3 tough offseason decisions Yankees need to make, but won't

Give Brian Cashman a cushy front office job that doesn't matter and bring in a new baseball operations person

And finally, give the people what they want! Cashman is no longer suited to call the shots for the Yankees. He cannot be the one signing off on decisions that shape the future or even improve the immediate outlook. How much longer can the Yankees stomach his moves setting the organization back?

When you think about it, the Yankees' lone World Series victory since 2001 came in 2009 when Cashman was given the green light to spend $500 million as George Steinbrenner was knocking on heaven's door. Since then? It's been the most disappointing era of Yankees baseball since the pre-dynasty days. And the mishaps have all been self-inflicted.

Hal Steinbrenner was instrumental in cutting spending after the 2017 and 2018 seasons and left the duties to Cashman to make cost-effective moves to improve the roster. The 2018 roster flamed out hard in the playoffs. The 2019 roster endured an historic amount of injuries, chugged along nicely, but succumbed to the Astros in the ALCS. Then, from 2020 on, outside of the addition of Cole and re-signing Judge, very few Cashman moves have paid dividends (Clay Holmes, Jose Trevino, Wandy Peralta?). In fact, many have been disastrous (Joey Gallo, Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Anthony Rizzo, Luis Severino, Aaron Hicks, Andrew Benintendi, Rougned Odor, Jay Bruce ... do we need to keep going?).

On top of that, the player development and drafting has been terrible The Yankees' homegrown, drafted WAR leaders since Cashman took over in 1998 are Brett Gardner, Aaron Judge and ... Anthony Volpe. It's actually insane.

The Yankees need a new direction. They don't want to fire Cashman? Fine. Elevate him to a position that doesn't matter -- one that makes it seem like he's the head honcho, but really just keeps him in a cushy role as legacy member of the front office. Bring in a forward-thinking GM and allow him/her to create their own front office and let Cashman be the guy the GM forces to sign off on whatever moves are being made.

The Most Special Assistant to Hal Steinbrenner? Yeah, we like that one. It makes the most sense, too.