The New York Yankees are in the middle of what can nearly be classified as a death spiral. Twice, the team’s newly acquired bullpen pieces blew a lead at the end of the game. Twice, the team has been shut out by pitching they should have been able to hit. They’re currently 1-5 to start the month of August.
The team faces numerous issues, including a lack of pitching and failing to build the team around captain Aaron Judge. But the most pressing issue being featured in New York media and social networking arenas is that manager Aaron Boone has to go. Arguments ranging from the usual lack of urgency he seems to present to almost being complacent with the poor play are widespread across Yankee socials, win or loss.
They might have a point, and the recent collapse proves it. It is high time for Boone to go.
If the Yankees were to collapse either deeper into the wild card race or out of the playoffs, it wouldn’t be the first time that happened. In 2023, the team got off to one of their best starts since 1998, the best team in the history of the sport by record. By the end of June that year, the team sat at 56-21. The team looked poised to win the World Series that year with a newly reinvigorated Nestor Cortes Jr. and a lineup consisting of Judge and Gleyber Torres.
The team sank to a 13-13 record in July, before collapsing in August with a 10-18 record. In August alone, the team was shut out five separate times between the first and the 19th of the month, with serious issues scoring runners. Their OBP was under .300, while their slugging hit a paltry .354, scoring just barely 100 runs and walking only 92 times. While the pitching was okay, Gerrit Cole lost four out of his six starts, and Frankie Montas got injured, leaving the rotation in serious trouble.
Article after article in New York media and nationwide pointed out Boone’s seemingly devil-may-care attitude, until he finally “snapped”:
Yankee managers were known for their fiery tempers, including their old boss, George Steinbrenner. But Boone’s slam on the table came far too late. It was only four days before this that he had a rosier outlook, saying, “You can’t let the frustration get in your way of preparing and go every night.” Even when the catcher Jose Trevino got caught in a rundown in a 1-0 loss against Seattle, he tried to spin it.
“I don’t want to lose our aggression on the bases. We’ve been really successful stealing at a good clip,” Boone told ESPN after that game.
Yes, the Yankees didn’t have the worst baserunning in the league that year. Sure, the Yankees rebounded to go into the playoffs in 2022. The bottom fell out next year.
The 2023 Yankees were a mess. Bad roster construction, no pitching rotation outside of Gerrit Cole, and nothing was going right for the team. It didn’t help matters that Boone made questionable decision after questionable decision during games.
In May, Domingo German was pitching a fantastic game, surrendering only two hits on 88 pitches, well into the 9th inning. Boone, inexplicably, pulled German and put Clay Holmes in. A 2-0 victory turned into a 3-2 loss with miscue after miscue and bad pitch after bad pitch. Boone’s justification? He thought it was the “right decision to [put Holmes in] there.” That’s essentially lingo for an over-reliance on analytics and computers, something former reliever Zack Britton said caused a “rift” that year.
In July and August, the team went 20-33, with a slew of miscues. Baserunning issues became common, the team’s fielding was one of the worst in the league, and the team looked lost. What made it worse was Boone’s mismanagement of the bullpen, which showed signs of significant stress early on in the season.
Not all of the blame falls on Boone, given the poor roster construction from Brian Cashman. The team even had the best ERA at one point in the 2023 season. And yes, this was the year Boone got ejected in that famous outburst on umpire Laz Diaz.
He can be fiery when he wants to, but in the next section, it’s clear that fire has suddenly disappeared.
Never mind the 2024 World Series, where the team had one of the worst defensive meltdowns in the championship’s history. Anyone can make excuses for Boone for 2022 and 2023, but there is no excuse for how lackadaisical the team looks this year.
If one were to look up a summary of the Yankees’ baserunning in 2025, there’s an entire article discussing the sheer amount of baserunning issues. In three consecutive nights in June, the Yankees made outs on the bases at Fenway, from forgetting outs to getting picked off by not trying.
Austin Wells made a gigantic fool of himself by also forgetting how many outs there were on the basepaths.
Then, three days later in Miami, Jazz Chisholm Jr. somehow got thrown out on an infield pop-up play:
To make it even worse for Boone and the front office, Chisholm just shrugged it off and virtually said he wouldn’t do anything different if it happened again. That speaks volumes about the current state of accountability within the clubhouse. Even A.J. Hinch benched Javier Baez when he made a costly mental error.
Meanwhile, shortstop Anthony Volpe is quickly losing his composure at the position, committing error after error with each play. In one 10-game stretch in July, the Yankees committed 12 errors. Then, buried within the bullpen’s complete collapse in Miami, Jose Caballero muffed an easy groundball in right field.
Boone’s reaction? The same “we gotta win” and “we know we can play better” nonsense. This was the same guy who, after falling out of first place, dared to tell the team, “We’re the best team in the league.” Again, right after getting swept by a division rival.
At least one player, Ben Rice, offered a bit of insight into how the club is operating: “I think a little sense of urgency would be good for us.”
The list of gaffes extends far past what’s been laid out here and even goes before 2022. The article would be 10,000 words at that point, but it’s clear Boone has either stopped caring or is so out of touch with the clubhouse that no one is listening. It’s clear in the play, it’s clear with the attitude in the clubhouse, and it’s clear with the way Boone isn’t even getting angry about it in the press.
There comes a point where a manager has to put a player in the hot seat instead of taking all the shots. Let the players take some of the bullets, and if they don’t care, like Chisholm Jr. acted? Bench them for a game or two, tell the press that he’s wrong, and he acted stupid on the field. Stop coddling them, stop playing superhero.
Unfortunately, insider Jon Heyman told Bleacher Report that Boone is sticking around for the rest of the year at least. If nothing changes and the team runs it back in 2026, it’ll probably be the same thing like this year. No fire, no accountability, no urgency, all talk and all superhero-complex. Hal Steinbrenner needs to make the move he doesn’t want to make if he wants any respect from the New York fanbase. Either turn it around or shake it up.
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