New York Yankees fans predictably blamed manager Aaron Boone after players committed multiple avoidable mistakes en route to losing the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
However, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner appears to be running it back with Boone for at least another year.
“Boone is expected back as manager in 2025, despite how the World Series went, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the team’s thinking. That would have been the case even if the Yankees had been swept,” MLB insider Andy Martino of SNY shared early Thursday morning.
Martino’s update is hardly a surprise, as it was reported before the Yankees got past the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Championship Series that Steinbrenner and Yankees senior vice president/general manager Brian Cashman had privately given Boone “high marks for his performance” this season. While Boone just completed the last guaranteed year of his contract, that deal includes a club option for 2025.
“The club will start by picking up the manager’s option for 2025,” Yankees reporter Bob Klapisch of NJ Advance Media wrote for a piece published on Thursday, “which would conceivably lay the groundwork for a multiyear deal. …Steinbrenner is satisfied with the club’s overall progress under Boone. The Yankees won their first American League pennant since 2009, the best finish of any Boone-led team since he replaced Joe Girardi in 2017.”
Boone guided the Yankees to six playoff appearances across seven years and is well-liked by some of the organization’s most important people, such as Cashman and team captain Aaron Judge. With the future of All-Star outfielder Juan Soto up in the air as of the first day of the offseason, it makes sense that Steinbrenner would want to hold onto the popular skipper who simply was unable to lead his club to a World Series victory over what was the best team in all of MLB.
“Although the decision to keep (or fire) Boone is Steinbrenner’s, the general manager is Boone’s strongest advocate,” Klapisch added. “As long as Cashman has a job in the Bronx, he’ll expend whatever political capital is necessary to keep Boone in the dugout.”
Keeping Boone on a one-year “lame duck” deal could send Judge and other players a message about what’s expected of them for next fall regardless of Soto’s free-agency decision. Considering Cashman is signed through the 2026 season, he will likely push Steinbrenner to give Boone financial guarantees beyond 2025.
