Will the Yankees’ external toxicity problem cost them Aaron Judge, other free agents?

"I’m an Astro, bro," Reggie Jackson, a special advisor to Houston owner Jim Crane, told Mark Berman of Fox 26 last week at Minute Maid Park. "The pinstripes get heavy sometimes."

It is not, therefore, a new emotion to be exhausted by the unrealistic expectations and anger that follows when those expectations aren’t met. Even Mr. October felt the weight of it. But even before the Astros swept the Yankees in the ALCS last weekend, the clubhouse and front office had quietly noticed that the external energy surrounding the team felt as angry as it has been in ages.

If you’re Aaron Judge, booed in the playoffs days after setting an American League home run record, why wouldn’t you prefer sunny Los Angeles or familiar San Francisco?

And if you’re a free agent talking to your friends already on the team, why would you subject yourself to the experiences they describe?

You won’t find any Yankee players willing to offer a quote criticizing fan culture, but I’ll pass along these observations after embedding with the team throughout a difficult month.

First, this is not a criticism of folks who feel angry and disappointed that they don’t get to cheer for their team in the World Series. It’s just an objective truth that the team is taken aback by the level of negativity hitting them after a division title and 99-win season. Those feelings could have real consequences for the roster.

More than one Yankee player has told his agent this week that playing at the Stadium last weekend was an unusually brutal experience. It was hard for many teammates to believe that fans booed Judge. Even a difficult person and underperformer like Josh Donaldson was turned into a somewhat sympathetic figure internally by the force of the jeering.

In the days that followed, many in the organization were surprised by the tone of fan and media reaction. Rivals were shocked too. One longtime exec texted to say he was struck by "the irrational opinions on Cashman and Boone. I get that it’s World Series or bust but damn they’re spoiled."

The gap between industry and fan perceptions of Cashman and Boone is particularly striking. Rivals consider Cashman one of the greatest executives in sports, and say that Boone will immediately become a coveted free agent if the Yankees fire him. Other GMs and agents are genuinely baffled by fan hate toward those two.

Cashman and Boone can take it, though. They’re not going anywhere unless Hal Steinbrenner tells them to (and while that’s not expected, we’re still awaiting word, and there are no guarantees either way).

It’s player reaction to the toxicity that poses a tangible problem, and the Yankees know it. That’s one reason why the front office supports Boone’s relentless positivity when discussing players in public: Between fans in the stadium, social media and traditional media, the team figures that players have enough criticism in their day. It’s the modern manager’s job to provide an environment that serves as an escape from all that.

Cashman and his staff believe that Boone is the right person for that task. We will see if they retain the power to decide that.

The Yankees themselves created this problem long ago. George Steinbrenner’s oft-repeated theme, later adopted by Derek Jeter and others, that a season is a failure if it does not end in a championship has come to define the Yankee brand.

Now the clubhouse itself feels crushed under the weight of that brand. More than I’ve ever seen, players don’t want to be Yankees. The team needs to find a way to change the message and tone -- though after all these years, doing so might be near impossible.