Aaron Boone’s future with the Yankees has been a talking point among Yankees fans throughout the season. He’s wrapping up his sixth season as the team’s manager and is signed through the 2024 campaign — with a club option for the 2025 season. The Yanks have had plenty of regular-season success under Boone, including a pair of 100-win seasons (100 and 103) in 2018-19 and a 99-win campaign just last year.
However, the 2023 season will be the first under Boone in which the Yankees don’t reach the postseason. They’ve gone to the ALCS twice under his leadership but haven’t advanced to the World Series.
A string of five consecutive postseason appearances followed by one miss generally wouldn’t be viewed as grounds for a potential managerial change in most markets, but the Yankees perennially operate on one of the sport’s largest payrolls and have higher expectations than just about any club in the sport. Add in the possibility that this could be the team’s first sub-.500 season way back in 1992 — a stunning statistic in and of itself — and the calls for a managerial change among the fan base only become louder.
If a change is made, it seems likely it’ll be the result of a decision directly from ownership. SNY’s Andy Martino reported late last month that the only way Boone would be ousted would be if managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner overruled general manager Brian Cashman on a managerial decision — which he has not done before. Boone told Yankees beat writers within the past hour that he has not yet been definitively told whether he’ll return for the 2024 season or not (link via The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner). Any such decision seems unlikely to come prior to the end of the regular season, though USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote this weekend that the club now expects to retain Boone.
On the one hand, it’d be unfair to lay the blame squarely at Boone’s feet, as is the case with any manager and a team that underperforms expectations. Boone has been hamstrung by significant injuries to Carlos Rodon, Frankie Montas, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Lou Trivino, among others, on the pitching side of things. Reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge spent nearly two months on the injured list this summer, while first baseman Anthony Rizzo’s season will finish at 99 games due to concussion issues and Jose Trevino’s season will end at just 55 games due to wrist surgery. The club also entered the season with several question marks around the roster, most notably in left field, where they’ve cycled through a carousel of journeyman options including Jake Bauers, Willie Calhoun and Billy McKinney.
On the other, those injury troubles and some roster shortcomings don’t entirely absolve Boone of any and all blame, of course. All managers deal with injuries to star players, and every club has its share of roster imperfections to navigate. Boone is still the one filling out the lineup card and pulling the strings with regard to bullpen and bench decisions. The composition of the team’s coaching staff, any sloppy play or questionable effort, and any other number of tougher-to-quantify shortcomings tend to fall at a manager’s feet as well.
The Yankees have only had three managers in the past 28 years. Joe Torre helmed the club from 1996 through 2007, capturing four World Series titles and another pair of AL pennants along the way. Torre gave way to Joe Girardi, who skippered the club from 2008-17. Girardi won a World Series title himself in 2009.
Boone made the playoffs in each of his first five seasons on the job but will fall short in 2023. That in and of itself isn’t necessarily grounds for an immediate dismissal in the Bronx; Girardi’s Yankees missed the playoffs entirely in three of his final five seasons. Boone hasn’t advanced to a World Series in any of his six seasons in the manager’s chair, though his predecessor also missed the World Series in his final eight seasons on the job.
At the same time, that increasingly lengthy layoff from appearing in a Fall Classic surely leads to mounting frustration both among fans and the team’s ownership. The lowest payroll the Yankees have had relative to the rest of the league since their last World Series appearance came in 2018, when they opened the season with the sixth-largest mark in baseball. They’ve ranked higher than that every year since 2009 — including seven seasons with the game’s second-largest payroll and four with the largest. That level of investment inherently comes with lofty expectations, and they’re now up to 14 seasons without a World Series appearance — let alone a title.
Time will tell whether Boone returns for a seventh season at the helm. If he does, with no additional guaranteed years on his contract beyond the ’24 season, his job status will be a hot-button issue for the Yankees throughout the upcoming season (even more so than it is now).
It’s generally clear where the majority of Yankees fans land on this issue, but let’s open it up for MLBTR readers to weigh in, asking both if the Yankees should move on and whether they actually will (which, of course, are two very different questions):
Both GM and manager were extended less than a year ago. I doubt ownership will go from that to firing one or both of them now, nor do I doubt that they would want to pay those salaries anyway, Much to the chagrin of loud, annoying Yankees fans, I expect both will be back next season.
Who they really need to be rid of is Stanton though. Just release the dude.
Aaron Boone teams ALWAYS FADE at the end of the season. Look at every season he has managed over the final 54 games. I’ll bet Boone has a losing record.
@Rick Pernell – I just checked the final 54 games for the past 5 years (except 2020) and you are just wrong. They’ve never had a year where they went under .500 and the closest was 2022 went they went 29W & 25L.
