Yankees owner has major update on future of manager Aaron Boone

Aaron Boone is headed into his eighth season as Yankees manager. He’s on track to enter the year in a lame duck capacity. The Yankees exercised their club option on Boone’s services in November. That’s the extent of their activity thus far, as Boone said a few days later that there’d been no talk about a long-term deal.

It seems that’s only a matter of time. Owner Hal Steinbrenner tells Meredith Marakovitz of the YES Network that they plan to open extension talks with their manager in the near future. 

“We will be talking with him in the days and weeks to come. … There’ll be conversations had with him about potentially staying longer,” Steinbrenner told Marakovitz. He declined to specify a timeline but left open the possibility for discussions to take place during the season, though he added generally that talks “will happen sooner rather than later.”

Teams typically prefer to avoid having manager or top front office personnel working on expiring contracts. That’s not a uniform rule, though, and the Yankees themselves allowed Boone to manage as a lame duck for nearly the entire 2021 season. With his deal set to expire at the conclusion of that year’s World Series, the sides hammered out a three-year extension in the middle of October. That included the aforementioned club option on which Boone will manage the upcoming season.

Like any manager of the Yankees, Boone has found himself under scrutiny from the fanbase over the years. The organization has maintained faith in his ability throughout his tenure. Boone has led the team to the playoffs in six of his seven seasons, with their 82-win showing in 2023 as the lone exception. They reached their biggest heights of Boone’s tenure last year. They knocked off the Guardians to win their first American League pennant since 2009. A five-game defeat to the Dodgers in the Fall Classic extended their title drought to 15 seasons.

While the season ended on a sour note with the Yankees relinquishing a five-run lead in the World Series clincher, it seemed inevitable they would maintain continuity on the coaching staff. Their only change came at assistant pitching coach after Desi Druschel departed to take the same job with the Mets. Boone is the second-longest tenured manager in the AL behind Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash. He’s the seventh longest-tenured manager in the majors. The Yankees have topped 90 wins in five of his six full schedules at the helm. Boone holds a 603-429 record (58.4% win percentage) overall.