A truly magnificent explanation for the New York Yankees' rapidly disintegrating season has taken hold in certain corners of the team's fan base: It's the beards.
I don't think anyone genuinely believes that, say, Jasson Domínguez repeatedly misplays balls hit in the air to left field because he's hampered by the presence of hair on his face. Rather, the argument is that the team's no-facial-hair policy, dropped this past winter after almost 50 years, sent a message about maintaining standards.
Without the rule, the theory goes, the bearded Yankees have allowed themselves to become just as sloppy as their unshaven faces.
It's nonsense, of course, if only for the simple reason that the two teams that have roared past the Yankees in the American League East standings, the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox, sport all kinds of facial hair. (As does every other team in baseball, good or bad.)
But Yankees fans can also be forgiven for, at this point, grasping at straws. On June 1st, New York was 38-22, with an 88% chance to win the AL East, per FanGraphs, and by far the best World Series odds in the American League.
Just over two months later, having gone 23-32 since then, the Yankees have just a 14.7% chance to win their division, and their World Series odds have fallen by half.
Those numbers would be startling enough on their own, but the way the Yankees have been losing has caused even more consternation among their faithful. They fail to make simple plays, they make dumb mental mistakes, and, more recently, they find ways to give up late-game runs that turn wins into losses, even after adding a bunch of bullpen help at the trade deadline.
It's all a little too on-the-nose for a team that came into this season as the clear favourites in the AL East, but was still smarting from a brutal finish to last October. That's when they coughed up a five-run lead in Game 5 of the World Series - surrendering five unearned runs in one inning, no less - to lose the contest and the series to the Los Angeles Dodgers. These Yankees have seemed a lot like those Yankees, giving the other side free outs and generally not playing with the confidence and swagger that once defined the men in pinstripes.
Who's to blame for all this? Manager Aaron Boone, now in his eighth season in the job, has come under heavy criticism for his perceived tolerance of poor play. But some point the finger at general manager Brian Cashman, who oversaw the team's late-90s dynasty but has been to the World Series just twice over the past 22 years, despite the obvious financial and market advantages of playing in the Bronx. Others point the finger higher up, at owner Hal Steinbrenner, who inherited the team from his late father, George, who died 15 years ago. Conveniently for Yankees fans, they can be mad at all three parties at once: At Boone for being loyal to his players, at Cashman for being loyal to Boone, and at Steinbrenner for tolerating all of it.
The funny thing is that most teams in the sport would gladly accept the Yankees' current situation: still holding down a playoff spot with plenty of time to get back to playing like the team that looked pretty good in April and May. They have a solid starting rotation and some scary hitters, including a terrifying one in Aaron Judge.
But New York is not most teams, and the difference between this version and those of the semi-recent past is noticeable. Under the elder Steinbrenner, the Yankees were in on every big-name free agent, unafraid to spend money recklessly, and quick to make changes. Sometimes they were too quick to make changes, but they never seemed to see themselves as careful or prudent.
But the Yankees of the Hal Era have been surpassed by the Los Angeles Dodgers and the cross-town Mets as the teams most likely to spend wildly. They're far from cheap, with a still-huge payroll, and they've made costly decisions like releasing Marcus Stroman and DJ LeMahieu as this season has gone off the rails, but they're no longer the sport's 800-pound gorilla. Instead, they're like a lot of teams in the American League: good, but flawed. They've also done a particularly poor job in recent weeks of squeezing wins out of the talent that they have: New York is 17-19 in one-run games and a grisly 3-7 in extra innings.
Those are, naturally, the kind of losses that drive fans mad. And the kind of results that make them wonder if the problem is, in fact, the beards.
Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.