Last night, we learned that Aaron Boone will be the next manager for the Yankees, filling the shoes of ten-year veteran Joe Girardi. Because the former Yankee has never managed or coached at the professional level, his candidacy alone came as a surprise. However, GM Brian Cashman is obviously all-in on him, and seems confident in the hiring.
Here are some interesting thoughts on the Boone hiring from the media…
- Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic begins a piece by saying he will “not condemn” the hiring of Aaron Boone. Soon after, however, he clearly states that he cannot remember a hire with more risk in his 30-plus years of covering baseball. Rosenthal notes hires of Mike Matheny by the Cardinals and Robin Ventura by the White Sox as recent risks trending in this direction, due to those managers having very little coaching experience, but makes sure to add that neither of those hires were this extreme. Because Boone has a warm and friendly personality and is well-liked around the league, the Yankees seem to be shrugging off the concerns under the simple notion that he’s a great guy. As Rosenthal notes, many clubs are beginning to view managing as a “paint-by-numbers” exercise in which the manager is supplied with data by the front office. This might mean that the most important skill set for a managerial candidate is the ability to build a positive clubhouse culture, which Boone would certainly seem to possess. Still, it will be interesting to see how the rookie skipper reacts in his first exposure to a number of tough situations.
- Andrew Marchand of ESPN tweeted a quote from Yankees principal owner Hal Steinbrenner that dates back to the GM meetings. “My concern about a candidate like that would just be the lack of managerial experience, but even more important, coaching experience of any kind. That would be a concern of mine. It might be less of a concern for Cash.” It’s an interesting footnote, and could potentially imply that this decision puts some weight on Cashman’s shoulders. In a piece for ESPN, Marchand paints Boone as a tremendous risk with a jewel of an opportunity; he certainly has an incredible group of young players to work with, including Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Luis Severino. Like Rosenthal, Marchand sees Boone as having many of the requisite traits for success, but wonders how the he’ll respond to the grind of the job, particularly with such high expectations placed upon him.
- In his own tweet, Bryan Hoch notes that Boone will be the first Yankees manager with no managerial or coaching experience since Bill Dickey all the way back in 1946. Dickey was ultimately inducted into the Hall of Fame, so there’s some precedent for managerial success without prior coaching experience.
- Taking a more extreme stance, Joel Sherman of the New York Post describes Cashman’s hiring of Boone as “the gamble of his life”. However, Sherman makes sure to note the upside of that risk, citing Boone’s eight-year career at ESPN as a huge plus for the modern manager. Because of his career as an analyst, Boone possesses a wide knowledge of all 30 MLB teams, a firm grasp on how teams use analytics nowadays, and excellent media relations skills. All of these assets are valuable tools that could set him up for success, and Sherman sees the latter two as tools that Girardi lacked.
He’ll certainly be a warmer more jovial fellow than Joe Girardi, the man was practically raised since birth to be a ball player. His health concerns do worry me, however…
Boone’s 1st managerial decision is to ban any basketball for his players.
Lol
Good one!
His 2nd managerial decision Ully is to ban Joel Sherman from the clubhouse. He can learn how to pontificate his Mets rhetoric from the parking garage. What a dope
This could ultimately be the defining decision of Cashman’s career. I’ve never had a real reason to doubt him before though, and I’m not going to start now.
He has been a part of how many championship programs, now? I’m sorry, but even if Boone is hot garbage, I can’t see this being the “defining decision of Cashman’s career.”
Something that the article doesn’t cover is Aaron Boone’s heart problem. Didn’t he have open heart surgery about 10 years ago? Is he in good enough shape to take on the stressful rigors of managing the NY Yankees?
Interesting, looks like the surgery to replace an aortic valve ended his playing career in 2009, which was built as being somewhat routine at the time, but I wonder if Managers also go through physicals. The decision to have the surgery was made after a routine physical revealed the preexisting condition.
Billed, not built
Period at the end of your thought.
Ha! Fantastic! lol
Yankees have so many weapons I’m not sure the coach really matters. You can close your eyes and draw from a hat every time a guy gets on base and bring in a lock down arm
It can… but the manager’s biggest job during the season is write a lineup. The worst manager could cost his team 5 wins. Even in that scenario, Boone would be hard pressed to cost his team a playoff spot.
