Yankees name Aaron Boone as their new manager

Al Behrman/AP

Matt Linder

After over five weeks of speculation, the Yankees have finally hired their new manager… Aaron Boone.  He will make the transition from the broadcast booth to the dugout.  Boone has no managerial experience, but he has been around the game of baseball his entire life.  In addition to enjoying his own twelve year career, he grew up in major league clubhouses with both his grandfather and father being major leaguers.  Boone beat out five other candidates to get the job: Hensley Muelens (Giants hitting coach), Eric Wedge (former MLB manager), Carlos Beltran (recently retired MLB star), Chris Woodward (Dodgers third base coach) and Rob Thomson (coach with the Yankees for 28 years, most recently the bench coach).

Boone’s hire was not without controversy.  The fact that the position of Yankees manager was even available surprised a lot of people.  His predecessor, Joe Girardi, had a .562 winning percentage over his nine years as the Yankees skipper.  He also won a World Series in 2009 and led a young team to Game 7 of the ALCS this past season.  However, Girardi’s contract expired at the end of the year and Brian Cashman decided to move in a different and cheaper direction.

The Yankees new manager will be expected to connect with the players, especially team’s young nucleus of stars.  Brian Cashman stated that Girardi’s inability to do so was one the reasons he was not brought back.  In Joe’s defense, you would have never guessed that he struggled connecting with young players based on how those guys performed on the field.  Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius and Chad Green all had excellent seasons.  There is no way of knowing whether Girardi was one of the reasons why the young players played so well in 2017, but it is hard to argue that he hurt their development.

Brian Cashman took a risk in hiring in Boone.  He could have re-hired Joe Girardi and nobody would have blinked an eye.  Instead, he saw a component of the team that could be improved upon and he made a change.  The Yankees GM was clearly impressed by Boone’s interview.  He recommended the 44 year old coaching neophyte despite knowing that ownership expressed a desire to hire a candidate with managerial and/or coaching experience.

Although Boone is new to coaching, expectations for the Yankees in 2018 and beyond are high.  The team is in a “win now” (and in the future) position, so his honeymoon period will be shorter than most first year managers.  However, I bet any new skipper would prefer to inherit a World Series contender with high expectations than a 100-loss team with no expectations or pressure

I believe Aaron will be a good manager because he seems personable and smart.  Also, based on his ESPN broadcasts, he seems knowledgeable about sabermetrics, which is a quality the front office was looking for in their new skipper.  Fortunately for Yankee fans, even if I’m wrong, it does not really matter.  The team is full of All-Star caliber players in the everyday lineup, starting rotation and bullpen; a manager cannot change that.  Many of the decisions in terms of lineup construction and bullpen management will be pretty similar to Joe Girardi’s since those aspects are heavily influenced by the front office.  Due to Boone's inexperience, I am interested to see who he brings in as his bench coach.  Will it be an older coach with managerial experience or a neophyte like himself?  In his introductory press conference, Boone said that experience will be an important factor in picking a bench coach, but not the 'be all and end all.'

Hopefully Aaron leads the Yankees to multiple World Series championships, but if he doesn't, at least his hire triggered the recirculation of his glorious home run vs the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.  I look forward to next year’s first nationally televised Sunday Night Baseball Game against Boston; let’s hope ESPN shows that walk-off dinger during every break in the action.

If you have any questions, comments or criticisms feel free to reach out to me at mattlinder2@gmail.com