2018: 32 wins, 22 loses
2019: 35 wins, 19 loses
2021: 34 wins, 20 loses
2022: 29 wins, 25 loses
I’m glad you did this. I was about to do the same. It’s just ridiculous how easy it is to check claims like that. I think posters who make references to false stats expect nobody is going to look.
Nice research.
The perception, I think, is that the Yanks are usually in the hunt at the All Star break then don’t win it.
In Yankee land that means they lost it. Never is it that somebody else won it.
Strong work there, @Waldo29.
Ouch, actual facts always win over gut feeling rants.
@Rick, might be time for some extended time in the penalty box for you.
Well said. Perception is everything
Where did Rick go?? Lol, Waldo made him get off the internet for the day.
@Roy DeMeo, Rick got powned!
Hahaha….Come in Rick
Hey Roy, how many bodies do you really have?
They seem to always be much better in the first half. Probably a common trait among older teams.
Small price for Steinbrenner to pay to eat Boone’s salary. Cash is his guy and will be the last to go. I think he has another year of leash.
But it is not Boone’s fault. The team relied on ancient declining players on fat contracts to fill key slots. Cash pissed more money away on Rodon’s fragile left arm and left holes around the roster.
There’s really not a quick fix to make this better. The BoSox have more payroll flexibility and a comparable system. The O’s are set for years. The Rays have a stronger roster and system. The Jays have a better ML club next season but they don’t look like a long term contender to me either.
It is 100% Boone’s fault. The big HR hitters get hurt,you play small ball. They never moved the runners. Never bunted. They gotta be top 5 in stranded runners. Embarrassing.
Both of their fates should be tied together at this point. Boone was hired in the first place because he would do what the front office wanted with the lineup and rotation. What has Cashman done in the last 10 years to be untouchable? Sure, he took over as GM in 98 for those historic teams where all the HoF talent was already in place. In 2009 he got lucky in spending on the right free agents to get the title.
Anyone who defends “Cashman has 4 rings and the Yankees make the playoffs frequently” has to answer why the Red Sox, who have the same number of rings and comparable levels of success over the same time frame, don’t have issues firing Epstein or Dombrowski.
That’s the thing- assuming Cashman is safe, which he likely is, there is no real reason to fire Boone. Roster construction is as much of an issue as the management on the field. They need to fire Cashman and redo everything from the top down. Short of that, they’re no worse off keeping Boone than firing him.
BA
What point do you think you made here?
If the Red Sox and Yankees are roughly equal, wouldn’t that mean that keeping your GM is roughly equal to firing them?
If those two actions are roughly equal, then there’s no reason to fire the GM
Boone should have been fired several years ago. Not a leader of men. What’s with his issue with division rival and better manager Cash. Always handling the rays poorly and throwing at they hitters. Just lack of professionalism. He has to go
Agree.
Of note, despite the gaudy W-L records Boone is 14-17 in the playoffs. Not good.
I would move on but the Yankees won’t.
As a Giants fan, we’d be glad to have him over that disgrace Gabe KRAPLER
Oh wow, that’s such a clever one. You come up with it all yourself?
Why, so you can win 76 games instead of 80?
They need to get rid of the owner first. Hah
As long as the owner is the owner, the GM and the MGR are going nowhere unless they want to leave on their own.
Yes, the Steinbrenner cult remains.
Voted no on both cause the Yankees being bad is good for all other MLB fans.
Brave and stunning.
Wow, you’re so cool!
Funny thing is you don’t need a poll for Gabriel. Everyone knows he’s the problem!
Philly fans could have told you he was a fraud. They had that fools gold year, but otherwise he can’t manage
The GM (who made the hitting coach the scapegoat) is the issue here.
You can only do so much with such a battered SP group and with several of your best bats injured. NYY needs a new GM above all else.
Boone makes smart decisions with what he has. Whereas a manager like Grifol is just a terrible manager with a plethora of in game mistakes and pre and post game commentary that makes you question his abilities to coach let alone be the manager. And that started with Grifol from when pre season started. Boone has done a great job with what he has… injuries and bad contracts happen. The white sox had more injuries last year and an ailing skipper and did better than Grifol and almost 40 hr’s from Robert. If there is a manager to be fired in MLB it’s Grifol 110%.
Upon dissection, Boone isn’t a particularly good manager.
A surface glance looks OK I guess.
Next Padres manager possibly
Cashman needs to go
Few managers are without fault, but it’s time for a change. I’m not a Boone-hater, where he gets blamed for every move that doesn’t work. But, it’s time. However, if the Yankees want to honor his contract for 2024 and instead look towards management…..that’t the place to pay attention to.
Yankees fan base will say yes, everyone else will say nah.
Boone is not the problem.
