Yankees owner sure sounds envious of Blue Jays in latest offseason quote

The Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees had the exact same record in 2025, finishing the year tied at 94-68. But they took very different paths to get there and after the Blue Jays bested the Yankees in the ALDS, people within the organization started thinking, "maybe we should be more like them!" Well, maybe not everybody, but a very powerful voice within the organization is certainly leaning that way after a recent interview.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner says there were a lot of things the Blue Jays did that he liked and that maybe it's time the Yankees started doing those things as well.

Yankees owner sure sounds envious of Blue Jays in latest offseason quote

Steinbrenner spoke to the media on Monday afternoon and a couple of his quotes stood out. The first of which had nothing to do with the Blue Jays, but it was Steinbrenner's quote about how high New York's revenues are and that it's not fair for people to assume the Yankees are turning a profit.

“Everybody wants to talk about revenues. They need to talk about our expenses, including the $100 million expense to the City of New York that we have to pay every February 1, including the COVID year. So it all starts to add up in a hurry."

The other part of his media conference that stood out was his assessment of how and why the Blue Jays not only beat the Yankees for the AL East division title, but also disposed of them in five games in the playoffs.

"I think balance in life is everything," Steinbrenner said. "They slug the ball too. It's not just putting balls in play. They definitely slug the ball. Hitting strikes hard, particularly in the air, not that you're trying to hit it over the fence, but in the air, statistically speaking, the results speak for themselves, you have a better chance of success when you do that." Steinbrenner said, per Mike Petriello of MLB.com.

"You can't simply be a slugging home-run team. They had a great year. I'm curious to see next year how well they do, with that roster, assuming it stays mostly intact, but they're a great team," Steinbrenner continued. "They definitely played better than us, they slugged better than us, they hit the ball and put it in play better than us, and they pitched better than us, and that's why they won."

It's a pretty accurate assessment from the owner of the club. A club that is expected to compete year in and year out, but have only made it to the World Series once since they last won it all in 2009. The Blue Jays found a way to get positive production from just about everyone on the roster and may have forced teams to start re-thinking the way they want to construct their offense. As Steinbrenner put it, the Yankees did not "play up to their potential" in October, but the Blue Jays did exactly that.

It hasn't happened very often since the Blue Jays came into the league, but the Yankees have found themselves a few times looking up at the Blue Jays and trying to climb the rungs of the ladder to get into the same position or surpass the Blue Jays. 2025 felt like one of those years and watching how the Yankees respond in the offseason will be one of the major stories to watch. a