Hal Steinbrenner says he's not selling the Yankees and hangs playoff exit on the players

Hal Steinbrenner stated it clear and for the record.

Neither he nor his siblings, sisters Jessica and Jennifer, plan on selling the Yankees, a franchise that has been in the family since George Steinbrenner bought the club from CBS in 1973.

“No, it is not a precursor to selling the team,” Hal Steinbrenner said during a Zoom call Wednesday morning.

The Yankees recently entered into a $2.6 billion financing and equity agreement with Apollo Sports Capital, which is an affiliate of Apollo Global Management.

Steinbrenner said Apollo has “zero” say in the day-to-day baseball operations of the club and indicated that the agreement was not part of an attempt, as an early advance move to put it on the market, to boost his franchise’s value.

On the contrary, Steinbrenner said, the deal with Apollo is intended to further entrench his family in ownership.

“The whole goal of the Apollo deal was to bring in capital into the company that would be there to give us more financial stability for years and years to come, including the years when I’m out of here and the third generation is running the team,” Steinbrenner, 56, said. “They came in fully understanding this. They came in as limited partners with rights no different than any of the other limited partners, which can be unusual for a private equity firm. But they felt that strongly about being a part of their organization.”

Steinbrenner continued: “It’s about creating financial stability for both me and my sisters into the third generation (for) years and years to come. That was the purpose of the deal.”

Steinbrenner sat alongside general manager Brian Cashman in a conference room inside the club’s spring training headquarters at Steinbrenner Field – named for his father, aka, “The Boss” – the pair fielding questions about the disappointing end of the 2026 season.

Though calling the end – a three-game sweep at the hands of the Rays in the ALDS – “unacceptable,” Steinbrenner implied he never seriously considered ridding himself of long-time manager Aaron Boone or Cashman, his longer-tenured GM.

Cashman, whose current four-year contract expires at month’s end, said a new contract was all but in place, with a few final “minor” details to be worked out.

Otherwise, Cashman, the GM since 1998, said “we’re locked and loaded” on a deal, the specifics of which neither he nor Steinbrenner disclosed.

As for Boone, entering the final year of his contract, word broke earlier this week that he will be back for a 10th season in The Bronx..

Steinbrenner said among the “questions” he asked himself regarding Boone were:

“Did he manage well this season? Did he manage the team well this season?”

“I think the answer is yes,” said Steinbrenner, whose Yankees have not won a World Series since 2009, under Joe Girardi. “I’m not going to make a change to make a change.”

Additionally, Steinbrenner said, he asked himself: is Boone “really responsible” for the season’s “unacceptable” end?

The owner concluded, obviously, Boone was not.

“The majority of the responsibility lies with the position players and (our) inability to score on a consistent basis.”

The Yankees have appeared in just one World Series during Boone’s nine-year tenure – 2024 when they imploded in a five-game loss to the Dodgers.

Under Boone, the postseason implosion typically occurs far sooner, with this season the latest example. And that ending followed the October crash of 2025 when the Yankees lost to the Blue Jays in four games in a mostly non-competitive ALDS.

Steinbrenner characterized the 2026 Yankees as a “fantastic” team, one that was “as good as any in baseball.”

It was, the owner said, “a world championship-caliber team.”

“The players,” Steinbrenner said, “didn’t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs.”

That was not, the owner said, a reference to anything but the offense.

After outscoring the Red Sox, 18-2, in a two-game sweep in the Wild Card Series, the Yankees went 12-for-92 with 31 strikeouts in three games against the Rays, producing a .130/.192/.239 slash line and a .431 OPS. It was, according to baseball researcher Katie Sharp, the Yankees’ lowest batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS in any multi-game postseason series in franchise history.

“I was disappointed, frankly, with the offense throughout the course of the year as a whole,” said Steinbrenner, who also used the word “detrimental” in discussing the offense. “The offense was a big disappointment for me, and it has to be better.”

Steinbrenner, per the policy he has made only occasional exceptions for over the years, has not had extension talks with Boone. Steinbrenner generally does not believe in doing extensions for anyone in his employ – whether it be for players, managers, executives, etc. – and, despite saying on Wednesday he would be open to discussing the topic with Boone, it would be nothing short of a cataclysmic shock if he ended up doing so.

Indeed, Boone will go into 2027 as a lame duck.

“I’m very comfortable and at peace with that,” Boone said. “And just looking forward to getting back to that point where we saddle up in the spring and go take another shot at this with a lot of really great people.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.