Yankees give Aaron Boone two-year extension in quest for 28th World Series title
Yankees manager Aaron Boone speaks to the media during spring training at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
TAMPA, Fla.
Why did the Yankees stop at a two-year extension for Aaron Boone? Might as well make him manager for life.
Because we’re not sure what’s changed more during the past few decades: The downsizing of a manager within a modern team’s decision-making hierarchy? Or the measured championship expectations when it comes to wearing pinstripes?
That’s not meant to be a knock on Boone, who checks all the boxes for a 21st century manager: great clubhouse communicator, seamless front-office collaborator, charismatic front-facing spokesman to the media.
Mix in his esteemed baseball DNA, across three generations, along with that epic October blast off Tim Wakefield, and AI probably couldn’t create a better manager for the Yankees.
We’re not sure that Boone would set off a “feeding frenzy” in the open market — as general manager Brian Cashman said last week — but he’s pretty close to a perfect fit in the Bronx for the people upstairs.
And now that he’s entering his eighth season, it’s almost impossible to envision a scenario in which Boone doesn’t cruise through the end of his deal — tying Joe Girardi with a decade at the helm — and then set his sights on 12-year legends Joe Torre, Casey Stengel and Miller Huggins.
There could be a few hiccups, however. Boone’s newly minted contract outlasts Cashman, who’s signed only through 2026, and any regime change — as unlikely as that may be — could always wind up in a manager switch (though Hal Steinbrenner is a Boone fan, too).
There’s also the not-so-minor detail of the Yankees going 0-for-7 under Boone in their increasingly frustrating pursuit of title No. 28.
As successful as Boone has been, with a .584 winning percentage (603-429) that ranks fifth all-time among Yankees managers with at least 1,000 games, his personal championship drought — tacked on to the franchise’s own 15-season goose egg — is becoming a King Kong-sized monkey on his back.
Boone & Co. got close to establishing themselves as New York icons before last October’s self-sabotaging Game 5 loss to the Dodgers. But if there’s anyone capable of rolling with that haymaker — and picking his team up off the mat the following season — it’s the resilient Boone, who exudes a bulletproof optimism that the clubhouse appreciates.
“That’s what you need,” Aaron Judge said. “He’’ll get out there and show his temper a little bit when he needs to have our back. But through the long winning streaks to the little stretches during the season where he’s got to answer a lot of questions from you guys, he’s kind of the pillar for us that we go to.
“We see his interviews. We see what he says. We see him after the games, talking with us, ‘Hey, it’s another day, let’s keep it moving, boys.’ When you have a guy like that that you can kind of lean on and he stays even keel no matter the situation — if we’re up or down — that helps us go out there and just play our best.”
Based on Judge’s words, Boone comes off as the ultimate players’ manager, and that’s what teams are looking for these days. It’s made for some roller-coaster regular seasons — quick starts, late-summer Boone Swoons, with the inevitable playoff berth to follow — but those empty Octobers have piled up.
The Yankees have won three AL East titles under Boone and missed the postseason only once, in 2023, so that steady hand routinely gets them where they’re designed to go. His clubs have lacked that finishing kick, but that can be just as much a product of Cashman’s roster-building as anything Boone brings to the table.
The manager just tends to be the guy wearing the bull’s-eye on a daily basis, and in New York, the public is packing a bazooka.
“I don’t like that we haven’t won a championship yet,” Boone said. “So that bothers me. But I know what I signed up for when I got into this and I wouldn’t want it any other way. The fact that it matters as much as it does here, that there’s such a high standard and there’s so many expectations, that so much beats the alternative, in my view.
“I’m confident in what I’m doing. I feel like I’m pretty good at this. But also it’s the humility of sports that always keeps you grinding, keeps you on your toes. You understand that those things are going to come your way. And if you can’t handle that, it ain’t for you.”
Boone is one of seven managers to still be with the same team since 2018, but only the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts and the Red Sox’s Alex Cora have won World Series rings during that period (Cora actually was fired and rehired after the Astros’ cheating scandal).
This year, Steinbrenner has handed Boone MLB’s fourth-highest payroll at $305 million, a price tag that at least implies a World Series mandate even if it’s no longer spelled out that way by a Steinbrenner.
Is Boone capable of delivering that long-overdue title? He brought the Yankees to the doorstep last October before the fifth-inning implosion in Game 5 that will forever live in Bronx infamy cost them a chance to send the World Series back to Los Angeles. But until Boone closes the deal, that question remains unanswered.
The Yankees have chosen to give him a few more tries rather than leave him hanging as a lame-duck manager this season, and now they must hope that consistency pays off.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
