You won't find many Aaron Boone fans here. If I write anything remotely sympathetic to Boone, it means a spanking. Nobody here likes the idea of Year Six for the gum-chewing, shadow-eyed zombie, telling us in his postgame hostage-videos why he did whatever he did, which resulted in a horrible Yankee defeat.
Of all the bleak assessments for 2023 - no LF, no SS, Josh Donaldson at 3B - it's the idea of another year of Boone that most leaves me pondering pro soccer and Connecticut women's basketball.
That said, some things to remember about Boone:
1. He has led the Yankees to the postseason in each of his five years.
2. Over that period, he has won 6 out of every 10 games.
3. He's signed through 2024, with a club option for 2025.
4. He would not have been rehired if Aaron Judge didn't like him.
Look, it's not as if Rudy Giuliani is running this team. And Boone seems like an honest, standup guy. Why so much antipathy? Some theories.
1. His bullpens explode. Always. It's as if he times it out, so that by October, everybody is shot. Maybe that's a "Pressures of New York" thing. Like his predecessors - Joe Torre and Joe Girardi - Boone creates a "circle of trust" around whomever happens to be throwing well - then squeezes that guy like a tube of toothpaste, until nothing is left. He brings in closers for six-out saves - in July. He runs guys ragged, be it Chad Green or Michael King, pushing them until they grab their elbows.
This we know: No matter how strong the bullpen is in April, it will be a shambles by September. Good luck, Tommy Kahnle!
2. Even when he tries to fire up the team, Boone cannot seem to light a spark. Some managers thrive on the restless energy of chaos. Billy Martin, for example. They rattle cages and never accept defeat without screaming into the vortex. Boone, on the other hand, mumbles like a beaten spouse.
No matter what just happened, he'll protect his players. That's viewed as a positive, I suppose, by the Yankee brain trust, which values harmony over edginess. But Boone's postgame defenses of Josh Donaldson last year became a running gag. I think fans resent the sense of coddled stars. Last summer, as the team began to implode, Boone seemed unable to right the ship. Game after game, his moves backfired. Yes, we reached the playoffs, but in this time of expanded postseasons, nobody gives a shit about a wild card.
3. It's not just Boone, but what he represents: The nepo baby aristocracy of Hal Steinbrenner and his legacy-picked Rasputin, Brian Cashman. Fairly or not, I think fans view Boone as Cashman's hand puppet. They wonder who writes out the lineup. Last June, the Yankiverse had soured on Joey Gallo, but Boone kept playing him, as if trying to spare the front office from admitting a bad trade.
I think Boone's unpopularity stems from a view that he does Cashman's bidding, and the Yankees need somebody who isn't afraid to break ranks. Don Mattingly might have been that man. Or maybe even Derek Jeter. Boone will never do it.
You can say the Yankees have reached the playoffs five straight years under Boone, and that's why he deserves to be here. Fair enough. But Yank fans know how those five seasons ended - in dreadful losses. Boone is 0-for-5 in rings. And he's ours for at least two more years. Damn.
Boone-Baby-Boone-Baby-Bubble-Baby-Boone
ReplyDeleteI’d rather have Boon from Animal House as the manager
ReplyDeleteOr the Stork here - everyone thought the Stork was brain damaged.
ReplyDeleteBecause Boonfoon is a puppet and many times overmatched in big games. I mute the sound when he speaks.
ReplyDeleteWell put, Duque.
ReplyDeleteI'm far from Boone's biggest critic, and I understand that he has little choice when it comes to "strategy" under Cashman. (Though he seems to agree with the agenda.) He's also not quite as bad at exhausting pitchers as Torre was.
I thought his regime took an alarming turn down in 2022, though, when the team seemed to quit on him. During the Great August Swoon (GAS), they seemed to actually disengage, and he had no way to bring them back. Alarming.
Does this make him the biggest problem for 2023? No, not hardly. But he adds nothing.
Why we can't stand Boone?
ReplyDeleteCouple of reasons.
1) It's the press conferences.
I've started watching the Brian Daboll post game press conferences this season.
Daboll, who is easily the most emotional coach on the sidelines I have ever seen bar none, suddenly becomes this calm, non-controversial speaker of platitudes.
He keeps this wry smile on his face while the press corps plays, "Get Daboll to say anything they can use." and he never does. I respect him for it.
Because... and this is important... He is NEVER full of shit! He just says truisms like... They won but need to go back to work. Improve each week. It's a tough game. Danny played well. Just focused on the next one. Etc.
Boone one the other hand, is TOTALLY full of shit.
Good at bats (Two foul balls before swinging at strike three.) Almost there (Batting .142 for the last month and a half). Two or three pitches that were a little off. (Two three run home runs) Etc.
It is insulting to watch him.
It's infuriating to watch him.
Especially since...
2) Unlike the emotional engaged Daboll who clearly gets the most out of his players IN REAL TIME Boone is passive to the point of stupor. It's almost like he's figuring out how he's going to spin the lack of hustle instead of reaming the player out for the same.