@ Kenneth
You are absolutely right, Boone is not the problem. Cashman has continually given him a three true outcomes offence, and this results in the terrible team the Yankee fans are forced to endure.
By accident they end up with DJLM, Judge and a bunch of rookies this evening, and hey presto, some small ball & that forgotten thing called base running wins a game with 3 dirty runs in the 8th.
Time to let the kids play.
Time to put Cashman out to grass….
AFILUK
So, if DJ and drawn a walk and Judge had smashed a homer and the Yankees won, that would mean that TTO baseball is the way to win?
Or, are you going to say that your own logic doesn’t make sense?
@filihok
Not really. How has that approach helped a top five budget team the last five years so? Maybe close but no cigar, if you are going to be generous. I’d argue they’d win in spite of that approach.
Cheers.
Having higher expectations than just about any other club in the sport doesn’t align with the reality that they’re not a particularly super team. There’s nothing magical about the uniform.
Cashman and his over-reliance on analytics is what hurt the Yankees. The hitting coaches had hitters having them practice hitting the hard as possible and other dumb games instead of fundamentals of baseball, like how to move a runner over, so that screwed up the hitters.
A13
Yes. Of course
That’s explains why other teams that use analytics are so terrible
Analytics have their place in baseball, but only using analytics, as the Yankees have done, isn’t sustainable. There are plenty of stories that have come out this year about it. A good example is how LeMaheiu started to turn it around in the second half when Dillon Lawson, a heavily analytics hitting coach, was fired and Sean Casey took over.
Analytics? More like throwing money at aging superstars and hoping they succeed
Magic 8 ball says, “Reply hazy, try again”.
This may have been the wisest comment on the entire page. =)
Worst season since 1992 and yet somehow Boone has guided the team to outperform their negative run differential. It wasn’t Boone’s decision to ignore LF and rely on injury prone and/or over-the-hill vets like Stanton, Donaldson, Bader, Sevy, Rodon, etc. Came into the season with no depth then complained that injuries hurt the team. They may can Boone just to shake things up but anyone with a brain knows who is to blame for this season
What future?
Boone, Stanton, Torres, All the Coaches except the Pitching Coach needs to go.
Somewhere, Girardi is grinning like the Chesire Cat.
Girardi needs a win in his head after seeing Rob Thomson actually manage the team to victories.
Does it really matter? He’s just a puppet of the front office. He’s following the decision tree they wrote for him. If he goes, they’ll just hire another willing puppet.
The next manager probably won’t get ejected as many times as Boone
Cashman is a bigger problem than Boone, but Boone is still a poor leader who’s excuse-making mentality is hurting his team. Yankees should fire them both and I say this as objectively as I can as someone who wants to see the Yankees fail.
Fire Cashman first and let the new GM choose his manager.
Keep cashman fire Boone. GM’s with 4 WS titles on their resume don’t grow on trees. He’d be out of a job for 2 seconds if the yanks were stupid enuf to fire him
Will they? Yes.
Should they? No.
Can’t fix a structurally faulty team by getting rid of the manager. You need a complete overhaul of the team.
He should make a comeback as a player.
Except for the fact his career basically hinged on one glorious postseason homerun. Other than that, what is to brag about?
the answer is don mattingly
If Don Mattingly is the answer, WTF is the question?
Which former Yankees player holds a tie for the most grandslams in a single MLB season with six? – Alex Trebek
*This
In a million years I wouldn’t have got that answer YBC..
The Angels need a manager…and a coaching staff, owner, rotation, bull pen, farm system, 3rd baseman, scouting, player development…and some other stuff.
Damn. How about a new toilet paper dispenser while you’re at it. =}
Boone is quite entertaining. I love new Jomboy videos of him ripping the umps a new one. Of course Terry Collins is the GOAT for his hot mic tirade.
Not trading expendable players at deadline to restock farm is on the GM. Old broken down team with a middling farm system.
They didn’t have anyone of value to sell besides Gleyber Torres and some middle relievers.
Boone isn’t the problem. One can only do so much with under-performing hitters. The players seem to like him. His post-game interviews are like watching paint dry which is fine for the NY media and helps protect his players minimizing distractions.. If they were to fire him, it would’ve been done before the kids were called up.
What Cashman needs to do is address the offense and overhaul their analytics approach. Cody Bellinger is a free agent but fans shouldn’t be expecting him to return to MVP form. If Bellinger becomes the second best hitter behind Aaron Judge, I’m not sure that will markedly improve the offense. The vets like DJL, Rizzo, and Stanton need to be better while the kids have to take some steps forward. Stanton still hits as hard as any MLB hitter and hasn’t lost bat speed but needs mechanical fine-tuning to make better ball contact. I’d give him another year before contemplating releasing him.