The biggest job of a manger comes in the playoffs – specifically with regard to bullpen usage. But the Yankees pen is so good that those decisions aren’t terribly difficult. Just let your starter go 5. And the pen can take it from there. It’s very much paint by numbers for a manager when you have those weapons in the pen.
Totally agree. Hopefully after 162 practice runs Boone can slow down the game. I don’t care about the lineup- after the first inning, especially with the DH, it’s almost irrelevant.
It’s kinda scary how good this team might be in 2018. The offense & bullpen are no worries & I expect Bird to compensate for whatever Judge’s dropoff might be. The Yankees need a solid 5 in the rotation. Right now it’s Severino, Tanaka, Gray & Montgomery. Do they bring back CC? Can either Chance Adams or Justis Sheffield step up like Montgomery did this past season? And what to do about Ohtani? So many questions.
Yeah, you know!
Agreed, signing Ohtani is much more important!
Which will not happen.
It just might happen
It won’t. Ohtani doesn’t want to sign with a team that already has a Japanese major leaguer.
Ummmm source?
It’s been reported by multiple outlets, although I haven’t seen true confirmation.
Says who? Just more click bait stories! What about the stories that said he wanted to go to a team who had Asian players already? Just more BS being thrown out there with all the other stuff. Now people like you are trying to act like its news. It’s not!
Morosi and Passan heard that MLB execs have said that, but there has been no confirmation from Ohtani or his agent confirming that. For now it’s just a rumor. Could be true. Could be false.
saying you’re not sure a coach really matters is implying that they Yankees are absolutely dominant, which they are anything but. they have a strong team, sure. remember, they watched the world series from the couch last year just like 27 other franchises. the opposition doesn’t just throw their gloves on the field and forfeit every day. Yankees gotta win like everyone else. a poor manager can certainly affect that.
The 2017 team might be the worst Yankee team in the next decade so does it matter who sits in the dugout? In all honesty how many decisions these days do managers make that influence the outcome of the game? It is all by the numbers these days and with your bench coach and pitching coach next you with the numbers not many “gut” decisions are made now.
Mr. Cashman if this doesn’t work out call me, I will do it pretty cheap. I have some great ideas on pitching and handling staffs. Why not a 2 high end starters and a 11 man reliever staff? You need 63 innings a week: starters get you 14 and that leaves about 5 innings for the everyone else each week. Straight up matchup baseball by the numbers from the first pitch.
4-man rotation!
Let’s see how good he does of the Yankees go through the injuries the Mariners did last year in pitching. Can he manage a team that sets a record for the most pitchers used in a season? Can he call up pitchers from AA and have 2 of them be starters? Can he have 1 of the 5 starters coming out of ST be healthy and you wish that guy would get hurt because he sucks. The guys from AA are out pitching him. Don’t be so cocky injuries happen Seattle was supposed to contend for a playoff spot and was in it until the last few weeks with all that happening. You never know.
People need to get over Joe G. Yeah he was great but he was as great as people made him out to be. He made a lot of bullpen mistakes this past year, the Yankees should have really won the division. He also wasn’t liked by a lot of players several media people have said. I also didn’t like the fact that in the playoffs, you have a player who was so sure that a replay needed to happen and joe did nothing. That shows he didn’t trust his own players
Yup their Pythagorean win-loss had them at 100 wins or so. They underperformed and I think Girardi was a main reason why
No. The main reason for that is that during a 6-8 week period during July-August the bullpen let the team down on an almost nightly basis. Judge cooled down & most of the games were close. I’ve never been much of a fan of Manager Girardi, but he can’t be blamed for that period of time. He had the right people on the mound. Betances forgot where the plate was, Chapman was so bad he was demoted, Adam Warren got hurt & Tyler Clippard was suddenly atrocious. Chad Green was the only bullpen pitcher you could rely on, but you couldn’t use him every day. Once Cashman traded for Kahnle & Robertson and Chapman straightened himself out, things righted themselves.
But he is part of the reason for that 6-8 weeks. Everyone else could tell Clippard sucked, yet joe kept going back to him in huge spots and it cost the yankees a good 3-4 games.
Who else would he have used? Everybody but Green sucked.
