The New York Yankees have ended another disappointing season with manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman at the helm, and fans want heads to roll. According to a recent poll performed by the Athletic, they want as many heads to roll as possible.
"The Athletic’s readers were asked to share their thoughts on the matter with a poll asking fans to select from four options: fire both, keep both, fire Boone and keep Cashman, or fire Cashman and keep Boone," the Athletic's Jordy Fee-Platt wrote. "It turns out that the fans have mixed thoughts."
"Here’s how the voting broke down:
Fire both Boone and Cashman: 41%
Keep both Boone and Cashman: 26%
Fire Boone and keep Cashman: 21%
Fire Cashman and keep Boone: 12%"
Firing both front-facing leaders was the most common response, but keeping both came second, so it seems the majority of fans either want a complete overhaul or another try with the same staff.
Boone's management was criticized all season long, with calls for his firing coming on the heels of nearly every Yankees loss. The Yankees' potential on paper was never full realized, and this same staff has been responsible for the same outcome for eight years. The Yankees have made the playoffs all but once under their combined efforts, but a World Series win remains elusive.
Cashman has served as the Yankees' general manager since the good old days, beginning his tenure in 1998 and seeing the Yankees through their three consecutive World Series wins. This year, Cashman drew praise from fans after a productive trade deadline, but when several of those acquisitions fell short of the team's lofty expectations, Cashman caught some blame yet again.
The management is likely to remain the same into at least next season. As Boone put it so bluntly after their season-ending Game 4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, he's under contract until 2027, and there have been no indications that he's going anywhere. The same goes for Cashman; he's likely to stay on, and he's fielding far less blame from fans. Firing Cashman alone took up just 12% of the fan poll anyway, so Cashman's job is very likely safe, even if it were up to the fans.
Still, something has got to give. Whether it's Boone's attitude that everything will be okay in the end leading the team to play underwhelming baseball, or Cashman's approach to assembling a team preventing the cohesion they need to go all the way, this hasn't been a winning combination to date, and the Yankees have an opportunity to change that.
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