Postseason Managerial Report Card: Aaron Boone
Every October, FanGraphs grades each playoff manager. We focus on their in-game decisions, because a lot of the most important parts of the job – things like keeping players ready to go and making sure relievers understand their roles so they know when they might be deployed – aren’t always visible to us from the outside looking in. A lot of what managers do never reaches the public eye. These report cards focus on the remainder of their decisions, the ones that come when the lights are bright and the game is on the line.
We attempt to evaluate those decisions based on process, not results. A pitching change isn’t necessarily bad because the reliever who comes in gets shelled, or good because he gets out of a jam. That’s not to say it can’t be a bad decision – if you bring in a mop-up man in a high-leverage spot, or let your righty specialist face Ben Rice, you made the wrong call. But we’re interested in the before, in what we could expect to happen when a manager makes a pitching change or calls on a pinch-hitter. It isn’t good to completely ignore results, but it’s also bad to fixate on them, and it’s my hope that our report cards strike the right balance.
Earlier this month, Jon Becker wrote up the four managers who lost in the Wild Card round. This week, we’re adding the Division Series losers to the mix. First up: Aaron Boone and the Yankees.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Agree with almost all of this! Only thing I’m surprised by is that Schlitter’s massive workload against Boston wasn’t mentioned as a possible cause for him laboring more than usual against the Rays.
Thank you. NOBODY is talking about it. On Reddit there was universal applause for Boone for having the guts to leave Schlittler in so long. I thought it was a horrible idea then (especially for the final batter) and doubly so now. Every pitch type was down 2-3 mph and he had no ability to put guys away. Nobody will ever convince me that throwing 117 pitches in a high-stress (Yankees/Red Sox) playoff atmosphere didn’t have an effect. I can only hope it’s not long-lasting.
I wanted to find to reasons to be mad at Boone, but I couldn’t. Most of the decisions were either correct, close enough, or wound up being not really relevant. You can argue fundamentals all you want, but at a certain point players have to be responsible for basic situational awareness to not try and stretch that to a triple or don’t throw the ball when the runner’s basically already at first…and you’re not facing the correct direction.
I don’t think Boone, in of himself, is the problem. He’s not the greatest tactical/strategic manager in the game, though he had a really good playoffs. It’s some combination of player acquisition and development that’s failing them. It’s Cashman overpaying, repeatedly, at the deadline and misidentifying the moves he should or shouldn’t make. It’s homegrown players who make boneheaded mistakes at the worst possible times.
Aaron Judge’s post-playoff comments do not help. I get that he’s salty because he couldn’t heal up enough to play and contribute, but he’s also not going to make the team any better by running his mouth about “not going all in”.
Boone might have lost Yankees fans, and he surely bears some blame for the string of defensive gaffes.
I’m not sure why he surely bears from blame for the string of defensive gaffes. These are professional baseball players who have been drilled on the fundamentals for the entire lives. It’s not like he sat there in the dugout saying things like “You’ve got to hurry your throws, don’t be afraid to take your eye off the ball”.
What I call the Romantic View of sports management would say that the Manager is responsible for setting the tone, and if the players are too high or too low then that’s his fault. And it’s certainly possible that players who are not in the proper mindset may be more prone to errors and bad decisions. Or that the initial mistakes put them into a bad mindset and caused the cascade of errors. Who knows? Every previous part of this paragraph is entirely unfalsifiable, so it’s up to the reader if they believe in it or not. But either way, it is not _fact_.
Because the players come and go and the mistakes stay the same. The front office has actively gone out of their way to prioritize defense over offense (on a team that can’t even hit) and those players get to the Yankees and seemingly forget how to play defense. Now whether it’s Boone’s fault or the fault of the front office for hiring the coaches they do — up and down the system too, because the yankees’ MiLB teams are just as sloppy if not worse — is up for debate, but someone’s not doing their job well
Is that really true though? I’m honestly not sure but think there’s a real chance that we are overreacting to a couple bad innings. Horribly ugly innings, to be clear, but outside of the few plays in game 2 vs. TB, their defense was impressive this postseason. Game 3 of the ALDS was particularly crisp. Is it just bad luck?
Also I would argue that the mistakes *don’t* stay the same. The main reason they lost vs. Toronto last year was because their starters got shelled. The main reason they lost vs. TB was because they didn’t hit.
Boone has made some questionable decisions to be sure, but do you think we’d be agreeing with every move that his replacement would make?
I’m pretty firmly in the “they get to the postseason every year and then it’s a crapshoot” camp. At the same time I do get the frustration abot how long it’s been since they won, but I find it hard to point at consistent specific reasons why they have lost.
Finally I think people grossly underestimate what’s involved in keeping a clubhouse in order, especially in New York, and Boone has proven to be very adept at that. The more I watch baseball, the more convinced I am that 90-95% of a manager’s job is invisible to us. Yankee fans should be careful what they wish for.
As a Yankee hater for over 65 years, the schadenfreude engendered by this situation is truly heart warming. Bill Veeck had it right. Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for GM. Times have changed and neither the Yankees nor GM are what they once were. Now, I wouldn’t fault anyone for rooting for GM.
Most of my spite these days is directed toward the former Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers but the reasons remain the same.
I note with some amusement, the debate about whether to root for the XXXXXXX Dodgers in hopes of bringing about meaningful parity measures in the form of a salary cap. My personal opinion is No Way In Hell will I root for them. The players aren’t that dumb anyway.
However, blaming Boone is ludicrous. If the Yankees no longer are the big dog when it comes to buying up all available talent, that ain’t his fault. As this article illustrates, he did at worst a decent job with the cards he was dealt.
Well, you’re probably some fun right now. Dare I say the Dodgers are looking a lot like the Yankees?
“I don’t know what else it could be” is not evidence that it is the thing.
My issue with Boone will never be his actual decision making. Yeah, he makes mistakes, but overall he’s fine. I think this write up illustrates that.
Now I know this is GanGraphs, where we like to quantify things. But I feel like his issue is emotional. This team is in the playoffs every year, they have consistently made dumb mistakes while he has been the manager. There is no fire in his teams. I do wonder though, could that be pinned on Judge? Is he not an emotional enough leader?
Either way, it seems that the Boone led-Yankees will continue, but something has got to change. He knows how to win baseball games, and I don’t think losses are his fault, but the overall vibe of the team has slipped with him at the helm.
I find it very hard to analyze the amount of “fire” a team has. Would you say they had fire vs. Boston? The looked pretty damn good in those two games (against a team which, to be fair, is no Tampa Bay, but is certainly not a pushover and was favored by this very site to win the series I believe).
Watching the Brewers right now, the thing I notice is that so many at-bats they have against really good pitchers are just so competitive. Watching the Yankees against the Rays, they just looked lost at the plate. I guess it’s the age-old question about do you credit the pitcher or fault the hitter – but there’s only so many 2-4 pitch strikeout/weak grounder/lazy fly at-bats a person can take.
“fire” is usually a proxy for fan frustration. Folks get salty when the players and coaches don’t get mad and start throwing things. Clearly means that they don’t care enough.
And sometimes guys are called crybabies for throwing things around like Jeff McNeil was while Paul O’Neill, who did the same was called a warrior.
Which is why Yankee fans idolize Billy Martin, Paul O’Neill, etc.
The offense was not necessarily “adequate” all season. Poor play with RISP, and then there’s the Boone, June swoon that spanned about 6 weeks this season.