THE New York Yankees have shared their intentions on manager Aaron Boone’s future with the ball club before the 2025 campaign.
The 2024 American League Champion Yankees arrived for Spring Training over the weekend in Tampa, Florida.
On Friday, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman spoke to reporters and revealed that he and team owner Hal Steinbrenner have started working through talks with Boone concerning an extension.
Boone is entering the final year of his contract, and Cashman shared that he thinks a deal can take place before the regular season begins on March 27.
“We picked up his option last year, but that’s not our intent – our intent is to find an extension, so certainly I’ve been working through that and Hal Steinbrenner has been working through that with Aaron Boone,” Cashman said during the Grapefruit League media day at LECOM Park, per NY Post.
“We’re hopeful at some point, sooner than later, that we’ll be able to officially cement something.
“But obviously I haven’t gotten there yet. Just give us time.
“Our main focus this whole winter has been on roster construction and some of this other stuff we’re just getting to.
“But our intent is to make sure Aaron Boone is going to continue with the Yankees past the 2025 season.”
Steinbrenner, who’s controlled the Yankees from his father, George, who died in 2010, has been known to let contracts play out instead of giving extensions ahead of free agency.
The Bronx Bombers let Boone’s first contract with the team play out before penning him to a new deal after the 2021 season.
In the contract, Boone was given a club option, believed to be $3 million, for 2025.
The Yankees picked up the option in November a little over a week after they lost in five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
Boone did not want to speak on his managerial future on Friday.
However, the 51-year-old did acknowledge earlier last week that he’s had extension conversations with the organization.
“The reality is I’m so fired up to be here today and to get to work for this organization and for Hal that hopefully something does work out,” Boone said last Tuesday, via NY Post.
“There’s no other place I’d rather be and no other team I’d rather be doing it with. So we’ll see.”
Not only Cashman but also captain and two-time MVP Aaron Judge has publicly backed Boone.
The Yankees manager since 2018, Boone has a 603-428 lifetime managerial record and ranks seventh in wins on the team’s all-time list.
However, Boone has often enraged Yankees fans with his in-game decisions, most notably electing to pitch Nestor Cortes, who hadn’t pitched in 37 days due to injury, in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series.
Cortes got Shohei Ohtani to fly out with just one pitch but then proceeded to give up a walk-off grand slam to Freddie Freeman, giving the Yankees a brutal loss.
Boone’s clubs haven’t been able to lift the organization’s 28th championship.
The Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009.