The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again but expecting a different result — much like how the New York Yankees fulfill their “help will be coming at the deadline” promise by getting relief pitchers every single year. It’s laughable, to the point where I awoke Thursday, the day of the trade deadline, and thought, “they’ll probably attack the bullpen.”

I thought, momentarily, I was simply being pessimistic. I thought the Bronx Bombers might surprise me this week when they secured a trade with the Colorado Rockies for Ryan McMahon on July 25. It seemed like general manager Brian Cashman was maybe turning the ship with moves that brought the team to the next level.

I was waiting for the big splash, the move I needed to lock back in as a fan. I thought the Yankees would regain the identity — of doing whatever it took to put the most competitive team on the field they could — they owned 15 years ago.

And then what I suspected all along happened. It wasn’t a big splash; instead, they bolstered their bullpen, acquiring two-time All-Star closer David Bednar from the Pittsburgh Pirates, middle receiver Jake Bird in another deal with the Rockies, and Camilo Doval, another setup or closing option, from the San Francisco Giants. 

They didn’t get a starter. They focused on depth. They went all-in on the bullpen. They got McMahon, but I thought they could have made a bigger splash for the offense.

Their moves were almost identical to those they made at the deadline in previous years. Almost identical. The same theory, the same equation for winning games, and the same lopsided approach — a stacked bullpen — that they have employed over the past decade. Over and over, they’ve tried to be the 2015 Kansas City Royals, who rode a dominant late-inning trio to a championship, but they only take what they want; they didn’t replicate how the Royals traded for lefty utility player Ben Zobrist and a top-end starter in Johnny Cueto that year.

And as such, having flashy bullpens hasn’t worked yet, especially for a franchise that expects to win every year. We’re in Year 8 of this experiment, of them bringing in the best relievers, of the front office pitching this build-from-the-back strategy as the way they’d get over the hump –– and each year, it leads to the same problems. I recently wrote a piece about how they’ve struggled with the fundamentals of fielding, but the little attention the Yankees have given to starting pitching and getting help offensively in recent years is glaring.

Let’s quickly remind ourselves of the past eight years. In 2017, the Yankees built an elite bullpen around Dellin Betances and Chad Green, trading for David Robinson and Tommy Kahnle and resigning Aroldis Chapman — they did add starter Sonny Gray, but the bullpen was the major part of the deadline that year. That didn’t work; they lost to the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series as the offense stalled. 

In 2018, they leaned on the bullpen, adding Zach Britton to an unit stacked with Chapman, Betances, Green and Robinson mid-season. It led them to the Division Series against the Boston Red Sox, but in that series, they hit .214 as a team. The next year, in 2019, they again rode an elite bullpen that led the MLB with a 2.49 ERA, the rotation struggled. They were rumored to be in the mix for a starter, but didn’t make any deadline trades. Instead, they chose to ride the bullpen, composed of Chapman, Britton, Green, and Adam Ottavino — and that ended in the starting rotation getting exposed in the ALCS against the Astros. 

And then in 2022, they added a starter in Frankie Montas and reliever Lou Trivino. Montas struggled and the bullpen was decent, but the offense vanished as the Astros swept them in the ALCS.

There’s a bottom line here: stacking bullpens isn’t a recipe for success. In theory, it’s great — a team gets out to an early lead and by the sixth inning and then starts rolling out flamethrowers. But that’s not the reality. Teams aren’t always going to be in the lead, and having a stacked bullpen doesn’t mean much when the offense is struggling and they’re facing a 4-1 deficit.

And the other frustrating thing is that if a team thinks each time they have a lead in the sixth, they will bring in their relievers to close it out, they’re wrong. Fatigue will build up and effectiveness will wane — especially considering the relievers who fill these platoon roles often reach velocities in the high 90s and triple digits. According to FanGraphs, without enough rest, relievers experience measurable drops in fastball velocity, walk more batters, strike out fewer, and allow more hits and home runs. Moreover, over the course of a series, relievers lose effectiveness as their velocity drops and hitters see them over and over.

I struggle to understand why the Yankees have doubled-down on this bullpen-stacking approach that has abandoned them over and over, but I know why. It’s a distraction. It’s a shiny move that provides hope that things could get better — because the bullpen did improve. But with that said, the Yankees didn’t improve how I thought they could have and have entered August with many of the same problems they entered July with: lack of starting pitching and an offense that can look bleak.