Postseason Managerial Report Card: Aaron Boone

Welcome to another installment of postseason managerial report cards. In this one, we’ll look at the Yankees, whose strong start to the season ended in playoff disappointment. From a purely results-oriented standpoint, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Yankees fan giving this year’s team a passing grade.

In these report cards, I’m focusing on process instead of results as much as possible. I considered every pitching move that the team either made or chose not to make, as well as starting lineups and pinch hitting decisions. I suppose I considered batting order as well, but there’s so little value in batting order optimization that I pretty much gave every manager a perfect grade there.

Managers do far more than simply choosing who to put in the game and when to do so. Their role in helping players get prepared and keeping everyone on the same page with regards to team strategy is more important, particularly over the course of a full season, than anything I’m getting into here. I can’t see those decisions, though, and I can see these. What’s more, the postseason amplifies single-game decisions; with so few contests compared to the long haul of a full season, each squandered point of win expectancy feels like a catastrophe. With that lens in mind, let’s take a look at New York’s finest.

Aaron Boone, New York Yankees

Batting/Lineups: B?
I don’t know what to say here. The Yankees were at their wits’ end trying to generate offense by the end of this year, and that continued into the playoffs. By the fourth game of their playoff run, they started Oswaldo Cabrera at shortstop. He had played exactly 28 innings of shortstop in the major leagues this year. I don’t mean to imply that he can’t handle the position — he’s a natural infielder and was playing short in Triple-A before being called up — but you don’t see teams break in new shortstops in the playoffs very often.

The new arrangement didn’t last. Aaron Hicks got hurt early in the next contest, and by game’s end Cabrera was in left field and displaced starter Isiah Kiner-Falefa entered to play shortstop. Hicks didn’t play again in the playoffs, which meant it was back to the drawing board.

In Game 1 of the ALCS, that meant no Peraza; Kiner-Falefa took over shortstop again, and Giancarlo Stanton played the outfield to free up DH room for Matt Carpenter. In Game 2, it was a veritable blizzard of Oz; Cabrera returned to left field, and rookie Oswald Peraza drew the start at shortstop. In Game 3, Cabrera moved back to shortstop, and Peraza and Kiner-Falefa hit the bench. And by Game 4, we’d come full circle; Cabrera played left field, and Kiner-Falefa played shortstop.

What did this frenetic cycling of shortstops accomplish? Nothing, as far as I can tell, but I don’t think it hurt much either. The team was desperately searching for offense to bolster the back half of the lineup and never found it. Is it a strange process to audition shortstops during the postseason? Undoubtedly. But it’s as much a problem of roster construction as anything else, and I don’t see much of a solution there. Trying to find a new shortstop midstream probably didn’t help, but I don’t think it hurt either.

Aside from that, Boone’s decisions seemed just fine to me. He used Carpenter as a pinch-hitter when he wasn’t starting, and generally did so effectively. That’s not to say Carpenter succeeded — he went 1-12 in the playoffs — but he came up to bat at the right times and against the right pitchers. That’s how you use a slugging pinch-hitter. The fact that he didn’t slug? Well, that’s just bad luck.

Pitching: B
If Boone got his way, he would have used Wandy Peralta, Clay Holmes, and Jonathan Loáisiga in every game. This was clearly his plan, starting from the first game of the playoffs, when that trio relieved Gerrit Cole and closed the door on a Yankees win. It was his plan in Game 2 after Lou Trivino chipped in with two outs in the sixth, and true to form, that top three again held Cleveland scoreless. Just one problem: the Yankees didn’t score either, so the game went to extra innings, and Jameson Taillon came in and coughed up two runs.

By Game 3, Boone tried a slight variation, leaving Holmes out of the group. He made what I’d consider to be a minor error first, though, pulling starter Luis Severino with two runners on and two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning. That’s fine; Severino had thrown 106 pitches and seemed to be tiring somewhat. But Austin Hedges was due up, and a clear pinch-hitting candidate. Boone pulled Severino for Loáisiga, which let Terry Francona counter with a left-handed pinch-hitter.

In my estimation, Boone should have waited to pull Severino until Francona pinch-hit for Hedges. There’s no chance that one of the worst hitters of the 21st century would bat there; you should always get the extra information of who you’ll face by forcing the other manager to act first. Perhaps Francona would have gone with lefty Will Brennan anyway, and perhaps Boone would have brought in Loáisiga against Brennan in any case, but there was no downside in forcing Francona to make the first move.

That didn’t matter, because Loáisiga won the matchup. But the Yankees lost the game anyway when Peralta surrendered two baserunners in the ninth and Clarke Schmidt gave up three singles over four batters to give Cleveland three runs and the victory. Where was Holmes? He was apparently an emergency-only option after throwing 16 pitches the previous night. We clearly disagree on what an emergency is; I’d list the tying runs being on base in the ninth inning as an emergency. It’s not like Schmidt was in pristine condition, either; he’d thrown nine pitches the night before himself.

Maybe Holmes truly wasn’t available, but when your general bullpen plan is to use the same three guys as frequently as possible, ending up with none of them available in a huge jam seems strange. Schmidt is a perfectly good pitcher and easily could have escaped the jam, but he didn’t, and the Yankees left one of their best relievers on the bench.

