Yankees' final home crowd of 2023 simply has to be rock bottom for this franchise

We know why Yankees fans decided not to show up -- like, at all -- for the team's home finale on Monday afternoon.

For one thing, the home finale was supposed to be Sunday; the rain knocked Saturday's Diamondbacks-Yankees game into the mist, then bumped everything a day, resulting in a Monday afternoon contest no one anticipated.

For another, the timing could not have been worse. The team was officially eliminated from the postseason on Sunday evening following their loss in Game 2 of this series, rendering Monday's makeup game meaningless for all Yankee fans who weren't concerned with the machinations of the NL Wild Card race. Add in the weather (yup, still raining!), and Monday's game was as missable as missable gets.

We know why nobody -- absolutely nobody -- showed up to send the Yankees into the offseason on "Fan Appreciation Day," and we don't blame a single soul for skipping this one. But it's hard to marry all the elements -- lost team, finished season, wet weather -- and call this awful visual anything other than rock bottom.

Yankees final home game of 2023 crowd is six, maybe seven people

As we learned in 2023, though, things could always get lower. Aaron Judge rammed his toe into a concrete slab and missed two months. The Yankees played "the kids" and got worse. Anthony Rizzo started off like an All-Star, nearly got decapitated, and finds his MLB future in doubt entering 2024. Carlos Rodón barely pitched, and is still going to finish the year with more starts than Nestor Cortes Jr. (13 to 12). Cortes talked smack about the Red Sox, who proceeded to sprint out to an 8-1 start against the Yankees this year.

This was horrendous, top to bottom. Mass changes are necessary. But, again, those "mass changes" could result in new and chaotic ways to lose repeatedly. It's hard to be optimistic when your home slate ends with eight rain-soaked fans watching a $290 million roster and a lineup full of .190 hitters playing out the string.

The 2023 Yankees don't deserve a heartfelt eulogy or rampant fan support. They, instead, require however many kicks in the ass are necessary so that the reverberations might reach the front office and convince them the on-field product remains unacceptable. But it's hard not to be exceedingly jealous, after such a joyless year, of all the MLB cities out there who love their teams, and whose teams love them back.