Aaron Boone, in eight years as the New York Yankees’ manager, has typically been upbeat and optimistic about his team and its future. He almost always defends his players, even though it has made him a target of fans who argue that the manager can dabble in delusion.
The approach seems to work for general manager Brian Cashman. Before signing the manager to his most recent contract extension, Cashman praised Boone’s “temperament.”
But recently, as the Yankees endure a tailspin fueled in part by base-running blunders and general sloppiness, observers around the game say they have noticed a subtle change in the tone of Boone’s remarks, which have become more matter-of-fact and grounded. It is perhaps a rare sign, they say, that the Yankees’ long-running struggles might be weighing on him, too.
“I think he’s just run out of things to say!” a longtime evaluator assigned by his club to cover the Yankees said in a text message.
“What else is he going to do?” a league source said.
A former Yankee who played briefly under Boone said players love that he has their backs and that they don’t have to worry about him “getting on” them in public when he could do it privately. But he also said that even Boone “has his limits.”
“He can’t just ignore everything,” the former Yankee said.
The most recent example of Boone’s tone shift came after the Yankees scraped by for a 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. Instead of propping up his players in front of a YES Network TV camera and reporters after snapping a brutal five-game losing streak, Boone offered analysis that was colder and more clinical than rah-rah.
“It’s obviously one game,” Boone said. “We’ve got to dig ourselves out here.”
He said he believed the Yankees still could go on a “great run,” but he didn’t predict it.
“We’ve got to go do it,” he said.
Manager Aaron Boone discusses David Bednar’s mentality and reflects on the Yankees performance.#YANKSonYES pic.twitter.com/Bf57JUruYh
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) August 6, 2025
Boone prides himself on being himself. He has never been the type for fiery outbursts at players in the clubhouse or team meetings. Boone prefers a personal approach. Often, he sees players at their lockers after a game or wraps an arm around their shoulder and walks with them while off the field.
“I haven’t done a lot of screaming at the team as a group or yelling or raising my voice,” Boone said. “There have been a couple times over the years. Everyone’s a little bit different. Some guys are more like that. It probably happens a little more than you think.”
It’s a process supported by Boone’s bosses: Cashman and owner Hal Steinbrenner. The Yankees gave Boone a two-year contract extension in late February, meaning his deal won’t expire until after the 2027 season.
“There’s a lot of slings and arrows coming our way,” Cashman said at the time, “despite even last year having a nice run. It wasn’t ultimately what we wanted at the end, but at the end of the day, he’s handled the ups and downs, the successes and failures, all the same way. I think that is a strength, that is a benefit. I know that if he wasn’t the Yankee manager, it would be a feeding frenzy for him to be a manager that’s coveted elsewhere, objectively. That’s how we see it.”
The Yankees held a seven-game lead for first place in the American League East on May 28, but since then, they have gone 27-34, tied for the fifth-worst record in that span going into Thursday. With less than two months remaining in the regular season, they were clinging to a 1 1/2-game lead for the third and final wild-card position.
Just a month ago, Boone gathered his players privately after a loss and told them he believed they were the “best team in the league,” and the next day, he publicly doubled down on it.
“I do believe that,” he said at the time.
But as the Yankees have dropped in the standings, so too has Boone’s penchant for the sunny side. Before Wednesday’s win, he was asked about disappointing reliever Devin Williams, who melted down in consecutive losses Monday and Tuesday.
“Everyone’s got to pull their weight and get it done,” he said.
Boone had been a major defender of Williams, declaring him the closer even after the Yankees traded for two relievers with closing experience (David Bednar, Camilo Doval) before the trade deadline. But he didn’t totally shift off that stance, adding that the Yankees would “keep running him out there.”
And after Tuesday’s loss, in which Williams fell apart in the eighth inning, Boone was particularly straightforward.
“Not good,” he said. “Put it on record. If we don’t win, it doesn’t matter if we’re a half-game back, a half-game up. If we play like this and we aren’t stringing wins together, then it’s not going to matter.”
Monday, he immediately answered “yes” to whether the Yankees’ struggles had been weighing on them.
“Doesn’t matter, though,” he said. “Weigh on us, stress — we’ve got to win. Period.”
Of course, Boone’s altered tone doesn’t mean he’s going to do something drastic, like alienate or punish his players.
When Jazz Chisholm Jr. made the unthinkable mistake of getting doubled up on first base after a popup to second base in Miami on Saturday, Boone called it a “bad play” that “can’t happen.” But he also defended Chisholm’s version of events that he was guarding against the remote possibility of Xavier Edwards purposely dropping the ball to try to force out Chisholm at second. He also defended not benching Chisholm, crediting him for “trying to make a play.”
But Boone did get heated in the dugout with first-base coach Travis Chapman after Chisholm’s mistake, an interaction caught by TV cameras that Boone later told the “Talkin’ Yanks” podcast he regretted taking place out in the open.
“I think it’s important to bring authenticity from this position,” Boone said, “and I try to bring that every day.”
And lately he has gotten a little realer — if not necessarily darker — about the Yankees and what they must do to avoid further dimming their playoff hopes.
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
