Aaron Boone’s future with the Yankees was very much in doubt after a Wild Card Game loss and an expiring contract, but Boone always wanted to remain in pinstripes if the option was there.
“This is definitely place I want to be,” Boone said Monday after the team announced he was returning on a new three-year deal. “The reality is, I know the rumors and everything that were out there, but they were only that. I never stopped being under contract with the Yankees, and myself and my family and my agent have treated it as such.”
Still, with multiple members of his coaching staff being let go and multiple managerial options opening up around the league, including across town with the Mets, Boone at least thought about potentially managing elsewhere for the first time in his young managerial career.
“Consideration? Sure,” Boone said. “I think there were a couple of days where there was a lot of careful thought, some difficult days of kind of working through it all. Talking to people I care about, certainly my family, and prayerful consideration in all of this…when you decide on something as big as this, you want to make sure you get to a point where you’re all in and doing it. I was able to get to that point.
“I don’t know what that would have produced, or if I wanted to go anywhere else if that was going to be an option. You can speculate and think, but in the end, this is where I wanted to be.”
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Now that Boone is officially back with what eventually will be a new-look coaching staff, the pressure will be even greater to produce a title. Many thought Boone’s expiring contract at the end of this season was the perfect opportunity for a new voice, especially as the team has failed to make it as far as Joe Girardi did in his last year as Yankee manager back in 2017. But Boone, who started his Yankee tenure with back-to-back 100-win seasons while never missing the playoffs, still believes he and whoever will be with him has what it takes to reach the franchise’s ultimate goal.
“I understand that’s the nature of the business, and in this chair you bear a lot of brunt of the criticism, and understandably so,” Boone said. “I’m sure it will be a talked about subject in many circles. I think I can help lead us to the top. That’s why I’m here, that’s why I came back and why I originally signed on here...just trying to continually grow in this job, and ultimately the proof will be in the pudding.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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