As for Clippard, in retrospect we can see how bad he was, but remember, he was great for the first 2 1/2 months of the season, and he was great again for a month after his trade to the White Sox.
Their Pythagorean win loss was better than their actual record because the team as a whole did a disproportionate amount of damage when it didn’t matter. For example, Judge produced the most pure hitting value in baseball this year, but his Win Percentage Added was only about 30 or so (meaning that a lot of his production came in fairly decided games). A manager has very little control over the sequencing of production for hitters or how well his hitters handle high leverage situations mentally, so I fail to see how that is Girardi’s fault. He also had little control over Chapman losing his mechanics for a while in midseason or Betances having a sudden funk that affected a number of close games, and bullpens blowing close games (or not) is one of the simplest ways for a team to not match its Pythag expectations.
The reasons for deviation in the Pythagorean W/L are complex. You can’t simply ascribe it to the team under-performing. It also denotes how lucky/unlucky a team is. Sometimes you do everything right, the pitcher throws a good pitch jamming the hitter, and it turns into a broken-bat hit, or a bloop down the line that hits the chalk instead of a few inches foul, or any number of things that decide a game that neither the manager, nor the players, have no control over..
I remember prior to the season (and even just prior to the post season) when everyone thought their battling for a wild card was about right. Were there any start of season projections that had them finishing so well? Or was it simply numbers after the season ended suggesting he cost them some games?
Well if it doesn’t work out we’ll know who to blame. I love Cashman but this is on him if it doesn’t work
I agree. Hal made it a point to put on record that he has his concerns bringing in someone with no experience. It wasn’t a knock on Boone as much as it was a declaration publicly that he might have made a different decision if he didn’t trust cashman so much.
A Yankees drop off this season of even a few wins will likely cost Cashman and Boone their jobs. It’s hard to imagine seeing the Yankees under a different GM. Always appreciated Cashman as a Sox fan. He’s a really solid GM and I like that he’s not afraid to stand by his convictions. He never blames other people for his decisions, good or bad.
Good luck Boone! On a positive note outside of the Red Sox the Yankees don’t have much competition in the AL East. It’s a good opportunity for Boone to really carve out a name for himself with so many games against the Rays Orioles and Jays.
So in short every sportswriter analyzing this decision is covering their bases by saying this could be either good or bad.
“Dickey was ultimately inducted into the Hall of Fame, so there’s some precedent for managerial success without prior coaching experience.” Bill Dickey was inducted into the HOF because of his career as one of the premier catchers of his time, not as a manger. In fact, he only managed 105 games in 1946 before resigning and there’s no mention of his managerial career on his HOF plaque.
Good catch. Those details should have been included.
Boston2AZ 1, Bryan Hoch 0
Great catch.
It’s unbelievable that these so-called journalists or don’t do research or prefer omitting certain points so the article is well received by the mass
Right, the only manger that should be in the HOF is the one that held Baby Jesus!
Seriously, though – good catch!
Btw, to the other repliers, Hoch’s Twitter fact is correct. Kyle just misinterpreted it.
You’re right,
The problem is the added sentence by Kyle: “Dickey was ultimately inducted into the Hall of Fame, so there’s some precedent for managerial success without prior coaching experience.”.
I didn’t read the tweet, only the MLBTR article, so I guessed that the whole point was said by Hoch.
Good point. What I don’t understand is you simply posted facts, no opinion, and someone down-voted the post. I guess some people just don’t like hearing the truth.
To your point, Ted Williams is a “hall of fame” manager too (with the Washington Senators / Texas Rangers) Ted’s big flaw was that he expected that his players would execute as well as he did. Once in a generation talents sometimes have high expectations…
The idea the Yankees are shrugging it off because hes a nice guy is probably a good thing. Because let’s honest, it’s not like his baseball opinion matters, his strings are going to be pulled all year, all he has to do is handle the club house
Didn’t Yogi have no experience in 1964?
Perhaps…but Yogi didn’t win a WS as manager, did he? In fact, the Yankees wouldn’t win another championship until 1977…an eternity by their standards, especially coming off a stretch where they had just won 10 of the prior 17 WS.
I know it isn’t completely fair to judge a manager solely on WS wins or lack thereof, but these are the NY Yankees…isn’t WS Championships their only measuring stick for everyone?
