Miami Meltdown
I would love to say this surprised me, but this Yankee team has been so inconsistent this season that splitting a series with the Marlins after sweeping the Blue Jays almost seems par for the course.
In fact, the 2018 New York Yankees might be the best inconsistent team of all time (for what its worth). Every 15–20 games its a different group of players on the hot seat, and with the way Boston has played this year, a lot of it comes down on Aaron Boone.
I’m not pardoning Boone from some of the choice decisions he’s made this season (and definitely on Wednesday), but the argument that he’s a bad manager seems flawed. He’s not perfect, and all of his decisions are under a microscope since it’s the Yankees and they’re trailing the Red Sox, but is that all someone takes to deem someone inept? Im going propagate some individual arguments I’ve heard below to give you and idea of where I stand.
- He doesn’t motivate the team, he needs to be more fiery!
I start here because this is probably the one I agree with the most. This argument also doubles as a complement for the Alex Cora/Joe Girardi supporters. I do think Boone’s temperament could be more intense, but Torre was also very lax as well. Now, Boone couldn’t sniff Torre at this point, but Torre had leaders on that team that did the motivational heavy lifting (Posada, O’Niell). I think a healthy and contributing Aaron Judge will co-navigator and motivator for Aaron Boone’s Yankees. In addition, I don’t think Boone has been ejected this season, but there have definitely been instances where an ejection might have been strategic in changing the complextion of the team.
My hope here is that his cooler attitude works to the Yanks’ advantage in the postseason.
2. He can’t manage the bullpen!
I think the first point to address here is not only have Yankees fans been spoiled with riches in the bullpen, but Joe Girardi was a great utilizer of it. You have to remember this is Boone’s FIRST SEASON, it’s not easy to be a big-league manager. Further, it’s not like the bullpen has been attrocious all year. In fact, they were one of the best bullpens of the live ball era in the first half of the season, but for some reason their second half struggles have fallen on the manager. Boone has had some mishaps with the bullpen this season, Wednesday and the finale of the subway series comes to mind as I write this, but don’t let guys like Chapman*, Green, and Britton get off season for being terrible in the second half.
- *His injury might have played a key role in his struggles, I guess we’ll find out.
3. He’s just a mouthpiece for Cashman and analytics! He’s clueless!
Well, for someone to sit on their computer and call someone who grew up in MLB clubhouses and had a MLB career clueless about the game of baseball is mind-blowing to me, but that might just be me.
With regard to the analytics, there is definitely a lot that Boone does that he gets from the front office. An example would be the constant lineup changes: it’s all advanced metrics (a lot of these suggestions have worked too). the Yankees are 32 games over .500 and it’s not because Murder’s Row 2.0 panned out. They shift well defensively, guys like Andújar, Hicks, and Didi have benefited from their lineup changes this season, so I think the analytics team is doing a good job.
That being said, Boone also does things that he feels from within the clubhouse. I’m scratching my head Tuesday wondering why Cole and Kahnle entered the game ahead of D-Rob last night, only to find out after the game they were looking to get Roberstson a day off. Boone has been pretty strict on off-days throughout the season, and gotten killed for it because of how young the team is.
All I can say to that is, having been a part of just a 50 game college schedule, you may be surprised what kind of toll baseball takes on your body day-in and day out. Torres and Andújar have never played this deep into a season, so keeping them and other valuable members of this team healthy is important.
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To wrap up the Boone critique, it’s important to realize that all of this amounts to MAYBE 5 wins. The truth is that the manager doesn’t play a huge role in the success of any team. Cora isn’t the same if he doesn’t have Mookie and JD on historic paces, just like Girardi isn’t the same in 2017 if he doesn’t have Aaron Judge. It’s important to assess when Boone has done, but only to the extent that we realize it all comes down to what the players do on the field.
It also confuses me when people say that W-L is irrelevant in assessing Boone. I get how the “game manager” part of the job is what you truly assess, but at the end of the day, all a manager has to hang his hat on is what he wins.
As far as the Miami series, the offense went to sleep, and Boone fumble the bullpen on Wednesday. Chapman goes to the 10-day, which fucking sucks, and now the Yankees are stuck with 4 of their best players on the shelf during the final stretch of the season. Things could get ugly on the West Coast if guys like Bird and Torres don’t become serious contributors to this offense soon.
