it's April of 2024 the very first month of the Season every single Yankees fan felt exactly what Red Sox fans did back in 2020 and 2021 regarding Alex Verdugo oh look at this guy he's fun he's exciting he's a good hitter oh my God he's barking like a dog that was a new one Red Sox fans didn't see that and I'm glad because it was stupid and weird what the hell is even that but the overall consensus for Yankees fans was good with Verdugo they like the energy and this had the makings of a new good Yankee tenure I'm not going to say anybody was expecting Verdugo to be an MVP candidate or anything like that but a good hitter good defense great energy and that's all you really can ask for from him skip ahead to now and the idea that Alex Verdugo is even playing on this team seems remarkable it seems like a genuine prank that reality and the way we've even gotten to this reality seems like a Looney Tunes joke but it's real and as a result the fans aren't happy and the team looks brain dead so how the hell did we get here well it started with a tri the later half of the 2023 season was not very fun for Alex Verdugo he wasn't very good and he also didn't get along very well with the manager Alex Kora getting benched and publicly called out by him multiple times Verdugo even brought up the amount of weeks left in the season there were until he basically gets to go home he just seemed very checked out so the Red Sox deciding to move him during the off season wasn't a shock what was a shock was trading him to the Yankees those two rarely make trades for obvious reasons but the Yankees said we want them so they got them I think the best part of this trade is one of the players the Red Sox got in return a prospect named dick Fitz I promise you on everything I'm not making that up that's his real name but enough about Dick Fitz let's talk for Dugo so he joins the Yankees along with Juan stto as a left-handed outfielder who has just one year left on his contract except Alex Verdugo is nothing like Juan Sono and that's because he sucks he's just a very weak hitter with a ceiling of just above average and even if he does reach that above average potential he tends to fall off as the season progresses it happened in Boston for a few years and it's happened in an even more exaggerated way this year but now in New York in fact it's not even the second half it's just been most of the year he started off good hitting 267 with an 804 Ops walking 15 times and only striking out 10 times in the first month that's all a solid introduction to his Yankee career since then just like the portrayal of the Joker and Suicide Squad Verdugo has been really really bad since May 1st he's hitting 2 28 with a 615 Ops that's not good at all he's pretty good at not striking out and making contact so he could run into some hits but as a whole he doesn't really do anything else well at least at a consistent level at all he doesn't hit the ball hard and that's his biggest thing he just adds very little thump and value to the offense but fortunately the Yankees have the opportunity to change this to make an easy switch for the September call-ups the Yankees had a chance to bring up top prospect and insanely highly touted outfielder Jason Dominguez easy decision thank God he's been hitting real well in triple A has already shown some big league potential you just put him out there to replace Verdo simple right well the Yankees decided not to bring him up for September and it wasn't a mistake they they meant to do that they decided to keep him down in triaa on purpose the fans are of course Furious and they have every right to be isn't the whole point of building a baseball team to try and have the most productive team out there I'm no rocket scientist but I don't think there's any scenario where Alex Verdugo over Dominguez is better from a production standpoint the issue with the Yankees seems to be that they want dingz to be able to play every day when he's up and they don't think that can happen right now but why so they can give Alex Verdugo more at bats well general manager Brian Cashman recently spoke about it and he basically said exactly that but an even dumber way this is literally cashman's quote it just comes down to what's best to help us win games it's as simple as that again no rocket scientists here but if you're going to sit there and pretend somehow that Alex fugo who's statistically been one of the worst hitters in all baseball this year is a better option to have out there than Dominguez and helps you win more games you're just straight up insulting the fans intelligence now what do we know watch FDO hits some massive Homer to beat the ashers in the playoffs or something and then Cashman gets to have the last laugh but as of right now this is just objectively the wrong decision to make it's almost like they don't want to admit that this trade failed so they have to keep riding with Verdugo as long as they possibly can and hopes he ends up making a difference and he's not at all and it's just stupid let me know your thoughts and thank you for watching