DJ LeMahieu remaining a free agent is damning Yankees trend ruining Aaron Judge prime

Not that it matters anymore, but DJ LeMahieu, after being designated for assignment back in July, has remained on the open market for over a month. Sadly, this doesn't surprise New York Yankees fans one bit. This was actually expected.

Why? Because it's a trend with this team. So many players over the Aaron Judge era have come to New York only to wither away in spectacular fashion to the point where they become unplayable and not a single team wants to take a chance on their past production.

LeMahieu is the latest example in a long line of Brian Cashman whiffs. And we can add him to the list of "guys on the 2024 World Series roster who no longer have a job at this moment" — which should be all the incriminating evidence needed to make sweeping front office changes.

While LeMahieu was a fan favorite for the tremendous work he did from 2019-2020, he fell off a cliff for the most part after signing that six-year, $90 million extension; a move that was the Yankees' own doing because they wanted to limit the luxury tax hit and tacked on (at least) two too many years.

After registering 8.6 WAR over his first 195 games in pinstripes, LeMahieu went on to finish with 5.5 WAR across his final 523 contests. The Yankees should have gotten rid of him after the hellish 2023 season, but they instead kept him for 1.5 more years and it ended up costing them dearly.

DJ LeMahieu joins Anthony Rizzo, Alex Verdugo as Yankees starters who haven't been claimed

Was it LeMahieu's fault? No. He was impacted greatly by injuries. This was the Yankees' fault for not cutting ties earlier and for thinking a six-year contract for a player entering his age-32 season was a good idea. The sick part is that LeMahieu wasn't even close to this organization's worst gaffe when it comes to either acquiring aging/over-the-hill veterans or holding onto players too long.

The list since 2020 is actually objectionable. Josh Donaldson. Joey Gallo. Aaron Hicks. JA Happ. Zack Britton. Edwin Encarnacion. Kendrys Morales. Willie Calhoun. Rougned Odor. Jay Bruce. Albert Abreu. Corey Kluber. Marwin Gonzalez. Billy McKinney. Jake Bauers. Domingo Germán. Jon Berti (just DFA'd by the Cubs). Victor González. There are probably more! Long story short? You cannot have this many egregious missteps in a five-year span.

All of those guys were acquired in some way by the Yankees and immediately became pumpkins. When they left the Yankees, they either left baseball altogether or had 1-2 uninspiring stops before their careers ended or they got stuck in some sort of baseball purgatory. What do they all have in common? They ruined the Yankees in some way from 2019-2024 as the organization looked to avoid spending more aggressively or trading assets they weren't comfortable with in order to upgrade the roster around Aaron Judge.

So, the next time Cashman or Hal Steinbrenner decide to blame the players for the on-field production, take it with a grain of salt. Time and time again, shoddy roster moves are made that greatly take what should be a championship roster completely off course.