Hal Steinbrenner remains high on Aaron Boone
Yankees manager Aaron Boone speaks during a press conference at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 4. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Hal Steinbrenner is no Boss when it comes to managers, and his support for Aaron Boone after yet another disappointing October shows a patience that his dad never exhibited during George’s days running the Yankees.
Appearing on the YES Network on Monday night in the first of a two-part interview, Steinbrenner expressed faith in Boone’s ability to lead the Yankees despite the manager’s failure to reach the World Series in his first five years.
“Because the players respect him and they want to play for him and they want to win for him,” Steinbrenner said. “If I didn’t think that was the case, as in years past, I would have made a change. But Aaron Boone wasn’t responsible for our offense. The slide that they experienced the last couple of months of the season rolling into the postseason, that was not his responsibility. Again, we had a lot of injuries. But the players respect him and they want to win for him. That’s an important thing.”
Boone has had three seasons of at least 99 wins, has gone 427-281 and has reached the ALCS twice.
When pushed on Boone’s in-game moves during the postseason, however, Steinbrenner did acknowledge that the manager hardly was perfect. The Yankees, of course, rely on a collaborative effort on everything from lineups to bullpen usage, leaning heavily on their analytics crew. But Boone is the face of those strategies, the guy out front executing the moves, and that makes him the public fall guy when things don’t work.
“I think every manager, if you look at any five games, seven games or 10 games, is going to make mistakes,” Steinbrenner said. “Obviously in the postseason, they’re magnified. I’m not saying he makes the right decision every time. I think some of the critique is justified. But overall I think he does his homework quite well, deals with his coaches quite well and listens to their advice — even in game — and makes a lot of good decisions.”
Boone still has two years remaining on his contract, but general manager Brian Cashman’s deal expired on Halloween, so he’s been running the front office since then merely on the belief that he’ll eventually get an extension done with Steinbrenner. There’s good reason for that. Cashman has worked under two generations of Steinbrenners for nearly three decades. He’s practically a member of the family by now.
Cashman didn’t sound concerned about his future during last week’s GM meetings in Las Vegas, but Steinbrenner refused to discuss the status of the negotiations.
“I have a lot of respect for Cashman and I believe he’s a good GM for all the reasons I’ve stated in the past,'' he said. "He’s very good at dealing with coaches, managers, players. They respect him. We get accused of being a stagnant organization sometimes — we’re not. We’re constantly evolving, and Cash is great at that.
“He’s also very well-balanced as I am very well-balanced. We believe in a lot of analytics. We also believe in a lot of pro scouting. And we use both of that information in making a decision. So I think he’s one of the better GMs in the game. I’m not saying there’s going to be a change there, but we do not have an agreement at this point.”
Steinbrenner said any accusations about the Yankees being stagnant are “just not accurate” and insisted he would change things up if he felt that to be the case.
He also reiterated his strong desire to have Aaron Judge back with the Yankees and said he’s already spoken to him multiple times since the season ended. He didn’t get into any of the financial parameters of a potential Yankees pitch, but when he was asked if Judge could be the next captain if he returns, he said: “That is something we would consider.”
As for whether the C is important to Judge, he replied, “That you’ll have to ask him.”
Steinbrenner echoed the company line of the Yankees having their playoff run cut short by injuries, ranging from their high-leverage relievers to their best contact hitters in DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi. Ultimately, Steinbrenner mentioned that as the separator between the Yankees and the world champion Astros.
“I’m not going to make excuses — they did go into playoffs a bit healthier than us,” Steinbrenner said. “But they’re a great team. I don’t believe they’re doing anything we’re not doing. They’re taking a look at their roster and their team every season and they’re making changes. They’re letting guys go if they have a good young option below to come up. And we’re going to be doing some of the same things too.”
Steinbrenner was referencing the highly touted group of infielders — Anthony Volpe, Oswald Peraza and Oswaldo Cabrera — and suggested they’re going to get playing time next season.
“We’ll see how they do in spring training, how everything shakes out,” he said. “But as I said in March, it’s certainly my intent to see those two guys [Volpe and Peraza] in the middle of the infield.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
