NEW YORK — The Yankees may be running it back on the field. The YES Network is doing the opposite in the broadcast booth. The regional sports network has overhauled its game coverage for the 2026 season, trimming a crowded rotation of voices down to a core group of familiar names. The days of tuning in and wondering who would be sitting next to Michael Kay are over.
Too many voices, not enough rhythm
Last season, YES employed four different play-by-play announcers and six different analysts across its Yankees telecasts. Viewers never quite knew what combination they would get on a given night. The network’s own leadership recognized the problem.
“I think that’s what most of the audience wants,” YES executive producer Jared Boshnack told Newsday. “There is something to be said for the rhythm of baseball, that it’s every single night, and you come home from work, or you make time, you carve it out of your schedule on the weekends . . . I think it’s going to really be beneficial for the audience to know every single game, ‘Hey, this is who’s going to be covering it.'”
The network ranked 23rd out of 30 teams in Awful Announcing’s 2025 MLB local broadcast rankings. The Mets, whose SNY booth of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling has been together for 21 seasons, finished second.
Flaherty, Nelson and Frazier dropped from game coverage
The biggest casualties of the shakeup are three former Yankees players who served as game analysts in 2025. John Flaherty, Jeff Nelson and Todd Frazier have all been removed from the booth.
Flaherty, a former Yankees catcher, had been with the network for 20 years. He also filled in on play-by-play duties alongside his analyst role. Nelson, a key reliever on the late-1990s dynasty teams, and Frazier, the fan favorite who played for the Yankees in 2017 and 2018, were also used as rotating analysts last season.
Flaherty and Nelson will not be part of YES coverage at all in 2026. Frazier and play-by-play voice Justin Shackil will move to pre-game and post-game studio roles but will not call games.
Flaherty told Newsday the decision was “definitely not a surprise” when YES informed him in October that he would not be coming back.
The new booth: Kay, Cone, O’Neill and Girardi
Going forward, every Yankees game on YES will feature one of two play-by-play voices and one of three analysts. Michael Kay will be behind the mic for roughly 85 to 90 percent of regular-season telecasts in his 25th year at the network. Ryan Ruocco, who also works for ESPN, will handle the rest.
The analyst rotation is David Cone, Paul O’Neill and Joe Girardi. All three carry deep connections to the franchise. Cone pitched for the Yankees from 1995 to 2000 and threw a perfect game in 1999. O’Neill was a five-time All-Star and four-time World Series champion in pinstripes from 1993 to 2001. Girardi managed the team for 10 seasons from 2008 to 2017, winning the 2009 World Series.
Meredith Marakovits will continue in her sideline reporter role.
Boshnack wants identity, not imitation
The move inevitably draws comparisons to the Mets’ celebrated booth at SNY, where Cohen, Hernandez and Darling have built one of the most beloved broadcast teams in sports. Boshnack, who took over as the top production executive at YES a year ago this month, pushed back on that framing.
“What SNY has done with their booth, I’m aware of how those guys work together,” Boshnack told Newsday. “But in our world, we focus solely, solely, on the YES Network. I’m locked in on our coverage. I’m locked in on what’s best for YES. Nothing that we do is implied or as a result of what other networks might be up to.”
He framed the decision as one about consistency rather than copying.
“What we had an opportunity to do this offseason was to take a look at it, and really leaned more in on consistency, the opportunity to tighten some things up, and create continuity so that there’s identity when people are tuning in that they know exactly who they’re tuning in for,” Boshnack said.
The restructured booth gets its first test Saturday when Kay and Cone call the Yankees’ spring training home opener against the Detroit Tigers on YES Network at 1:05 p.m. ET.
Whether the smaller group delivers the chemistry the network is banking on will play out over 162 games. But for the first time in years, Yankees fans will at least know who to expect when they turn on the television.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
Waaay too much chatter from any combo that will be in the booth, now. I wish it was possible to listen to the radio broadcast while watching TV with no sound.
Ryan Ruocco is absolutely insufferable. His trombone-like intonations automatically activate the MUTE button.