Add to this his inability to find a consistent batting order and his insistence on batting players clean up because they will snap out of their funk any day now, "they are getting good swings" and he is a net negative.
They might win but not because he will have done anything to make it happen.
I think we don't like Boone because he sucks.
ReplyDeleteJust an idea.
ReplyDeleteI keep wanting to post here. Then I run into something JM has posted -- and I realize I can't add to that, and I should just STFU.
Nepo baby, indeed. The Yankee front office hates the thought of giving authority to anyone who wasn't to the manor born. God forbid they let someone who worked their way up from nothing into their ranks. Nepos are too easily threatened by the lower social orders. Boone is the chief babysitter and excuse maker. He takes orders from analytics and Cashman very well. So long as we have Cashman, we're stuck with Boone.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'd prefer a manager willing to stir the pot, get a little fire going on the bench and make up his own mind, without guidance from the sabermorons in the hallway, he's not the chief focus of my ire. That is reserved for the 3 stooges: Cashman, Levine and Steinbrenner. The Yankees would be a much better team without them.
How I miss Micheals and Watson! Yankees need more baseball veterans in decision-making roles and a lot fewer trust fund brats.
He's nepo mediocrity personified, that's why.
ReplyDeleteEven his career defining moment has to be qualified. "A knuckler".
"... as the team began to implode, Boone seemed unable to right the ship. Game after game, his moves backfired."
ReplyDeleteAaaaaaaaaaaand there's your answer.
As an afterthought, though, it could be that I'm stuck in the past. Perhaps the perfect manager now is one who can salve the egos and ids of multi multi millionaires. The players have changed and maybe Boone is the answer. Then again, if he is the answer, what is the question?
ReplyDeleteDuque "Fairly or not, I think fans view Boone as Cashman's hand puppet. They wonder who writes out the lineup."
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is any question about it! (As far as I'm aware, nobody on this blog has any inside information from the Yankee front office. So it's a bit like the old time astronomers scanning the heavens every night and trying to figure out what the heck is going on up there.) But ALL the signs are crystal clear: Boone is Cashman's puppet. He takes orders on everything from the lineup to tomorrow's starting pitcher to the order of relievers coming in. He is nothing more than a glorified babysitter. And that is why he was hired.
Cashman said Boone was the best interview out of all the candidates. There's no doubt that one of the questions must have been "How do you feel about lineup decisions and pitching decisions coming down from above?" And Boone must have answered "Yes, sirree, Mr. Cashman, sir, I know that you have the greatest analytics department in the whole wide world here, and I am ready, willing, and able to take, obey, embrace, accept, adhere to and carry out and execute, all of your orders to the letter, sir, Mr. Cashman, sir, yes, sirree, sir, um, Mr. Cashman, sir, um, sir yes sir."
well stated, Doug K
ReplyDeleteChristmas for me has always been about the traditional things, a beautiful tree, coloured lights, tinsel, presents, food (in absurdly excessive amounts), booze (in ludicrously excessive amounts), the decorations, that wonderful warm magical Christmassy feeling that only occurs in the 6 weeks between late November and early January, family get-togethers, Christmas movies and music, the list goes on really. But i must admit that for a long time now the MOST magical thing that i experience and enjoy and look forward to at Christmas more than anything else is that every year on December the 25th at 9 in the morning my fairy godmother appears and allows me to travel back in time to 1985 so i can have my willy squashed and squeezed between the quite incredible 17 year-old Pauline Hickeys truly unbelievable tits for 5 hours non-stop and then unload literally half-a-pint of spunk all over those amazingly perfect knockers, i say 5 hours because my fairy godmother always stipulates that i have to return at 2 in the afternoon in time for Christmas dinner with my family otherwise i forfeit the yearly treat with the astonishing Miss Hickey. Christmas and tit-fucking the 17 year-old Pauline Hickey, its such an astoundingly perfect and irresistably joyous way to experience the Yuletide magic. Merry Christmas everyone, and think of me on Christmas morning/early afternoon having my knob squashed and squeezed between arguably THE most stunningly perfect tits of all-time, who knows it might make you feel magical as well (or murderously jealous of me of course, depending on your mood).
ReplyDeleteReply
Too much ink has been spilled on Boone.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple.
He's a mealy-mouthed liar who belongs as a Spokesman at any White House Briefing.
He's inept at crunch time.
He personifies why we hate politicians.
We crave Patton, we got Lloyd Austin.
Fine, Archie. But what does that have to do with Pauline Hickey?
ReplyDeleteHammer, apparently he passed the interview by being closer to Cashie's little tests—such as on lineups—than any other candidate. In fact, Cashman was apparently astonished at how much Boone's thinking just seemed to be an extension of his own.
ReplyDeleteWhich...is exactly what you DON'T want in a well-run institution. You want somebody who will—at least at times, and in some things—CHALLENGE your own thinking.
Not Cashman.