Aaron Boone is not anticipating going anywhere despite another year in which the New York Yankees fell well short of their end goal.
“I’m under contract, so I don’t expect anything,” the skipper said from the bowels of Yankee Stadium following Wednesday night’s season-ending 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS.
The 52-year-old has now completed eight seasons as the Yankees’ manager, has no World Series titles, and just one American League pennant to show for it. New York’s championship drought is now at 16 years after their elimination at the hands of an AL East division rival, which is the second-longest such snide in the franchise’s 123-year history.
Boone has had the benefit of working under the second generation of Steinbrenners, led by son Hal, rather than father George, who would have likely had heads rolling much earlier in Boone’s managerial tenure. The senior Steinbrenner’s edict of World Series or bust has not translated to Hal, though the fans are clinging to it more tightly than ever, with calls for Boone’s and general manager Brian Cashman’s jobs intensifying.
During spring training this season, Boone inked a two-year extension that would keep him in the Yankees’ dugout through the 2027 season — the agreement coming after the club won its first AL pennant since 2009 before getting trounced in five games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Fall Classic.
Despite losing Juan Soto to the crosstown Mets during the winter, Boone and Cashman implored that their ‘Plan B’ featuring Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger was enough to resume a World Series push in 2025.
It was not.
The Yankees were partly bailed out by Major League Baseball’s easiest September schedule to stabilize after a challenging summer, which was enough indication for most that they were not good enough to emerge from the AL.
“Just a hard year,” Boone said. “There were just some tough moments, but also in a lot of ways, very rewarding to go through some of the moments we went through in the middle of the season, especially. To see this kind of team come together in a really special way. That is a tight-knit [group], and I feel like we got so much better in the final couple of months of the season. So it was more a very tough year on me, that’s all. And it’s not about me, but that’s all I was saying. But also very rewarding to go through and see what these guys became.”
Moral victories do not necessarily fly in the Bronx, even under this generation of Steinbrenners. Public pressure will likely intensify further, and it will become that much more difficult to justify keeping Boone at the helm.
“I know for me personally, I know for a lot of those guys, [this loss] also continues to ignite your fire to want to get back and play in these meaningful games and have a chance at glory,” Boone said.