Not sure how Yogi’s managerial hire is relevant here.
I get it now…referring to Dickey as the last NYY managerial hire with no experience…my bad. Totally misinterpreted which part of the post your comment was referring to.
It’s relevant to the tweet of Hoch saying Dickey was the last manager of the Yankees with no experience. I was responding to that part of the piece.
Thanks
I just realized that.
My bad.
It’s relevant to the tweet of Hoch saying Ddickey was the last m manager of the Yankees with no experience. I was responding to thast part of the piece.
Thanks
Dickey was only a manager for part of one season and i don’t think he made the HOF because of it, so the article bringing it up as precedent seems irrelevant unless Boone ends up getting canned during this season.
How in anyway would Yogi’s managerial hire NOT be relevant in this post?
This hire obviously is part of a change in thinking about managers with owners. The owners will take the younger managers who are more relatable to the younger players and are more in tune with advanced stats.
So many companies do the same thing and hire younger people they can mold them into what they want them to be. The Yankees clearly wanted someone they could control from upstairs.
If anything the importance of a manager is over rated in today’s baseball, Joe Maddon is considered one of the best managers in baseball and he was horrible in the 2016 World Series, but the Cubs still won. My best example would be the play of the O’s, they are good one year and bad the next, it’s the players not Buck who make the difference.. Tito was a great manager until Kluber was sub par along with their bats agains’t the Yanks. It was the play of the Astro’s players like Verlander ,,Correa, Springer, Altuve, and not the managing of Hinch that won the series for the Astro’s this year. It is just easier to fire the manager if the team doesn’t win. The playoffs are oulier, and teams like the Nats have come up on the wrong end of the stick!
A chimpanzee could have managed that 2016 Cubs squad and won the World Series.
Spot on.
My old high school baseball coach is a Cubs fan, and even he thinks Maddon is the most overrated manager in baseball. Most “new” Cub fans are nothing but bandwagon jumpers, who know nothing about baseball.
I agree with you but there’s definitely something to matching the right manager with the right clubhouse. While it’s an extreme scenario, look at Bobby V’s time in Boston. His approach may have worked in other clubhouses. His reputation says he’s not a bad manager. Same with Ozzie in Miami.
When the players lose respect for their manager they don’t play to their potential. Like any business if a boss is ineffective, the people he or she is instructing are doomed to be ineffective. A manager can’t always make guys play better, but he can always make them play worse.
The only good things that Maddon does right is handle the media
and relate to the young players
in baseball strategy terms, HE STINKS!
Boone will be fine, Jessica Mendoza tutored him for last couple of years in the booth on the finer points of MLB.
Is she a candidate for Bench Coach?
After all she played softball right and she certainly sounds like she knows more about baseball than anyone else when in the booth for ESPN!
That show was one of the worst on TV, unwatchable!
Agreed slider32!
“Gamble of his life?” I don’t know if that was Sherman’s take or an overzealous headline writer’s, but it’s pretty ridiculous. Is there risk that he’ll struggle with criticism or something? I guess. But managers are overrated in this day and age, when the main job is serving as a liaison between the front office and the players. It’s not as if he can cost them 10 wins or something. They should coast into the postseason regardless with that caliber of roster
credence to “arm chair managing” wow that’s a reach.
Just another reason to hate the Yankees..
Next hire: Bucky Dent as bench coach
Bucky spoke at my Little League banquet right after he made the All Star team for the White Sox. He was dreamy.
I hope it’s not Sean Casey. I can only take about 2 minutes of that guy. He’s almost as bad as Kevin Millar!
It would drive Red Sox nation crazy!!!! I love it!
Watching MLBN last night, the first five stories and about the first three guests were all “Boone to be named” variations. Slow off-season to be sure, but sometimes the East Coast bias in the sports media is enough to turn it off. So I did. Wonder how many days of coverage they turned out for Bud Black.
it’s been an incredibly slow offseason. would you rather hear about where otani or stanton might go for the 1000th time?
I’ll start my comment with this caveat: I don’t believe in token hires/interviews. The fact that teams are supposed to interview a certain amount of minority managers for the facade of equality is an affront to actual equality.
