Yankees legends Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez deliver blunt post-mortem on team: ‘Something has to change’

The New York Yankees have tied their longest World Series drought since 1923.

It will now be 17 consecutive seasons without the Commissioner’s Trophy in the Bronx after getting swept in the American League Division Series by their AL East rival Tampa Bay Rays.

The Yankees managed to squeak out just five runs in the three-game set and hit just .130 in the series.

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Last year, the Yankees were able to salvage one win in the DS, but it didn’t stop Alex Rodriguez from calling last year’s roster construction “one of the worst” he had ever seen. Well, the Yankees ran back largely the same exact team and got a nearly identical result, leaving Rodriguez and Derek Jeter in shambles.

“Something has to change. I’m not talking about personnel, but I’m talking about a philosophy. There has to be a philosophy change,” Rodriguez said on FOX late Wednesday night. “You’ve won 27 titles one way. I’m not saying anyone should lose their job, but [general manager Brian] Cashman has surrounded himself with people that know baseball, that understand baseball, that can value both sides of the ball – it’s unthinkable when your season is on the line, and of the nine positions, you don’t know who’s going to play five positions…

“If something doesn’t change, you’re going to have the same results, and you’ve been watching the same movie for over a decade, and nothing changes. It’s getting late.”

Jeter admitted he didn’t exactly have a plan for the Yankees but made it clear that today’s Yankees are a far cry from yesteryear.

George Lombard Jr. and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees react after being defeated by the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3 of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York City, on Oct. 7, 2026. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

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“We were teams that focused on all the little things. We would beat you with the home run, but we’d also beat you 2-1. There’s different ways of winning games when you’re not swinging the bats well. But we didn’t beat ourselves, and I think in this particular series, there were a lot of games where the Yankees beat themselves,” Jeter said.

Even Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz sees a major issue in the Bronx.

“I never played for the Yankees, but I competed a lot against the Yankees, and there’s one thing I can see missing, and it’s the culture,” Ortiz said. “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 the little things. You need to have that one player in that clubhouse that gets those things put away. That organization needs to go back into it. At the end of the day, the game has changed a lot, but the culture is always going to be the culture, and they are far away from being what they used to be culture wise.”

Members of the Tampa Bay Rays pose for a photo after their victory against the New York Yankees in Game 3 of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City on Oct. 7, 2026. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

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The Yankees were one-hit in Game 1, and that hit was erased after Austin Wells tried to stretch a double into a triple.

The next night, they made three errors in the first four batters of the bottom of the first. Game 3 was their most sound, but in ironic fashion, the Rays used the long ball to take home a 4-3 victory and advance to the American League Championship Series.