The Predictable failure of the Catching tandem

Nobody listens

Russel Martin signed a two year deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates this off season and despite the fact that the Yankees could have matched the offer or signed him to a 1 year $10 million deal but the Yankees declined that in favor of having Chris Stewart as their starting catcher. As you may remember Stewart was supplanted by Francisco Cervelli but after only 17 games Cervelli was hurt and Stewart became the starter again. In the first half Stewart didn't play well but he hit .241 with three homers so some people were able to pretend that he did well. In the second half he nosedived offensively and at this point in the year he is basically a replacement level player. This could be attributed to either him wearing down or the fact that he got exposed in more playing time. Martin on the other hand put up similar numbers to his two years in pinstripes and has been praised for his handling of the pitching staff in Pittsburgh.
The sad fact is that GM Brian Cashman knew this would happen and wanted to sign Martin but ownership overrode him and let Martin walk, instead they spend $13 million on Ichiro who if he wasn't a name and didn't have another year on his deal would likely have been cut by now.  I wish I could say that the Yankees will fix this problem in the off season with free agent Brian McCann, but I do not honestly expect them to. The Yankees could have tried to see if Austin Romine could handle the starting job but instead they stuck with alternating the two so we never got an extended look at Romine and now he is out with a concussion. Unfortunately I feel resigned to the fact that we are going to have to see the Yankees trot out Chris Stewart as the starter again next season which is just insane for the New York Yankees to do two years in a row.
The worst part is how everyone saw this coming, nobody thought oh gee Stewart as the starting catcher that will work wonderfully and yet the Yankees did it and Cervelli as the backup who could have seen that coming unless we look at the fact that he has been injury prone for his entire career. Austin Romine wasn't ready for the big league when he got called up because everyone knew he wasn't going to be ready as he had only had 17 games at Triple A last year and his year before had also been shortened due to injury. I don't know what convinced the Yankees that Stewart starting would work but clearly they were wrong, but rather than admit this they have just kept going with it and very possibly will keep going with it into next season.