Yankees manager Aaron Boone told everyone at spring training: Be ready!

When it comes to baseball, we almost never hear about speeches being delivered to a team.

In mainstream sports, the inspiring talk in a locker room is mostly part of football, pregame or halftime. Getting the team fired up for a physical confrontation might make sense when there’s only one game each week, but it just wouldn’t fit in a baseball clubhouse during the marathon of a 162-game season. And the idea of “trying to do too much” often is cited as a reason for poor performance.

That wasn’t the case in February when the Yankees were all in place — close to 70 of them, including non-roster invitees — and ready to begin spring training in Tampa, though. Manager Aaron Boone had a message he wanted all of them to hear.

“Whether you’re in the lineup or not — whether you’re going to make the team or not and think you’re far away — you might find yourself on the mound, in the batter’s box [or] in the field for the biggest moment of our season,” Boone recounted telling the club in an interview last week with Newsday. “You not only need to prepare as such, you need to be ready for that.”

Boone was beginning his ninth season as the Yankees’ manager and is the third generation in his family to have played in the big leagues. He also has worn the pinstripes and understands that as perennial postseason entries, the Yankees often are in some of the biggest games in the entire baseball season.

Asked about his thinking as he addressed the team, Boone said, “It’s important to make sure the room understands how important each individual is. Obviously, we have our Judges and Coles and Frieds and stars that you know are going to be [in] there, but you all play a really important role . . . and it might be in our biggest moment.”

There is a litany of examples Boone might have drawn on. Reliever Francisco Rodriguez, a September call-up, starred for the Angels when they won the 2002 World Series. The Royals’ Christian Colon got one at-bat in the 2015 World Series against the Mets and drove in the go-ahead run in the 12th inning of Game 5 as Kansas City captured the championship. Astros rookie Jose Urquidy pitched five scoreless innings to even the 2019 Word Series at 2-2 against the eventual champion Nationals.

It’s a long list, but Boone said he had no one performance in mind. Nevertheless — and while it didn’t come in a football coach-style delivery — the message landed, especially with younger players and newcomers to the organization.

“When he said it, he said it strong so we’d have it in our hearts and our minds all the time,” reliever Fernando Cruz recalled. “It sets an expectation and it should. A high-performance athlete in New York is always going to be in a big spot, especially when you’re part of the Yankees. Every time I am doing something to get better and be prepared, I am thinking of the big spot, and his words say it.

“I’m playing for my dream team,” he added, “and I want that big spot.”

“It’s just about the Yankees . . . like everything matters here, even the smallest things, but [always] the big things,” said do-everything utility player Jose Caballero, a midseason acquisition from the Rays in 2025 who was attending his first Yankees spring training. “When you do things to help win a game for the Yankees, it’s a big thing [because] everyone is paying attention to the Yankees . . . . There should be big games for us and those matter the most, so it’s even more [so] you’re ready for it.

“I was in a smaller market and winning games was important for the organization, but it didn’t always feel like it was for everyone like it does here.”

This 2026 season is as good an example as any to underscore Boone’s message. At the end of last week, 39 different players had appeared in at least one game. The Yankees also seem to be grooming some prospects in the minors — reliever Carlos Lagrange, for example — to be contributors in the near future.

“It takes more than 26 guys over the course of a season to go to the places we want to go,” Boone said.

While his words made the biggest impression on the new guys, even the veteran players felt the message was a good one.

“[Boone] says a lot of good things,” said third baseman Ryan McMahon, a 10-year veteran. “Telling me that ‘you’re going to be a part of this’ would hold a lot of weight if I was a young guy. If I heard the manager say that, I’d feel that big-time . . . You might be in the minors and, even though that might feel far, you’re not that far from being in a playoff baseball game and we need you ready.”

Starter Ryan Weathers, who is in his sixth MLB season, played parts of the previous three seasons with the Marlins before his trade to the Yankees and was on strong Padres teams at the start of his career.

“I wouldn’t say it was exactly a mantra or anything on those strong teams in San Diego, but it was understood [what] it was going to take . . . to win the [NL] West,” Weathers said. “It wasn’t exactly [articulated] like that.”

Boone thought he might have made a similar point to assembled players in a couple of other seasons, but that speech isn’t an annual event at spring training. He added, “I try to pick my moments to say something that hopefully is meaningful . . . I consider it part of my job.”

He sees it as particularly important for the players who aren’t going to make the Opening Day roster because, he said, “even though they might not break camp with us, you have to be ready for when the lights are brightest and the stakes are biggest.”

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.