The annual hand-wringing around whether New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone should be fired is already under way, but that won’t be decided for weeks as the club’s management takes a breath and grieves the club’s latest playoff exit.
Boone, who is under contract through the 2027 season, said after the Yanks dropped their American League Division Series to the Toronto Blue Jays that he feels his job is safe.
“I’m under contract. I don’t expect anything [to change],” Boone said at the end of his season-closing media conference after the Yanks lost 5-2 in Game 4 Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Boone’s fate will be part of the organization’s autopsy. And even though there are some who think he should not be brought back after eight seasons of failing to win a World Series, he continues to have the strong backing of principal owner Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman. Boone has a .584 regular-season winning percentage to his name.
The Yankees have other major problems aside from Boone’s managing. Primarily, they don’t have a good enough support system behind MVP candidate Aaron Judge, who, unlike great Yankees players of other eras, has not been able to put the team on his shoulders and carry it to the championship on his own.
Unlike Reggie Jackson in 1977, Derek Jeter in 2000 and Alex Rodriguez in 2009, who all contributed monster performances when the Yanks won, Judge doesn’t have a great cast of players around him. It’s no coincidence that in 2024, the only time in Judge’s career he’s been to the World Series, he was paired up with Juan Soto; the Yanks lost in five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“This is a team game,” Judge said in the din of Wednesday’s loss. “We didn’t win as a team. You win as a team, you lose as a team. There’s definitely more I can do. I’m going to figure it out and get back to work.”
The Yankees lost a bidding war with the New Yorke Mets in the offseason for Soto and his departure proved to be detrimental to both parties. Soto, who put up his usual stellar offensive numbers, is not a leader as he proved during his brief stay in San Diego and echoed by the Mets’ failure to make the playoffs this season.
With the Yankees, Judge is the uncontested captain and leader, and all Soto had to do was take a backseat and play well—which he did.
When Soto left, Cashman spent part of the $750 million they offered him to sign Max Fried and Paul Goldschmidt, plus trade for Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams. The latter three are all free agents and are not expected back in 2026.
At the trade deadline, Cashman plugged big holes at third base, the bench and in the bullpen by obtaining Ryan McMahon, Jose Caballero, Amed Rosario, David Bednar and Camilo Doval.
Cashman had a very good season, but it fooled some people into thinking the team was better than it was.
“We have a lot of winning players in here. A lot of guys who play the game the right way and help make this team what it is,” Judge said. “I thought we had a complete team up and down the lineup.”
But peel it back, and this is what they really had in the playoffs: a catcher who hit .227, a platoon at first base, a second baseman who committed major fielding misplays in the deciding games of the last two postseasons, a shortstop who hit .192 with 16 strikeouts, a third baseman who had one homer and an RBI, a centerfielder who hit .138 with no homers and no RBIs, a DH who hit .192 with no homers and four RBIs, plus Bellinger and Judge in the outfield corners.
Despite Judge hitting .500 with a 1.273 OPS, it wasn’t nearly enough. Considering the Yankees went 5-11 against the Blue Jays this season, it’s a wonder anyone expected them to win.
“We didn’t do our job. If you give teams extra outs they’re going to capitalize on it,” Judge said. “For us, we’ve got to clean a couple of things up and we’ll be back.”
So where do the Yankees go from here? They have an all or nothing offensive approach—third in Major League Baseball with 1,463 strikeouts and a league-leading 274 home runs during the regular season. They should take a clue from the Jays, who have a bevy of contact hitters that put the ball in play and struck out 364 fewer times. They led the league with a .265 batting average, 20 points higher than the 30 MLB teams combined.
Whether Boone returns or not, there needs to be a complete revamping of offensive approach from the coaching staff on up to the analytics department. They must learn a lesson from the fact that the Jays are still playing in the AL Championship Series, and the Yankees are home again sans the title, like every year since 2009.
“The ending’s the worst,” said Boone, who didn’t win a title in his 17 seasons as a player either. “Especially when you have a really good group. I’m confident, though, we will break through, and I am every year. But it’s hard to win the World Series. I’ve been chasing it my whole life.”
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