Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said on Wednesday that personnel changes remain possible after New York's disappointing season resulted in an 82-80 record. "Anything's possible," Steinbrenner said during a panel at Sportico's Invest in Sports conference, according to the Associated Press.
Steinbrenner's comments come a week after holding a series of meetings with 15 team officials. The 53-year-old billionaire claimed that he encouraged his staff to "challenge everything" about the organization's processes and practices. Additionally, Steinbrenner said that his contemplated changes are "possibly personnel, but not necessarily personnel." In the other words, Steinbrenner could recommend that the Yankees alter their practices on when they promote prospects, how those players coached, and so on and so forth.
It's unclear what personnel Steinbrenner would consider altering. Reports from August indicated that general manager Brian Cashman is expected to return. Manager Aaron Boone, meanwhile, has since secured a vote of confidence from reigning Most Valuable Player Award recipient Aaron Judge. Cashman, MLB's longest tenured GM, reportedly signed a new four-year extension last winter. Boone, conversely, will see the guaranteed portion of his contract expire after next season. (The Yankees hold a club option on his 2025.)
Our own Mike Axisa detailed where the 2023 Yankees went wrong late in the season. Here's a snippet:
I am not here to call for anyone's job -- that's bad juju -- but it seems clear the Yankees need a fresh set of eyes and a fresh perspective. Maybe that means replacing Cashman, maybe that means elevating Cashman to a senior management position and hiring a new GM to run the day-to-day operations. Either way, things have gone stale in the Bronx. They need a new voice.
It's worth noting that earlier in the summer, Steinbrenner said he would hire a consulting firm to take a look at the franchise's baseball operations department. We're going to take a very deep dive into everything we're doing," he said. "We're looking to bring in possibly an outside company to really take a look at the analytics side of what we do. Baseball operations in general." The New York Daily News later reported that the team would instead be observing a third-party analytics company that "has models for things like drafting, defense, offense, pitching and evaluating players."
Steinbrenner did make one other thing clear: he has no intention of selling the Yankees. Rather, he stressed that he intends to keep the franchise in the family. His father, George Steinbrenner, first purchased the Yankees in 1973.
