Four key questions for the Yankees' offseason - ESPN

An early September matchup of the New York Yankees and Houston Astros would normally be a dress rehearsal for the playoffs — the two teams have faced off in three of the past six American League Championship Series, of course, and both entered the season with expectations of the same. Instead, the Yankees' season took a turn, and what should have been a marquee matchup saw the team debuting a rookie center fielder in Jasson Dominguez and a rookie catcher in Austin Wells in the series opener.

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The infusion of youth has been welcome so far — the Yankees will look to sweep the Astros tonight on Sunday Night Baseball — and it is the first of a coming wave of changes for a club that might suffer its first losing season in 31 years. It also proves owner Hal Steinbrenner's organizational review has already begun. Of course, Steinbrenner will eventually decide whether general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone will stay or go, but the review will go far way beyond the best-known names in the chain of command. There will be discussions about the effectiveness of the team's amateur scouting, pro scouting, player development, sports science practices, and, as Steinbrenner told The Associated Press this week, the club's deployment of analytics.

«We're looking to bring in possibly an outside company to really take a look at the analytics side of what we do,» Steinbrenner said. «Baseball operations in general. We're going to have some very frank conversations with each other. This year was obviously unacceptable.»

Hal Steinbrenner does not operate like his father, George, who reflexively fired managers and