A cat may have nine lives, but Aaron Boone has 10.
Despite another early playoff exit, and the noise surrounding Boone’s job perhaps reaching an all-time high, the Yankees are bringing their manager back for a 10th season next year, per a source.
If and when baseball is played in 2027, with a lockout looming, it will be the final year on Boone’s contract. As if there was not enough already, there will be even more pressure on the 53-year-old baseball lifer to finally get the Yankees over the hump in October, a feat that remained insurmountable this year when they were swept in the ALDS by the AL East champion Rays.
Boone has achieved plenty of regular-season success during his tenure (a 790-565 record and three division titles), but has been unable to parlay that success into a championship, coming closest in 2024 with a trip to the World Series in which they fell flat against the Dodgers.
Questions remain about whether Boone can be the manager that gets the Yankees back to the Canyon of Heroes, and what will be different in Year 10 – the same amount of years that Joe Girardi got before him (with Joe Torre staying for 12 years before that).
There were some in the organization who thought this past regular season was Boone’s finest as a manager, given that the Yankees were missing three-time Aaron Judge for over half the season, in addition to sizable injury absences for Giancarlo Stanton, Cody Bellinger, Max Fried, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and Trent Grisham, among others.
General manager Brian Cashman, who before Game 3 of the ALDS called Boone “a really good manager,” has an expiring contract but is expected to remain in his post and partner with Boone again in trying to bring home the organization’s 28th World Series championship.
Boone’s biggest supporters over his tenure have included Hal Steinbrenner, Cashman and in the clubhouse, Judge. But on multiple occasions over the last two seasons, the captain notably voiced his frustration with Boone’s comments about his comeback from injuries, which put his manager in the crosshairs and raised questions about them not being on the same page.
