Many Yankee fans groaned when the team announced that manager Aaron Boone was returning on a new contract, as some hoped for a new face that would bring more accountability and more feel to the job.
But Boone thinks that the perception of him lacking in those areas is an unfair one. He hears the talk that he is considered a puppet for the front office and the analytics staff, who many believe are in charge of lineup construction and in-game management, despite multiple dismissals of that idea by general manager Brian Cashman. He once again pushed back on that narrative in a discussion with Joel Sherman of the New York Post last week.
“Certain things about that get to me,” Boone told Sherman. “Narratives that get started that maybe have some sliver of truth to it, but in the end are kind of bulls–t. I have a hard time…it bothers me just as a sport, as an industry, as someone who has been in the game forever and loves it, sometimes the old school-new school rub.”
Old-school tactics and new-school data application have been pitted against each other in recent years, with few vocal fans of the game embracing both. But Boone, part of a massive baseball family tree, says he applies both to his managing, and never sees the game through a lens of just numbers and projections.
“You are missing the boat if you are not all-in on all of it and understanding the importance of all of it,” Boone said. “I try to bring that down here all the time. One thing rubbed me wrong, I heard something…they called me a ‘data applicator.’ Like I am not a baseball guy and just some ‘data applicator.’ I have been in this game all my life, bro. I am as baseball through-and-through as anyone. Just because I have been open-minded and grown in the game doesn’t mean I am any more old-school or new-school than I have ever been. You are an idiot if you are not aware of all of it.”
Perhaps the majority of fans’ frustrations come from the simple fact that Boone has not brought a World Series back to New York, and hasn’t come as close as Joe Girardi in his last year as manager in 2017, just before Boone took over. Boone began his pinstriped tenure with back-to-back 100-win seasons, but hasn’t gotten his club back to the ALCS since 2019. The Yankees have faced a load of injuries in that span, but many thought the disappointing end to the 2021 campaign was a natural time to move on to a new voice in the clubhouse. But Boone is back, and says he will toe his usual balance of old and new school to try and end the Yankees’ World Series drought.
“One of the overwhelming reasons I took this job was to win a world championship,” Boone said. “So of course there is that frustration because we have been one of the teams probably, legitimately in the running for that year in and year out. There is frustration in that. I want to be in the parade. That is one of the driving forces of being here.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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