A rotation of Cole, Rodon, Yamamoto (?), Cortes, and King would stand toe-to-toe with any other team. Either Brito and Schmidt can be the long-man with one of them possibly traded.
So yeah… no single move or two will drastically change the team’s outlook next season.
I like Boone, but he really hasn’t done much for the Yankees. Their fans demand perfection. I’m betting a majority want him out.
Should they? Yes. Will they? No. Same for Cashman
Firing the coach for the hard year they had, is just stupid. Literally, Boone had to work with a makeshift roster for his starters not to mention the ridiculous overpay for just a few players. DJ had a bad year, Judge was hurt, Stanton is hurt and that’s besides obvious since he can barely run the bases, besides him being just a HR or nothing hitter, All that and Cole who has been the only pitcher in the rotation that hasn’t been on the IL. The bullpen was good and that was the only way they won so many games. I thought Boone did well with what he had, every team has a bad year and really they played well for all the injuries.
They already fired Dillon Lawson and hired Sean Casey to replace him as hitting coach. They also didn’t play well.
@YBC above
Given the durability of any rotation, I wouldn’t be trading one of your 6th or 7th starters (Brito or Schmidt) because you can bet you’ll need one or both by June 2024.
I can’t see either Stanton or DJLM turning back time and producing 130 ERA+ numbers next season. 5/90 for the then 33 Yr old DJLM was more than questionable, though to be fair no one saw Stanton falling off a cliff health wise and running like a drunken three legged elephant.
Add Donaldson, and another $25 million written off and frankly the only option (without throwing big numbers at Bellinger) is to play the kids and encourage them to play small ball and try to cause chaos on the base paths…
As an A’s fan I genuinely enjoy watching the best players when I watch other teams – Judge is fantastic to watch – and I’m not a clichéd Yankee hater – I’m saddened by Jasson Dominguez injury – but I think their best bet is to try and luck on a kids core four, leave the rotation alone and stop throwing $100 million a season at the baseball middle aged.
By the way – has anyone heard from the always fun Ducky recently?
Take care – Peter in London
No one saw Stanton getting hurt? You gotta be kidding!
@Brian
I should have been clearer but up to 2018 he was solid, the HBP and a hand injury. Admittedly from 2019 onwards its been almost as painful to Yankees fans…
@UK Their best bet is to wait out the young kids so I agree throwing money at one or two players isn’t going to fix the team. I only want to trade those pitchers if they can find offensive help.
I haven’t seen Ducky around in a long time. Yankee Clipper still lurks but doesn’t comment anymore. Hope all is well, sir!
Thanks YBC. Always enjoyed comments from you, the Clipper and Ducky. They kind of confirmed what I didn’t believe I was seeing…
Did they fire Cashman yet?
@Yanks4life22
No apparently not. Cashman lives….
Largely because he enters and exits Yankee stadium hidden in a giant laundry basket.
Cashman has had a solid career but you have to wonder if his time is up. Boone would just be a fall guy for a badly constructed team. No reason to think they are better than 4th place next year without some major moves
I’m sure Brewer’s Counsell and Maddon are the candidates for next year..
Is this even a question looool
I don’t think any manager could have gotten this roster in the playoffs. My gripe is his very loud very obscene interactions with umpires. Too obscene really.
If the Yankees do fire Boone then I hope the Cubs toss Ross and get the Boone for it…
Seriously, the Cubs should hire Boone to replace Ross and see what he can do with this up and coming team.
Aaron Boone should be fine, no? I mean look at that line up the Yankees put out there tonight. Atrocious.
I’ll take not being sub-.500 and not being in last place.
No worries. My Red Sox took care of that for you.
@dave frost nhlpa
Unfortunately, you are incorrect. The Yankees are no where close to the worst 5.
Actually (and impressively), the Yanks are quite the opposite.
They are the best in all of baseball with the LOWEST number of stranded runners in scoring position at 3.01.
Oh wait, you just said stranded runners… sorry. In that case, they are 2nd best in all of baseball with the lowest number of stranded runners regardless of base at 6.19.
teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/runners-left-in-scoring-…
teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/team-left-on-base-per-ga…
Yeah I would let Boone go if Cashman is going so the new GM can hire his own guy. But those two are joined at the hip, so they would be either staying or going together, it appears to me.
Not Boone’s fault his GM is awful at his job.
The legacy of Billy Beane and is the pervasive belief in data-oriented clubs that you can build a team for success in the regular season, but the post-season is a carp shoot. Theo Epstein’s mantra in Boston was, “win 95 games and you get a shot at the post-season.” By that metric Boone has been fine, and Cashman has been remarkable. And that’s why Cashman still has a job despite the Yankee’s perennial failure to make it to the fall classic during his tenure.
I will sincerely miss all the jomboy breakdowns of him fighting with the umpires