My Thoughts On One Tweet (on Aaron Boone)

by Paul Semendinger

February 15, 2025

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My Thoughts - In this, Brian Cashman is delusional. He is absolutely wrong. Or, if he's correct there are a bunch of owners and General Managers who do not know a whole lot about baseball and leadership.

Aaron Boone has not done much to impress. At all. Aaron Boone seems like a nice guy. But, he is certainly not a great baseball manager.

Boone has been the Yankees manager since 2018. He has won no World Series. In the only World Series in which his team appeared, the Yankees were oput classed, out hustled, out played, and out managed. This has been par for the course during Boone's tenure. In big games, he is often overmatched and unable to make proper decisions. His team has never, ever, been one that has played good quality baseball. The Yankees are known to be poor fundamentally. When I started saying that, on this site in 2018, many argued with me. Now, that point is accepted as fact by all who follow the game. Aarone Boone does not prepare his teams well to play good, smart, fundamental baseball.

If the Yankees want more of this, they're just being foolish. If Brian Cashman thinks this is excellent managing, he is wrong. If other teams would go on a frenzy to have this style of play, they too are wrong.

The Yankees, a team that built its empire around winning, has a manager that has a below .500 record in the post season. Against the best, Aaron Boone isn't up to the task. We have seen this year-after-year-after-year.

Let's also remember that before Aaron Boone became the manager of the Yankees, he had managed no team. He had also coached no teams. He had no experience as a leader. Boone had been involved with the game, as an analyst on television, but no teams, none, absolutely none,had hired him for any type of coaching, managerial, or leadership role. He wasn't asked to coach in the big leagues. He wasn't asked to coach in the minor leagues.

Further, when Aaron Boone interviewed for the Yankees' manager position, it was the first time any team ever interviewed him for any leadership position. Brian Cashman must have saw something in Boone that no other team saw. Boone wasn't ever seen as a future leader by any other team. The only one who thought differently was Brian Cashman. He saw Aaron Boone as a great manager.

He must still be seeing it.

But one thing he isn't seeing are World Series trophies.

As for me, I'd love to see another club hire Aaron Boone. I'd like to see the frenzy to hire him.

I would love another team to sign Aaron Boone to manage them. That would be great for the Yankees. I would hope that he goes to a team in the AL East... or maybe the Dodgers. But, rather than speculating that there would be a frenzy for Boone, maybe Brian Cashman should let Boone mange the team in 2025 and after the season let him become a free agent. Why don't they let Aaron Boone bet on himself. I'd like to see all the teams that line-up to hire him (if any).

But, alas, what Brian Cashman is saying is that Aaron Boone will soon sign an extension to remain the manager of the Yankees. Mr. Cashman can't find a third baseman, but he's going to lock up his manager for a few more years. Maybe Boone can play third as well as manage. It was his position after all. Boone once had a big hit, much in the same way that D.J. LeMahieu once led the league in batting. (All of that, for both, was a long time ago.)

At some point, results have to matter for the Yankees. At some point following the same path year-after-year with no World Series championships is the wrong path.

At some point, fans can draw no other conclusion than for the Yankees good enough is good enough, but that they do not care about greatness. At all. There was a time when the Yankees defined themselves by World Championships. Those days are long gone. I have been saying, for years, that the Yankees care about being good, not great. Aaron Boone personifies that approach. Brian Cashman as well.

(Of note - Cashman used to be the face of success, one of the greatest general managers in the game - a man who knew how to get his teams to championships. That, too, is no longer. And Hal Steinbrenner has never been seen as a winner. As I have written before these are these men's legacies. They run the greatest team in all of professional sports and they oversaw a period of no championships. For the Yankees, except when CBS owned them, and the message then was that they certainly didn't care, that had never before been the case. Oh how the mighty have fallen.)

As fans, we'll get more of what we've endured for the last seven years. We will hear press conferences full of fluff and sometimes half-truths. We'll see players defy their manager (we're seeing that already with Marcus Stroman saying he won't pitch in relief). We'll see players failing to run or back-up plays. We'll see players confused on the basepaths. On and on. Fans have seen this for the entirety of the Boone era. And he is about to get rewarded with yet another extension.

Aaron Boone is already the manager of the Yankees who has managed the most games without ever winning a World Series, and it's not even close (see list below). I suspect that streak will continue even longer. For Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner, Boone's record is one of success. That says a great deal about this team's priorities and their commitment to winning championships. In fact, it says it all.

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Most Games Managed By Yankees Managers Without Ever Winning A World Series

(since 1920)

1. Aaron Boone - 1,032

2. Buck Showlater - 582

3. Lou Piniella - 324

4. Bill Virdon - 266

5. Stump Merrill - 275