For the last two games of the series, Boone didn’t screw around. In Game 4, Cole threw seven strong innings before yielding to Holmes and Peralta (in that order). In Game 5, Nestor Cortes went five innings before kicking it over to Loaísiga for two, then Holmes, then finally Peralta again. When Boone considered his top trio available, he wasn’t afraid to use them. Bonus points, too, for mixing and matching their usage to ensure Peralta always faced Josh Naylor; Peralta retired him in each game of the series.

The series against Cleveland established that Boone does a fairly good job managing from ahead, ticking off his best bullpen names in order and hunting for good matchups when possible. He wasn’t afforded that luxury in the ALCS. Game 1 didn’t leave him many options; thanks to rain cancellations in the previous series, the Yankees started the championship series on no rest. Accordingly, Boone used his less-fearsome bullpen arms in Game 1 and went with Taillon as a starter after using him out of the bullpen in the previous series.

The Astros forced a pitching change in the fifth when Jeremy Peña doubled with one out, bringing the meat of the order up to face Taillon for a third time. Boone went to Schmidt to get out of the jam, but he surrendered two solo home runs in the subsequent inning to seal the game. I’m fine with Boone’s management here; I’m sure he wishes it went differently, but his alternative was leaving Taillon in, and I don’t think that matchup was any better for the Yankees.

Things didn’t get better for New York from there. In Game 2, Severino gave up three runs early, and the Astros won 3–2. I thought Boone did a good job of getting what he could out of Severino without pushing him too far; when he allowed a baserunner in the sixth inning, Loáisiga entered from the bullpen to end the rally. Peralta came in the next time Yordan Alvarez batted and stuck around to get Kyle Tucker, exactly how you’d draw it up. The Yankees simply didn’t score enough.

In Game 3, you guessed it: the Yankees didn’t score enough, though Boone faced a tough decision again. Cole had been effective through five innings, giving up a two-run home run and not much else, but he opened the sixth by allowing three straight baserunners to load the bases. Already down 2–0, the Yankees couldn’t afford any more Houston runs, which in my estimation calls for Cole to remain in the game; he’s the best strikeout option they had available. They could also go with Holmes, the best groundball pitcher on the planet (75.8% of the batted balls he allowed this year were grounders).

Boone chose neither and went with Trivino, who promptly surrendered a sacrifice fly and a line drive single. This felt like a huge spot; how could you use anything other than your best with the bases loaded? In practice, I’m not convinced. The Yankees were already trailing 2–0 late in the game. They were facing an uphill battle regardless of what happened. Pouring your best relievers into a situation where a good result would still likely lead to a loss is bad practice when you’re embarking on a stretch of five games in five days.

I would have left Cole in given that difficult schedule, but I don’t think bringing in Trivino was that much of a gaffe. I understand the frustration that Yankees fans felt with the decision; it’s clear which relievers Boone treated as his best, and having a reliever outside that circle of trust surrender three runs in a big spot is maddening. But the Yankees weren’t particularly likely to win even if they got out of that inning without any runs at all, and wasting your best relievers in a loss is obviously bad. That’s why I would have stuck with Cole — but I don’t think bringing in one of the top trio was a great option there.

In Game 4, Cortes came back to try to save the season. The Yankees staked him to a 3–0 lead, but he was hardly cruising, allowing baserunners in each of the first two innings, then a game-tying three-run homer to Peña in the third. As it turns out, Cortes aggravated a groin injury he’d been nursing for months and departed immediately after that home run. If anything, Boone was too slow to get him; his fastball was down 3 mph in the third, and he looked uncomfortable on the mound.

From there, it was emergency time. Peralta came in and gave up another run immediately, though he escaped the inning after only that run. He pitched a strong two innings and 40 pitches, departing in favor of Loáisiga, who got a ton of grounders but succumbed to bad luck; the Astros turned an infield single and an error on a would-be double play into two runs in the seventh inning. Holmes came in to finish that inning off and pitched a whopping 2.2 frames to finish out the game, but New York never scored again and lost 6–5. With his back against the wall, Boone did indeed lean on his best relievers with all his might. It simply wasn’t enough against the eventual World Series champions.

I don’t want to go easy on Boone here; I do think that he was at times too rigidly attached to a plan, be it pulling his starters or sticking with rest days. Holmes really would have been useful in the game where the Guardians scored three runs in the ninth to win, and Cole was probably a better option than Trivino if the team needed exactly a strikeout.

That said, I don’t think bullpen management held the Yankees back. They got their best relievers into the game frequently, generally when they were ahead or tied. They got good starting pitching performances and went to the bullpen when injury or underperformance dictated a heavy dose of relief arms. If the offense had scored more than nine runs in the four games against the Astros, this recap might feel different. It might feel different, too, if the Yankees had more bullpen juice left; they finished the season down Michael King, Chad Green and Scott Effross.

The Yankees started the year on a historic pace. They got a historic season from Aaron Judge and secured a first-round bye before struggling in one playoff series and getting swept in another. I understand the impulse to blame someone. But in my estimation, at least, Boone was a victim of circumstance. He didn’t manage a perfect postseason, but he did what he could with the pieces he had. It just wasn’t enough; the roster finished the season looking a few pieces short of top-tier contention, and the playoffs confirmed that assessment.