That said, we heard nothing but takes from Rosenthal, et al, regarding the racial ramifications firing of Dusty Baker, the fact that any time a white manager is hired over a minority, etc.
Now, in this situation, you had a minority candidate with a much, much greater, stronger resume and he gets passed over for an experienced white guy, and we hear nothing. I’m genuinely curious on this.
Quite frankly, I don’t care either way who manages the Yankees. If the Yankees feel Boone was the better candidate, than so be it. But I find the silence on a pet topic rather strange here. Rosenthal, especially, uses this narrative almost every time, and now he is oddly silent.
I believe that the Yankees hiring was based solely on club house handing. Experience is cool, but you do not need it when it seems Cashman is the one who is going to be calling the shots
ill buy that. Perhaps they want someone with no experience so they can mold boone how they see fit. Muellens may have his own ideas of what a manager should be based on his experience whereas the yankees want a clean slate.
Oh my goodness it’s definitely 2017. The Yankees are a bunch of racists for not hiring dusty baker.
I half disagree with you. It isn’t good to have literal token interviews, so I agree with you there, but as long as you actually interview candidates there is a chance an unexpected one will impress and win the job. In fact, when the NFL implemented this policy, that is EXACTLY what happened to the team whose owner championed the policy. The Pittsburgh Steelers entered the coaching search with the clear expectation of hiring one of two strong candidates, but included others in the search, including minority candidates. One of them (Mike Tomlin) blew the doors off of Steeler management, got the job, and had been successful ever since.
One of the main sources of discrimination, often unintentional, is a lack of visibility or opportunity. These requirements make up for an unintended lack of opportunity, and if that yields even one extra hire it’s worth it. Remember, even if a team is dead set on one guy for a hire (and there is nothing wrong with that, in my opinion), a great interview by a minority candidate would become known around baseball and get the candidate on the radars of other teams.
If it’s only about a facade of inequality, I agree that it is misguided. But I think you overlook that these policies can and do yield some positive results, and if it helps (even without fully solving the problem) that’s a step in the right direction.
I think Boone will be more Ventura than Matheny
Its not like Matheny is on the positive side of the spectrum…
Even if that’s true, he’s much closer to the positive side than Robin is/was.
I don’t like it I prefer Beltran over Boone fresh face he’s just finished his career and know Alex Cora strageties very well capish
Maybe someone has an answer. Jerry Coleman with the Padres in 1981 is the only other person I can remember going from the booth to mánager with no prior coaching experience. Was there anyone else? (I guess to narrow it down, I’m thinking full-time, booth guys – play by play, color, etc.)
Thanks.
Buck Martinez. Larry Dierker.
I think Bob Melvin too.
There’s not that much risk here, regardless of what people say. He’s not leading troops into battle, and it’s not like giving your 17 year old the keys to the Porsche with the instruction…”now, I don’t want you driving fast”. Boone performs, or Boone gets fired and paid.
I think the risk is that they have such a strong team right now that it would be a huge waste of talent if it’s the manager that causes them to lose. You can hire a new guy in 2019 but who knows what the team’s make up will be like then? It’s like having one shot to blow up the Death Star…who you gonna send in there? Luke Skywalker or someone who has no experience shooting at anything? lol
Luke didn’t havr that much experience outside of womprats in Beggar’s canyon. Wedge Antiles should have taken the shot and Eric Wedge should have gotten the Job.
Wedge’s fighter was damaged, how was he supposed to take the shot? Eric wedge will be backing up Boone as bench coach most likely
There is soooo much risk here and its exactly like giving your 17 year old the keys to the Porsche or Lamborgini or Ferrari with the instructions … “now I don’t want you driving to fast”.
My only thought is Buck Martinez? Booth to manager, don’t remember him coaching (and not looking it up on Wikipedia).
Players make the manager!
@slider32
Players make the manager huh? A bad or inexperienced manager can screw up the talent on the team in no time. Managers are supposed to get the most out of the players and get the team playing as one. Manager is the leader. Sets the tone.
Like most Yankee fans Slider32 does not understand what a manager does.
Keep drinking the Yankee Kool-Aid slider. Cant wait to see what kind of manager the yankee players make of Boone.
