Yankees manager Aaron Boone on 2024: 'We're hellbent on being a champion'
Yankees manager Aaron Boone fields questions during a press conference in the pavilion during spring training at the team's facility in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
TAMPA, Fla. – Aaron Boone, if nothing else, knows his audience.
“We’re hellbent on being a champion,” Boone said early Wednesday afternoon during his annual spring training kickoff news conference.
It was the initial sentence delivered by Boone, entering his seventh season as Yankees manager and final year of a three-year contract, when asked this: As you start spring training, what’s your overall message to the fans?
“We understand very well that last year was not anything anyone in this organization wants or demands or expects,” Boone continued. “I would say we have poured into that, from ownership, to the front office, to the coaches and staff, all the way to the players, that I do feel like we’ve prepared properly, we are ready to roll. But we have to show you. Anything I say now, next week, next month, into the season, we have to prove it. I think we have a chance to be a really special team. But that’s all it is right now. We have to go show the world that we’re as good as we think we can be.”
Boone, who at least in public — and to the consternation of a fanbase that collectively has never really warmed to him over the years — often sounds as if he’s channeling Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” even in the worst of times, was far more positive than not on Wednesday.
But Boone did occasionally shelve his Pollyanna approach, especially in discussing 2023 when his team, which left spring training with its typically high expectations, put forth an 82-80 season that general manager Brian Cashman multiple times described as “a disaster.”
The Yankees, whose offense was the primary culprit, addressed that side of the ball – as well as their yearslong issue of a diversified lineup – by bringing in the lefthanded-hitting Juan Soto, one of the best bats in the majors. They also traded for lefty-swinging outfielders Alex Verdugo, who will start, and Trent Grisham, a reserve.
The Yankees believe those imports, as well as bounce-back seasons from Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton – and the expected excellence from Aaron Judge as long as he’s healthy – will elevate an offense that finished 25th in runs (673).
“I think we have a chance to be a great offense,” Boone said. “Again, that’s all it is right now is a chance. Last year was a struggle for us offensively, for different reasons … I do feel like we’re better positioned and better equipped to deal with a guy going down [injured] here or a guy going down there. I do like our depth right now, I like our balance right now, and my expectation is we’re an elite offense again. I think it’s a reasonable expectation with what we have but, again, we have to go show you.”
Speaking in mid-January after the Yankees signed righthander Marcus Stroman to bolster their rotation – the organization is still looking at various options to bolster it further – Cashman said returning players were “very hungry” to put last season’s fiasco behind them and had “a bad taste in their mouths” from the experience.
“We’re better than that. And our fans deserve better than that,” Cashman said.
Though much has been made of the number of players who reported to the club’s minor league complex early – Judge, LeMahieu and Anthony Volpe, for example, have been working out regularly there since early January – the numbers weren’t dramatically different than in past years.
Still, Boone noted an “edge” he detected in many of his players when it came to their winter work.
“What we went through last year as a club, nobody wants that ever again,” Boone said. “It really left a sour taste. It’s like sand getting kicked in your face. I do feel like we have a group that is always really focused and diligent on preparing and getting ready to have a great season, but I do think there’s another level of edge and focus to not wanting that to happen again.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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