The Yankees’ latest playoff flop has kicked off the same old conversation: who inside that clubhouse is actually setting the tone?
That word - accountability - is suddenly everywhere around the team, and the criticism has centered on a group that looks, to some outside observers, like it’s missing a strong internal edge. ESPN’s Buster Olney said he spoke with a former player about the issue and came away with a simple answer.
“I was talking with a former player about this [Wednesday], you walk into a clubhouse and everyone’s on their phone,” Olney said Thursday on ESPN New York radio. “I think they have to put down their phones and they have to be a little bit more invested in each other than they have been.”
The frustration has landed on Jazz Chisholm in particular. Some fans and analysts have pointed to his behavior as part of the larger concern, and after the Yankees were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3, Chisholm said it was “confusing” why fans were booing him.
“You’re booing a guy that’s playing currently, trying to help the team win,” he told reporters. “And I’m hearing boos instead of trying to hype guys up.”
Cam Schlittler, meanwhile, drew the opposite reaction. The Yankees ace was praised for owning the Game 2 loss even though his fielders made four, and probably five, errors behind him.
“It starts with me,” the Cy Young Award favorite told reporters. “I’d be the first one to say that I didn’t do my job.”
Olney said that kind of response is exactly what the Yankees need more of.
“The way Cam did that, I think was exactly what they need going forward,” he said.
David Ortiz also weighed in on Fox after Game 3, saying the Yankees are missing the kind of clubhouse culture that used to be enforced by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.
“Look, I never played for the Yankees but I competed a lot against the Yankees,” Ortiz told Rodriguez, Jeter and Kevin Burkhardt on Fox. “And there’s one thing that I can see missing from the Yankees, and it’s the culture.
“There’s a lot of little things that in the long run, they start catching up. And those things never happened when you guys were there.
“They need to start paying attention to those little things because you need to have that one player in the clubhouse that gets those things put away.”
Turning to Jeter, he said, “I know you used to do that.”
Pointing to Rodriguez, he added, “You used to do that.”
Olney said the Yankees can still get there.
“I think that they can get that way,” he said.
Maybe with a little less phone time and a little more accountability.
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