Aaron Boone believes Yankees' Isiah Kiner-Falefa will bounce back
Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa during a workout at Yankee Stadium on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It has the potential to be one of the lasting images of Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s playoffs: The Yankees shortstop standing in front of a postgame backdrop in Cleveland, eyes glassy, face downcast, wearing the mental bruises of his own mistakes.
“I’m disappointed in myself,” he said about the two fielding miscues that put the Yankees on the brink of an early playoff exit. “That cost us the game.”
In the days since a Game 3 loss put the Yankees on the brink of elimination, Kiner-Falefa has been deemed a liability — kept out of the starting lineup for Game 4 on Sunday and for Game 5, which was postponed from Monday night to Tuesday afternoon because of rain — as rookie Oswaldo Cabrera took over at shortstop.
In doing so, it appears that Aaron Boone has put up something of a white flag on Kiner-Falefa, whose play, especially recently, has frustrated fans who were more interested in seeing what they could get out of rookie Oswald Peraza, who was left off the ALDS roster. Not that Boone would say as much.
“He’s been pressing a little bit out there, playing a little bit kind of not to make that mistake, and I think that’s gotten in his way a little bit,” Boone said Sunday of Kiner-Falefa — essentially diagnosing the former Gold Glove third baseman with the yips. “I just felt like I needed to do this today. Still expect him to play a huge role for us in what we hope is a couple more weeks of baseball, but I felt like today it was something that was the right thing to do.”
The lineup changes also meant a few other things. Cabrera, who’s been used as a leftfielder despite no experience there before this year, would move back to one of his natural infield positions (he has more than 175 professional games at shortstop). It also means starting Aaron Hicks in left and opening the door wide for the many who second-guessed the Yankees’ decision to not put Peraza on the roster for this leg.
None of this bodes well for Kiner-Falefa’s long-term future as a Yankee — though, granted, that was never much of an option as Peraza and Anthony Volpe marched their way through the farm system. The shortstop position stands to be stacked for years to come, and though Kiner-Falefa hasn’t been a slouch — his defense has been a mixed bag this year, and he hit .261 out of a position not typically known for offense — this is Yankee Stadium, where the month of October is the only one that matters.
He’s arbitration-eligible next year and is set to become an unrestricted free agent in 2024, while now carrying a rough reputation of a player who can get into his own head. Boone, though, noted that he doesn’t stay there. The Yankees have to hope that’s true.
“When he has had those moments of, you know, making a misplay on a real routine play, he always bounces back,” Boone said. “I feel that in some big pressure spots throughout the season he has made big-time plays. So he’s always answered the bell really well after a mistake. This time, I feel like it snowballed a little bit on him in this series, so that’s kind of going into this.”
Regardless of how Boone views it, one thing is unequivocally true: It took 166 games, but when the Yankees absolutely had to win, they thought their best shot was with Kiner-Falefa on the bench.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
