Do Not Fire Aaron Boone
The New York Yankees, they of the $270 million dollar payroll and “Evil Empire” moniker, entered action on May 2nd in sole possession of last place in the AL’s Eastern Division. Two recent losses, one in which they would have needed a touchdown and two field goals to send the game into extras, and another in which a two run ninth inning Yankee lead was blown, quickly resulted in #FireBoone trending on social media. As you likely know, this not the first time we’ve seen that social media trend.
I’m here to tell all fans, those who root for the Yankees and otherwise, two things. First, the days of Yankees ownership firing managers in the spring are long gone, so you should make your peace with Aaron Boone for now. Secondly, not only are the Yankees’ relative struggles no fault of Boone’s, but one can argue the team has overachieved during his five plus season tenure in pinstripes and should be given more than a little slack.
To cover this with more nuance than we’ll find on sports radio and on social media, we’ll need to back up a bit.
In 2017, the Yankees lost in the ALCS to the Astros, and somewhat controversially, fired then manager Joe Girardi. It was not controversial however to those of us who’d been paying attention. The 2017 Yankees went 18-26 in one run games in large part due to Girardi’s proclivity for saving his big bullpen arms for mop up duty* and using the staff’s number 11 and 12 pitchers in high leverage situations. This was one of a few reasons that even though the ’17 Yankees had both a powerhouse offense and pitching staff (second best in the AL in both runs per game and runs allowed per game) they only won 91 games on the season, despite a Pythagorean of 100-62.
(*Aroldis Chapman made 42% of his appearances in games in which the Yankees led or trailed by three runs or more. 25% of his appearances were in games in which the Yankees led or trailed by four runs or more. Dellin Betances made 38% of his 66 appearances when the Yankees were leading or trailing by three or more runs as well.)
Aaron Boone took over for Girardi in 2018 with a significantly regressed pitching staff that saw the team get 37 combined starts from Sonny Gray (86 ERA+) and Domingo Germán (75 ERA+). For comparative purposes, in 2017 six pitchers started at least 11 games for the Yanks and Masahiro Tanaka had the worst ERA+ at 95 – that’s how good the staff Girardi had was. The 2018 offense only had Aaron Judge for about two thirds of the season and there was only one lefty batter with a wRC+ over 100. (Didi Gregorius and only due to a scalding hot April – his wRC+ was actually below 100 from May through September.)
Despite an arguably a lesser roster, the Yankees won 100 games under Boone in 2018, and finished the season by losing to the eventual champion Boston Red Sox in the ALDS. Boston, who had won 108 games in the regular season and went 11-3 in the playoffs, was not a team any other team should have expected to beat that season. And if you’re curious, with the same key bullpen pieces (Chapman, Betances and Chad Green) the Yankees went 23-17 in one run games in 2018.
The 2019 Yankees started the season with Troy Tulowitzki – who was awful in 2017 and hadn’t played at all in 2018 – as their starting shortstop, and with Greg Bird and his three season OPS+ of 80 as their first baseman. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton played in 120 games combined on the season and again there was next to no production from left-handed bats (Mike Tauchman led team lefties with a 128 OPS+ but in less than 300 PA.) On the pitching side, almost half of the team’s games – 76 to be exact – were started by J.A. Happ, Germán and a rapidly declining C.C. Sabathia, all of whom had below average FIP’s on the season.
Regardless, the team won 103 games and finished the postseason with a heartbreaking loss to the Houston Astros in the ALCS. Even extremely harsh critics would have trouble selling the notion that the Yankees didn’t get a plus performance from their manager in ’19.
2020, quite obviously, was an odd year for everybody, yet in the small sample size we do have, there aren’t too many criticisms that can be thrown towards the manager’s office.
Tell me if this sounds familiar: Both Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton missed more than half of the team’s games and Brett Gardner’s 109 OPS+ was the best for a left-handed batter on the team. And although only playing against AL East and NL East teams, the Yankees went 33-27, then 4-3 in the playoffs. Combined that’s a 90-win pace over 162 with their two best players missing more than half the time and playing against good competition.
The 2021 Yankees were not a good team. Although they had Judge and Stanton more or less full time, Anthony Rizzo’s 110 OPS+ was the only other one that wasn’t below league average among regulars. The team finished 10th in the AL in runs per game and even with Judge and Stanton, below league average in both SLG and total bases. It’s been a stretch since we’ve seen a Yankees offense as punchless as that ’21 group. The pitching was very good but often not good enough to offset the lack of run scoring and the team posted a Pythagorean record of 86 and 76.
Yet, while playing in a division that had four teams that won more than 90 games, the Yankees actual record was 92-70, earning them a Wild Card berth. Again, and unless you want to blame the lack of hitting on the manager, it would be very hard to argue that Aaron Boone didn’t do a great job in 2021.
In 2022, the good news for the manager was that the Yankees received 35.3 fWAR from position players. The bad news is almost one third of that – 11.5 to be exact – came from one player. It was far from an easy lineup to manage but again the team got a very good performance from the pitching staff which when combined with Judge’s otherworldly season, led to a 99-win regular season and another ALCS appearance, once again losing to the eventual champions from Houston. (And once again, no shame in that.)
2023 is still too small of a sample size to comprehensively assess anything, but since that doesn’t stop Boone’s critics, I’ll throw in my two cents anyway.
The Yankees have had an almost comical level of players visiting the IL, including three fifths of the starting rotation, their center fielder, and say it with me: Judge and Stanton again. Additionally, the normally reliable bats that are in the lineup have been slumping lately, which when combined with the literal replacement players in the lineup, has led to the 24th lowest runs per game in MLB thus far in ’23. On the pitching side, again due to injuries, the team’s 6th, 7th and 8th starters have started 60% of the team’s games.
Yet despite all of the above, the team’s record is 15-15 entering action on May 2nd. For some perspective, the juggernaut, World Series winning 2009 team was 14-16 after 30 games.
Am I saying the 2023 Yankees are as good as the 2009 team and there’s no reason for concern? No, I’m not saying either of those things. I’m saying the injuries and lack of hitting are not the manager’s fault, and given Aaron Boone’s track record with the club, fans’ vitriol should be directed elsewhere.
Because when we look at a larger sample size than 30 games – five plus seasons to be exact – Boone’s resume is both impressive and clearly better than his predecessor’s last five seasons working for the same GM and owner.
In five plus seasons under Boone, the Yanks have averaged 97 wins per 162 games and have never finished below second place in a very tough division, winning the AL East twice. The team hasn’t missed the postseason with Boone as manager, has reached the ALCS twice, and has lost to the eventual World Series Champions twice. Which again, there’s no shame in losing to the 2018 Red Sox or the 2022 Astros – everyone else did too.
That’s a resume that’s very hard to criticize, under any circumstances, but especially when compared to his predecessor. In the last five seasons managed by Girardi, the Yankees averaged 86 wins per 162 games with zero division titles and missed the postseason altogether in three of those five seasons. I’m confident in my position that many, perhaps most, Yankee fans don’t realize how much better the team has been since Boone took over, and again with the same people constructing the roster that Girardi had.
Am I ready to put Boone with Huggins, McCarthy, Stengel and Torre in Yankees’ history? No, of course not. Fair or unfair, there is a big piece of hardware missing from Boone’s resume. That said, we need to avoid blaming the manager for things beyond his control, or for decisions and results in small sample sizes when much larger sample sizes exist. I’ve been around Yankees fans long enough to know that isn’t likely to happen, but I’m going to keep saying it anyway.
