The New York Yankees saw their season end in the most heartbreaking of ways, blowing a 5-0 lead thanks to several defensive blunders and falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a final score of 7-6. They lost the World Series in five games.
Despite the loss being so fresh, so much is already being discussed when it comes to New York’s immediate future. Juan Soto sounded incredibly eager to test free agency, and we now know what is going to happen with manager Aaron Boone. He’s not going anywhere, according to SNY’s Andy Martino.
“As such, Boone is expected back as manager in 2025, despite how the World Series went, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the team’s thinking. That would have been the case even if the Yankees had been swept. The Yankees hold an option on Boone for next season. To avoid a lame duck year, it would be logical to follow the pennant-winning season with a contract extension,” Martino wrote.
On one hand, this is the expected result. Boone helped lead the Yankees to their first AL Pennant since 2009, and has gone 603-429 with three division titles in his seven seasons as New York’s skipper. His Yankees haven’t finished under .500 a single time. Still, after watching what we just watched, coming up with this conclusion that quickly doesn’t feel great.
Yankees expected to bring Aaron Boone back to manage in 2025
Let’s get this out of the way quickly. It is not Aaron Boone’s fault that the Yankees lost the World Series. It’s not Boone’s fault that his team combined to score a combined seven runs in the first three games of the series. It’s not his fault that his team simply failed to execute on the biggest stage. With that said, though, New York’s flaws were exposed in this series, and they can easily be tied back to Boone.
This was not a fundamentally sound baseball team. The Yankees made so many mistakes on the base paths all season long to the point where radio announcer John Sterling called them “drunks.” Their defense, while worse than ever in Game 5, was never good all season long. Players deserve blame for their lack of fundamentals, but Boone also can be blamed for not getting this team where they needed to be on that end.
In addition to the poor fundamentals, there are several things fans can blame Boone for in this World Series alone. How he managed Game 1 – from the decision to pull Gerrit Cole early, to the decision to start the tenth inning with Jake Cousins – to using Nestor Cortes in the biggest spot of the game over Tim Hill – looks awful in hindsight and could’ve been questioned at the time. The decision to stick with the struggling Aaron Judge in the No. 3 hole worked out in Game 5, but might’ve cost them in the first three games. The decision to ignore Jasson Dominguez when he might’ve been able to spark a struggling offense wasn’t ideal either. There are things to point to.
At the end of the day, Boone has done a lot of good as the Yankees manager, but has also been far from perfect. It isn’t surprising to see the Yankees choose to keep him around after their best season in over a decade. It’s also hard to say whether they made the right call here. So much of what went wrong can be traced back to the manager. Immediately having it leaked that he’s staying after he deserves at least a portion of the blame for the result of the World Series isn’t what Yankees fans wanted to see.
