How the New Jersey Devils Are Better Run than the New York Yankees

Devils Have a Better General Manager and Owner than the Yankees

Every team needs a general manager and an owner to help put the team together and keep the organization afloat. Unfortunately for the Yankees, the GM and owner are holding the team back from being great. If Boone was the puppet, GM Brian Cashman and owner Hal Steinbrenner would be the puppet masters.

Cashman was hired in 1998. While he has put solid teams together, these past two decades have been awful compared to the expectations. The Yankees have one World Series appearance since 2003.

Instead of keeping up with the modern game, Cashman decides to go the opposite route. Instead of good players who can make contact, play left field, and make great defensive plays with speed, you have guys who don’t fit the narrative with the Yankees. They get guys like Josh Donaldson, Harrison Bader, Franchy Cordero, and Anthony Rizzo. Cashman won’t “overspend” on guys that could help in the future. Instead of getting guys like Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Bryan Reynolds, and others, he chooses Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu.

What does he do after getting swept by the Astros in the 2022 ALCS? Cashman re-signs Judge and runs it back. When a GM on a team like the Yankees misses those kinds of players and runs the same squad back while everyone else grows more potent, he should get fired.

As far as Hal Steinbrenner is concerned, he clearly doesn’t care like his father. It’s hard to say its about anything more than money at this point. When things started to freefall in early June, Steinbrenner asked, “Why are the fans upset? I’m a little confused.”

If an owner related to his father, known as one of the best minds in the sport’s history, doesn’t even care about what state the team is in, why should the fans even care? The Yankees still have a chance to do the right thing and change how the organization gets run. But I doubt they will and will most likely wait until 2024.

Thankfully, the Devils don’t have an owner or GM issue. When Tom Fitzgerald was hired as the Devils’ GM, he had already done an excellent job. Getting guys like Timo Meier to sign an extension and acquiring Tyler Toffoli is so much fun to see. He also drafted guys like Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes.

The only lousy contract that Fitzgerald may have given out was Ondrej Palat’s contract. However, it was the contract’s first year, so there’s still time for that. Either way, Tom Fitzgerlad should’ve been nominated for the Jim Gregory Award. As for Josh Harris, while he may not pay full attention to the Devils, at the very least, he’s happy to see them thriving and doesn’t want to make any bad decisions. So, yeah, the Devils and Yankees are on two different sides of how they play.