the truth, this off-season I am suffering from Free Agent Fatigue.

The money is so astronomical, and the opt-outs seem to be everywhere, so much so that it all starts to run together.

Nothing against Scott Boras, he expertly has played the hand baseball has dealt him, but the truth is Boras has hijacked the off-season. For the most part, nothing happens until he says it happens; he has a pecking order for his free agents and there is a top, middle and bottom as he plays one team against another — that is the brilliance of Boras. He is extremely good at playing a team against itself and that is exactly what he did here with Bellinger and the Yankees.

As a result Bellinger got his massive Yankees payday, the Yankees will have a huge payroll –but not the biggest payroll – and no giant leaps of faith were taken by Hal and Cash in trying to go for it all. Last year was good enough for Steinbrenner and Cashman, their 16th straight year without a World Series triumph.

Feel free to use it now as a motivator for Hal to maybe land a trade for Tarik Skubal, that would certainly brighten the prospects for winning a World Championship in 2026. 

If the Yankees don’t win it all in 2026 what is the significance of 17 straight years of non-World Series titles?

It is actually pretty big in the history of the Steinbrenner family. Let me explain.

The Boss’ team won World Series titles in 1977 and ’78 but they did not win another title until 1996, so they went 17 title-less years before winning in the 18th season after 1978.

So, another non-title year for the Yankees and Hal Steinbrenner will mean he matches his father’s drought of 17 years. If you don’t win this year, Hal, the pressure is really on in 2027 which promises to be a lockout year.

If you want to beat your father, win it all this year.

If I were in Cashman’s shoes that would have been my speech to Hal to get more money out of him after being ousted in four games in the ALDS by the better Blue Jays.

The day after the Game 4 ouster, Cashman should have said, “Yo Hal, just want to let you know, if we spend big next year and add the pieces we need to win it all in 2026 and beat the Dodgers at their own game and win the World Series, you will beat your dad because he didn’t win after 1978 until 18 years later.’’

At least that is what I would have done.

Don’t know if Cashman brought any of that up. Feel free to use it now as a motivator for Hal to maybe land a trade for Tarik Skubal, that would certainly brighten the prospects for winning a World Championship in 2026.

As it is, the Dodgers will be looking for their third straight World Series trophy, something that hasn’t been done since The Boss’ Yankees won those three in a row in 1998, ’99 and 2000. By the way, Cody’s dad, Clay, was a utility man on the Yankees in 1999 and 2000 and owns two Pinstripe championship rings.

There is once again a lot at stake this year and so far, the Yankees’ game plan has been to run it back, that includes betting on Trent Grisham having a big year. There are other key lineup, bullpen and rotation question marks.

Essentially, it turns out, the Yankees were bidding against themselves in the Bellinger Sweepstakes, once again played perfectly by Boras.

Kyle Tucker, represented by Excel Sports Management, signed a four-year, $240 million contract with the Dodgers. It works for the Dodgers because they had to get a bit younger and Tucker is 29, so these should be the prime years of his career and on Wednesday Dodger manager Dave Roberts said the plan is to have Tucker hit second or third in their star-studded lineup. Good move, Doc.

The Dodgers have learned to keep it fresh and once they opened up their vault to Shohei Ohtani they realized it is vital to add expensive talent every year. You can’t stand pat.

You see Andrew Friedman & Co. don’t just do what is necessary, they do what can be dreamed up in a fantasy baseball world. They take incredible leaps of faith, spending incredible amounts of money and in each of the two previous seasons that has paid off with World Series titles.

Plus, I’m pretty sure that everyone in Japan owns a Dodgers’ Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto jersey and some also have a Roki Sasaki jersey.

Think big to do big.

It is Three-peat time in La-La Land, so they had to come up and bolster the plan.

“When we started the offseason, and talking about various fits on the trade market, free-agent market,’’ Friedman told reporters on Wednesday, “there was nobody that moved our World Series odds for 2026 more than Kyle Tucker.’’

There you have it. They also stole away closer Edwin Diaz from the Mets. That was huge.

Dodger fans in LA and around the world are living a baseball dream because the Dodgers have creatively spent more money than anyone and, in the meantime, have conquered baseball across the globe with those Japanese superstars Ohtani and Yamamoto. I still can’t get over what Yamamoto did last year in the World Series, winning three games, including coming on in relief in Game 7 for eight outs after winning the night before. If he had signed with the Yankees, the Yankees probably never would have let him do that, but Dave Roberts rolled the dice.

Yamamoto is 27, Ohtani is 31. As I mentioned earlier, Judge turns 34 in April, Bellinger turns 31 in July. Mookie Betts is 33 and Freddie Freeman is 36 so it made perfect sense for the Dodgers to lock down Tucker. They once had Bellinger, if you remember. I believe, beyond the money, Tucker wanted to go somewhere where he could blend into the lineup and not be the centerpiece.

Same for Bellinger, he knows having Judge in the lineup is a saving grace for him. He knows Yankee Stadium is a saving grace for him. At Yankee Stadium Bellinger produced a .909 OPS last year and a .715 mark on the road.

That is why it is imperative this coming season for the Yankees to win the AL East. The Blue Jays eked out the division over the Yankees this past season and that home-field advantage was huge for them at the Rogers Centre.

The Yankees need to put more emphasis on winning the division this season and that will be difficult, because it appears the Blue Jays did get better even though they lost a key piece in Bo Bichette, a player I love to watch play the game the right way. Bichette signed with the Mets for three years at $126 million to play a new position, third base.

Right off the bat you can see the Mets have a huge advantage in the Subway Series battle at third base. The Yankees have light-hitting Ryan McMahon at third base. Bellinger was out of the Mets’ picture once the Mets traded for centerfielder Luis Robert Jr. This deal is a classic example of a team hoping a change of scenery helps Robert and his approach to the game.

Like play like you care for a change.

Robert hit .224 in 2024 and really picked up his game batting .223 in 2025. Yikes. Injury prone, only one of those six seasons did he play more than 110 games.

I can think of no more depressing place to play Major League Baseball, though, than playing for the crummy White Sox, where Robert was marooned.

The Mets made a ton of changes; the Yankees so far have said let’s get back together and do it again.