Aaron Boone’s Yankees future should be up in the air

The Houston Astros have once again eliminated the New York Yankees in the ALCS; this time, they couldn't even win a game. The loss stings just as much as the other two times it happened. The World Series matchup is set with the Philadelphia Phillies emerging from the National League bracket, and the Yankees will be watching from the couch. Despite an incredible regular season from Aaron Judge and an almost 100-win season overall, the hopes for a championship are out the window, and Yankees fans are done making excuses. They want change, and manager Aaron Boone is at the forefront of the firestorm.

Managing the New York Yankees comes with many challenges, which is not something Boone is afraid of. His willingness to stand up for his players if he feels like they're being screwed over in the batter's box or on a call is something that everyone should admire. According to Baseball Reference's leaderboard, he was ejected an MLB-high nine times. He has the will to win. It's hard to see him banging a table during a press conference out of anger if he didn't.

As entertaining as this might be, it doesn't make up for the complete mismanagement of the bullpen and position players and his other press conferences with little-to-no substantive answers. Boone’s talk about Isiah Kiner-Falefa being some defensive wizard that the team's inside analytics point to was comedy gold because it didn't take much digging to find that he wasn't good. Eventually, Boone decided it would be better not to start him in two elimination games in the ALDS against the Cleveland Guardians.

Boone made multiple mistakes this past postseason against the Guardians and the Astros with the bullpen — for example, using Lou Trivino in Game 3 of the ALCS instead of keeping Gerrit Cole on the mound to get out of the inning. You don't pay a player $36 million a year to exit a crucial inning in a do-or-die game to put in a reliever who isn't even your best bullpen option. There was also the highly pathetic blaming of the ALCS Game 2 loss on the roof being open at Minute Maid Park, and rampant clubhouse confusion over Clay Holmes’ true availability for the ALDS Game 3 defeat that put the Yankees’ season on the brink before Houston even came to town. (We won’t even delve into telling the media about trying to inspire his team down 3-0 in the series with 2004 Red Sox nonsense.)

While many teams would be happy to have Boone as the manager, it's a different story in The Bronx. With a 14-17 record in the postseason and no World Series appearances, the time for him to make up for his mistakes should be running out. Of course, he can't do everything. Plenty of things should be blamed on general manager Brian Cashman and the front office. However, there are too many times that the Yankees have been outmanaged in games, and winning a World Series, cannot happen as often as it does.

There's no doubt that Boone has helped the team win plenty of regular season games. But for a franchise as storied as the Yankees, it's not good enough. As much as the current Yankees manager connects with the players and stands up for his guys, the lack of postseason success (plus the aforementioned other failings) should trump any sort of intangible advantage that Boone is believed to bring. Winning naturally creates friendship, and Boone's tenure should probably be over as quickly as some teams would be bidding for his services.