00:00Aaron Boone has now managed the Yankees for nine full seasons, and his tenure is one of the most debated
00:05in all baseball.
00:06Should the Yankees fire Aaron Boone or keep him for his 10th season?
00:10Because if you look at the regular season numbers, it's hard to argue that Boone hasn't been successful.
00:16Through 2026, Boone has 790 wins to 565 losses as Yankees manager.
00:21That's a 583 winning percentage.
00:23The numbers are undeniable.
00:24The Yankees have made the postseason in 7 of his 9 seasons as manager, including 3 AL East titles.
00:32He also took the Bombers to 100 wins in his very first season as manager, followed it up with 103
00:37wins in 2019,
00:39and in 2024, he led the Yankees to their first American League pennant since 2009.
00:44So the positives are pretty clear.
00:46Boone is also coming off perhaps his best managerial season, leading the Yankees to 93 wins despite Aaron Judge,
00:52Giancarlo Stanton, Garrett Cole, Max Freed, and Carlos Rodon all missing substantial time.
00:58Boone is very well-liked in the Yankees clubhouse, and he's handled the New York media better than most coaches
01:03who have held that same job.
01:05Even his captain, Aaron Judge, has repeatedly defended Boone, especially after this disappointing end to the season.
01:11Yeah, he's our manager. He's running this ship.
01:13He's, you know, he puts us in the right position to go out there and succeed, you know,
01:17especially a season like this where, you know, I'm banged up, missing 100 games.
01:20You know, you miss Big G, Cole, Rodon, you know, miss a lot of guys, shrink us from for a
01:25little bit.
01:25Cody Bellinger, who was an MVP for us, you know, for him to manage it the way he did and,
01:30you know,
01:30put us in the best position to get into the postseason and get an opportunity to win a World Series.
01:38But here's the issue. The Yankees and the fans don't judge success by regular season wins.
01:45They judge it by winning championships. And let's be real here.
01:49That's where Boone's resume gets complicated.
01:51The Yankees are 27-30 under Aaron Boone in the postseason.
01:55That's a 474 winning percentage. That's the worst in franchise history.
01:59No other manager has a sub-500 record in the postseason for the Yankees.
02:03When Boone's teams have struggled in the playoffs,
02:06it's been when the Yankees played a higher seed and didn't have home field advantage.
02:10Under Aaron Boone, the Yankees have been the worst seed in nine playoff series,
02:14and they're 1-8 in those, with the lone victory coming in extended 2020 playoffs against the Cleveland Guardians.
02:21It certainly doesn't help that the Yankees lost several of those postseason series to division rivals.
02:27Of those eight series losses, two each came to the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays,
02:32and one of them to the Toronto Blue Jays.
02:34The other two series losses, meanwhile, came in the ALCS to the Houston Astros.
02:38And of course, who can forget the World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers,
02:42both becoming extremely high-profile failures.
02:45Look, they've reached the ALCS three times under Aaron Boone in 2019, in 2022, and 2024.
02:52But they've only been to the World Series once.
02:55And since then, the Yankees have been eliminated in ALDS the last two seasons,
02:59both times coming from their AL East division rivals.
03:02The Blue Jays in 25, and the Tampa Bay Rays this past season.
03:05That's especially damaging because this organization has now gone 17 years without a World Series championship.
03:11That's a franchise record.
03:12And while it's obviously unfair to put all this on Aaron Boone,
03:15yeah, I'm talking to you, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner,
03:18the manager ultimately becomes the face of the team's postseason failure.
03:22The Yankees have now been eliminated four straight postseasons on their home turf at Yankee Stadium.
03:27And the formula remains the same each time.
03:29It's a lack of timely hitting, and a failure to execute routine plays defensively and on the base paths.
03:35So what's the verdict?
03:36Aaron Boone has clearly been a good regular season manager.
03:38But after nine seasons, the biggest criticism is legitimate.
03:43Has Aaron Boone gotten the Yankees as far as their talent should have taken them?
03:47Because in the Bronx, being good enough to make the playoffs simply isn't good enough.
03:51The standard is winning the whole damn thing.
03:54And until Aaron Boone does that, the debate of whether he is the right man for the job is probably
04:00never going away.