Lol, yeah, sure buddy. Remind me how many rings Francona has with the Indians even though he is a great manager? A manager’s role has been so reduced these days that even people agree that literally anyone could have managed the 2016 cubs to a WS. Remind me again how AJ Hinch somehow won a WS when he was terribe in Arizona? What changed? Oh yeah, the talent.
There are no absolutes. The very nature of baseball means you can reject blanket statements like “players make the manager”. The fact that Hinch was fired in AZ and won in Houston is not proof of anything. Good managers get fired all the time for various and sundry reasons. Maybe Hinch gained valuable experience in his initial stint that he was able to use later on.
The 97-win Nat’s were a very good team and some favored them to win it all. But Dusty Baker insisted on batting the ineffective Jason Werth 2nd in the lineup throughout the regular and PS, while burying Anthony Rendon down the lineup at 6th. The Nat’s certainly did not make Baker a good manager.
Obviously a good manager is not going to win with bad players. But good players are not going to make a bad manager a good one.
Lol sure pal. Anyone could have managed the 2016 Cubs huh? Shows what you know. For Hinch what changed? EXPERIENCE.
Sure you need talent as well. No question. Tell me genius the Dodgers had alot of talent. So anyone could have managed them to the pennant in your opinion?
What about the Yankees? They did not have the talent to go as far as they did but you think anyone could have managed them as far as Girardi? Haha no way. That was Girardi managing and maximizing and pushing the talent. But you can not see it
As for Hinch you say anyone could have managed them to the title huh??
You bring up Francona. He has WON three championships and 4 pennants. Let me know when Booney does that.
But hey Boone hit a big homer once for the Yankees and as Joel Sherman says he was an analyst to qualified to manage
Booney is a joke and a puppet of Cashman. Yankees are now doomed and no way Ohtani comes to play for Booney
The Cubs could’ve won in 2016 if Maddon had been sleeping or drunk the whole time on the bench! He’s a terrible game manager!
@Brucewayne
How many Cub games do you watch in the regular season? Just curious if you are a Cub fan who watches the games that you then based your opinion on (fair enough) or just a baseball fan who only sees the Cubs in the playoffs? Just curious
I watch as many as I can. I use to watch a lot more when they were on WGN on my cable . I’m getting ready to change that. I’ve even been to Wrigley field once to watch them vs. my Cards one year. I also worked at Busch Stadium one summer
and saw them a bunch. But that all before Maddon. But I know him with the Rays
and Angels. I think he OVER manages
and doesn’t handle the rotation or bullpen very well. Overpaid
and overated. But still better than Matheny! LoL
This is the kind of hiring a rebuilding team MAYBE makes, not one that is coming off a nice post season run and expected to be back for years to come… So strange.
Good point. It would make more sense if they were rebuilding so that the young manager could relate to, and grow with, the youngsters. Not take a team that’s ready to win to the WS.
Good point. Not even the Phillies would have considered Booney
Randy Levine was the guy who needed fired at the Yankees. They are screwed
Agreed. Yankees are screwed
So I guess Boone is the model of the new breed of MLB manager. Almost like a computer, you put in the data
and out comes the decision you should make. Robo Manager!
MLB’s “Logan’s Run” of managerial hirings continues. Soon, nobody will hire a manager over 40.
I think Aaron Boone will be OK. There’s been other managers without professional coaching or managerial experience. The two with similar qualifications are Larry Dierker and Craig Councell.
But Counsel was chosen by a small market rebuilding team with low expectations and he did have coaching experience
So Joel Sherman has decided that being a baseball analyst on ESPN is important experience in preparation for being a manager?
He said it gives him insight on how the other teams think? Oh really Joel?
Hey Joel … Thomson did not have that ESPN analyst background … you see he was to busy watching the other teams on the bench in the field and going over the scouting reports and strategy of other teams ….
Hey Joel … Beltran “watched” alot of games too. From the field. More then Boone. And Beltran was literally coaching young players and helping them think.
Is anyone else not surprised by Joel Sherman’s ego in always thinking he is the smartest guy?
Baseball managers are jokes, any of us know enough about basball to do it. its not hard to bring in certain guys to lefters or righters, and making lineups is easy enough
@Satan
Obviously you do not understand the game if you think that is all a manager does. He just makes up the likeup card and makes moves for a few hours huh genius?