Evan isn’t hitting the panic button for the Yankees, and isn’t calling for Aaron Boone’s job amid their brutal slump, but he is ready to say that Boone’s tendencies as a manager, particularly when it comes to holding players accountable, could be a problem for the team.
“This manager never seems to make a big deal of it,” Evan said. “This manager never seems to say, ‘that type of garbage is unacceptable.’
“It’s like Boone is playing the replays of everything he said in 2022 and 2023. ‘It’s all right in front of us, we know who we are, we’ll be fine.’ And I wonder, is not holding players accountable and not showing that anger…is actually leading and contributing to these struggles we’ve seen over the past three and a half weeks.”
Tiki countered that the players need to be the ones to step up and show some hustle and focus, but Evan wonders if Boone’s personality makes it easier to fall into mental lapses and lose focus because of the standards being placed by the skipper.
“Aaron Boone does deserve credit for the Yankees success earlier this season. I don’t blame Boone for everything that’s gone wrong with this Yankee team over the last 22 games,” Evan said. “But what I do look at and say is on the manager is the messaging to the team and the messaging to the fans. It’s the same crap.”