Asked to give Aaron Boone’s performance a grade, Hal Steinbrenner countered with a plea.
“Please don’t make me repeat myself,” the Yankees owner replied with a sigh and a smile over Zoom on Monday. “I’ve been asked this question so many times.”
Steinbrenner, speaking to a group of reporters for the first time since repealing his team’s facial hair ban in February, went on to say that Boone is “a good manager at many of the things he has to do.”
“He’s not perfect,” Steinbrenner continued before later applauding Boone’s ability to absorb analytical data. “I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. But he is great at dealing with the players, with his staff, with [Brian Cashman’s] people and with [the media], and he makes overall good decisions on the field.”
Steinbrenner, whose Yankees lost the American League East and then the ALDS to the pennant-winning Blue Jays, went on to say, “You can’t pin this on Aaron Boone, that’s for sure.”
Instead, Steinbrenner blamed players for the club’s shortcomings.
“This Toronto series was on the players,” he said. “It’s on the players’ shoulders. They didn’t hit. We got a couple bad starts, obviously, against the Blue Jays. You can’t do any of that when they’re playing as good as they’re playing entering the playoffs.”
Steinbrenner repeatedly noted that the Yankees did not “play up to their potential,” while the Jays and Dodgers, who beat Toronto in the World Series for their second straight championship, did. He also mentioned the Yankees’ months-long summer swoon multiple times.
With the Yankees tying the Blue Jays for the American League’s best record but losing the head-to-head tiebreaker during the regular season, Steinbrenner acknowledged that the skid “cost us the division.”
Such stretches have become an annual occurrence under Boone and across ever-changing rosters, but Steinbrenner faulted players for that as well.
“There’s nothing coaching-wise that I feel we could have done differently,” Steinbrenner said when asked how to stop the yearly ruts. “Players start to push when they struggle, and then you start chasing bad pitches, and then just a myriad of things happens when a team really struggles like that.
“I don’t expect to see that every year. We’re too good for that.”
Steinbrenner did seem to connect coaching with the Yankees’ “mental mistakes” and woes on the basepaths, as he alluded to the departure of Travis Chapman. The first base and infield coach was not invited back after his contract expired at the end of the season, and he’s since joined the Tigers’ organization.
“We’re going to expect better results this year,” Steinbrenner said of the Yankees’ baserunning.
Steinbrenner’s expectations apply to overall results, too, as the Bombers are in the midst of a 16-year championship drought. That’s the second-longest in Yankees history.
The hiatus has left fans impatient, especially with Steinbrenner not taking the same care-free approach to spending that his father, George, once did.
However, Steinbrenner still finances one of baseball’s priciest payrolls on a yearly basis, and he insists the Yankees’ mantra is still “World Series or bust” after another year without a title.
“I certainly thought it was last year,” he said. “Now we begin the work of next year. That’s our one and only focus. I absolutely went into the playoffs believing we could win a championship, of course, and the team was good enough to win a championship.
“But they’ve got to play up to their potential.”
