Yankees lose influential coach to Mets in bizarre November poaching

On Monday morning, when Aaron Boone hinted at "1-to-2 coaching staff changes," the nature of which he didn't want to reveal, most Yankees fans celebrated the team apparently reacting to their obvious need for alterations to their infrastructure.

Maybe they'd take a look at replacing third base coach Luis Rojas, on the brunt end of some of the season's worst sends and supposedly in charge of some of the Yankees' quality control. Maybe they planned to evaluate the team's poor baserunning, but didn't feel comfortable speaking on a change until it was set in stone.

While an additional change could still be coming down the pike, it now seems like Boone was hinting at another team poaching the Yankees' talent rather than the Yankees exerting their agency and making necessary moves.

According to Andy Martino, the Mets are hiring Yankees assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel to be their ... assistant pitching coach. Maybe we're in the wrong here, but don't coaches usually only leave organizations freely when they're given opportunities to be elevated elsewhere? This feels like a lateral move? Clearly, either Druschel really wanted to leave the Yankees for their crosstown rivals, or the Yankees had no interest in halting such a move.

Why did Yankees coach Desi Druschel leave for lateral move with Mets?

Druschel was first hired by the Yankees' organization in 2019, but was elevated to join the big-league staff as one of Matt Blake's lieutenants after the 2021 season, a campaign that, uh, didn't go so well. At the time, Druschel was cited as a "brilliant" mind whose expertise went beyond the realm of analytics, likely included in coverage as a panacea to all the worry warts who thought the Yankees were hiring exclusively number crunchers.

Whatever mix of expertise the Yankees' pitching braintrust chose to rely on since that moment in time is clearly working. New York's been able to develop unheralded names into bullpen workhorses time and again, even if they've struggled to replicate the same success with rotation unknowns. That development process has saved the Yankees' free agent money, which seems to be especially important considering the current self-imposed budget cap. The Yankees' 2024 draft class, which consists almost entirely of project pitchers with impressive heaters, was probably made under the assumption the whole team would be sticking together for a while.

Instead, Druschel has bolted for the Mets, presumably with a raise, but without a title change; he'll remain Jeremy Hefner's assistant pitching coach. Hopefully, Matt Blake is able to shoulder the load in his absence.