Yankees: 4 things the Bombers can learn from small-market teams

4. Make Expensive Managerial Change

As we all have painfully witnessed, problems resulting from Aaron Boone’s lack of experience have surfaced several times during the 2021 season. First and foremost, the Yanks must use their money to hire someone who has managed a successful small (or medium-sized) market team with considerably fewer resources at their club’s disposal.

Kevin Cash (Tampa Bay Rays), Craig Counsell (Milwaukee Brewers), and Bob Melvin (Oakland Athletics) are examples of experienced and proven winners, and either one of the three would be a great future manager for the Yanks.

The Yanks should make a strong effort to hire one of these three when he becomes available and spend the necessary money to do so. As a result of recent contract extensions, Melvin, Counsell, and Cash won’t be available until 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively.

Boone has done a solid amount with “more,” but imagine having a well-respected manager at the helm who has repeatedly done more with less? This is the same reason fans are extremely confident about Chaim Bloom running the Red Sox after helping to build the Rays.

3. Play in Rule 5 Market, Don’t Ignore It

Although difficult, the Bombers should more vigorously pursue Rule 5 players who demonstrate hidden potential instead of pretending their roster is already full. While the Red Sox were perfectly willing to take Garrett Whitlock (and Kaleb Ort at the minor-league level) from the Yankees, the team from the Bronx seemed willing to wait out the entire process, letting talent pass them by.

The team should also remain aggressive in international free agency, where they’ve seemed content to rest on their laurels in recent years. The club should make a more substantial effort to obtain more international free agent money via trades whenever possible.