Hal Steinbrenner makes clear who he blames for Yankees' troubles as Brian Cashman makes announcement

After roughly two weeks of radio silence, New York Yankees brass delivered their official postmortem on Wednesday, and owner Hal Steinbrenner made it very clear who he blames for the team tying its longest championship drought since winning its first World Series in 1923.

Steinbrenner spoke alongside general manager Brian Cashman during a joint Zoom news conference from the team's spring training ballpark in Tampa, Florida, and manager Aaron Boone followed with a video news conference from Yankee Stadium.

With Boone and Cashman seemingly public enemies No.

1A and 1B among the Yankees fan base , making them available for the conferences all but confirmed Steinbrenner's loyalty to both of them, and he confirmed that fact.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK SPORTS COVERAGE "The bottom line is the players didn’t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs," Steinbrenner said.

Steinbrenner said that he felt the 2026 Yankees were a "world championship caliber team," yet for the second year in a row, they were eliminated by a division rival in the American League Division Series on their own home field.

Steinbrenner said Boone, who will return for his 10th season, "managed a good season" which included numerous injuries to several star players.

However, the postseason proved practically impossible for the offense.

"I believe we absolutely had a team that was winning a championship.

I was disappointed, quite frankly, with the offense throughout the course of the year as a whole," Steinbrenner said.

"That is certainly one part of the organization that I will be looking at from top to bottom ... but this is twice now when the offense just hasn't lived up to their end of the bargain and got the deal done." AARON BOONE WILL RETURN FOR 10TH SEASON AS YANKEES MANAGER DESPITE FAN OUTRAGE: REPORTS Cashman himself later broke the news that he had agreed to an extension - his current contract expires later this year, and he became the team's GM in 1998.

When Cashman took over from Bob Watson in 1998, it was the 15th change at GM since George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in January 1973.

Cashman has been the only GM under Hal Steinbrenner, who succeeded his father as controlling owner in November 2008.

"Well, look, Cash is great every season," Steinbrenner said.