Brian Cashman Agrees to a New Yankees Contract for a 30th Season: What It Means After an ALDS Sweep
Brian Cashman is coming back for a 30th season. The Yankees general manager said Wednesday, on a Zoom news conference from the club’s spring training complex in Tampa, that he has agreed in principle to a new contract. It comes 14 days after the Tampa Bay Rays swept New York out of the Division Series.
“We just have to bang out some minor stuff on the back end,” Cashman said. “But yeah, we’re locked and loaded.” No terms were disclosed, and no outlet has reported the length or the value. His previous deal, signed in December 2022, covered 2023 through this season.
The resume and the drought
Cashman, 59, became Yankees senior vice president and general manager in February 1998 and is the longest-tenured head of baseball operations in the sport. He has won four World Series titles: 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009. He has won 15 AL East titles and has never had a losing season in 29 years, an absurd run of competence by any normal standard.
He also has not won a title in 17 years, matching the longest championship drought in franchise history, the 1978 to 1996 gap. He has been the only general manager Hal Steinbrenner has employed since taking over as controlling owner in 2008.
How 2026 ended
The Yankees went 93-68 and finished second in the AL East, four and a half games behind the 98-64 Rays, who clinched the division at Yankee Stadium. New York swept Boston in the Wild Card Series and then lost three straight to Tampa Bay, scoring five runs in the series and hitting .135 as a team on 12 hits in 89 at-bats. They were shut out in Game 1. Their only two runs in Game 2 came on solo home runs by Ben Rice. Game 3 was a 4-3 loss in the Bronx.
Steinbrenner blamed the players
The owner was direct about where he assigns the 2026 season. “The bottom line is, the players didn’t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs,” Steinbrenner said. He added that he has “never suggested that a season like this season is a success,” while also saying, “Winning 93 games is not a failure. Playing in the Division Series is not a failure. Yes, we failed at the goal this year.”
On Cashman: “Cash is great every season.” On the roster: “The team that we rolled out of Spring Training with was as good as any in baseball, in my opinion.” He said he was disappointed in an offense that was “inconsistent for long periods of time” and that the bullpen was “absolutely exhausted by the end of the season.” The Yankees scored 5.17 runs a game through May 31, fourth in baseball, and 4.25 after that, 23rd.
Manager Aaron Boone is also returning, for a 10th season and the final year of a two-year, $10.5 million extension signed in February 2025. There have been no extension talks, so he manages as a lame duck. “At the end of the day, we haven’t won a championship with me at the helm,” Boone said.
What it means for the offseason
Aaron Judge played 66 of 166 games this year because of a right rib fracture and later a calf strain, and he did not appear in the postseason. Cashman said Judge has one more follow-up with his doctor and that “we feel like we’re in a good place.” Judge is owed $40 million in 2027 on a deal running through 2031.
Jazz Chisholm Jr., Trent Grisham, Paul Goldschmidt and reliever David Bednar are all free agents, with the qualifying offer set at $23.15 million. Cody Bellinger at $42.5 million, Judge at $40 million, Gerrit Cole at $36 million and Max Fried at $31.5 million already account for a large share of next year’s payroll. The collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and Steinbrenner, who sits on the owners’ labor committee, said of salary cap proposals: “I support those proposals in their entirety.”
A New York Post reader poll conducted after the sweep had 73 percent of 8,535 voters wanting Cashman gone. He will instead be building the 2027 Yankees.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
