The quiet of an offseason can say as much about a team as the noise. And right now, the New York Yankees are saying plenty without lifting a finger. The rest of the league is actively trying to make moves. The Yankees are standing still. Or at least that’s how it looks from the outside.
A Market That Refuses To Move
Brian Cashman insists there’s no reason to panic. He described the current landscape as moving at “glacial speed,” which is the kind of line that reads like frustration wrapped in patience. Cashman has been around long enough to know that some of the most impactful opportunities don’t show up when the calendar says they should. They appear when everyone else stops paying attention.
He’s not wrong about the timeline. Even with fans already restless, the Yankees still have most of the winter in front of them, and there’s a real argument that waiting could help the front office avoid the kind of inflated contracts that sometimes tag along with early free agency spending. But patience only plays when there’s action behind it. Cashman swears there is.
Searching For Upgrades Everywhere
The needs aren’t subtle. The Yankees require at least one legitimate rotation upgrade, help in a bullpen that lost Devin Williams to the Mets plus other pitchers, and ideally one more outfielder with actual game-changing upside. That’s not a small shopping list. It’s the kind of list that usually demands a headline move before Christmas.
Yet there’s a difference between inactivity and strategy. This winter, unlike last year when the club had to wait out the Juan Soto saga, the Yankees can pursue alternative paths while the big-ticket situations develop. Cody Bellinger and Kyle Tucker will dominate headlines until their futures become clear, but Cashman doesn’t have to sit around while that happens. He can pivot.
One of those pivots is the pursuit of Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai, a pitcher whose upside has drawn considerable attention. They’ve also explored multiple avenues to reinforce the bullpen. It’s not flashy work, but it’s the type of groundwork that often leads to those “where did that come from?” trades that rewrite expectations.
Watching Rivals Take Their Swings
Patience gets harder to sell when rivals are busy flexing. The Toronto Blue Jays upgraded their rotation with Dylan Cease, and the Dodgers swiped Edwin Diaz to deepen a bullpen that already looked unfair. Those are the kinds of moves that make fan bases wonder why their own team isn’t acting with the same urgency.
For Yankees fans, that frustration is understandable. The AL East is too competitive and too unpredictable to treat the offseason like a waiting room. Every big swing from Toronto, Boston or Baltimore adds pressure. Every Dodgers splash adds another layer of comparison.
Cashman doesn’t seem rattled. Whether that’s a sign of calm or stubbornness depends on where you sit.
The Crouching Tiger Theory
Jim Bowden recently described the Yankees as a “crouching tiger,” a team lurking quietly, ready to make the kind of move that flips the narrative in one night. It’s an interesting metaphor because it implies something deliberate. Something coiled. Something intentional.
If Bowden is right, then this slow winter isn’t a failure of aggression but the setup before the strike. If he’s wrong, the Yankees risk watching another offseason drift by while their roster asks the same questions it did in September.
The truth will eventually reveal itself, but it’s fair to say this: patience has a shelf life, even in the Bronx. And the Yankees are getting closer to the point where waiting stops being a plan and starts being a problem.