Happy Monday! The New York Yankees are 15-7 and in first place in a division in which every team has a winning record.
That’s great news without any caveats, but when you consider Gerrit Cole would be making his fifth start today (he’s made zero) and Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres have combined for a mid-eighties wRC+, that’s pretty impressive.
It almost makes one wonder if the Yankees have a damn good manager. Let’s see…
Despite using 12 different (mostly random) relievers already in 2024, the Yankees have been the third best team in MLB at holding leads. That sounds like pretty good in game, bullpen decision making to me…
Overall, the team is outperforming their Pythagorean win total by two games. If you’re curious, they’ve outperformed their Pythagorean record four of the five full seasons, the current manager has been in charge, so this good start isn’t an aberration.
This manager has also shown the ability to stick with the hot hand (and bat) of Oswaldo Cabrera even when Jon Berti, who has a better resume than Cabrera, was available. This is in direct contradiction with the notion that Aaron Boone is a slave to analytics and doesn’t have enough of an “old school” feel for the game. (Which is hysterical, considering that Boone’s grandfather played 13 seasons in MLB*, Boone’s father caught 2,225 games in MLB, Boone’s brother played 14 years in MLB and Aaron himself played 12 seasons in the show. Good luck finding a manager – or anybody in baseball for that matter – more “old school” than Aaron Boone.)
Given the amount of criticism that Boone has taken in his Yankee tenure, despite a very good track record with very good results, we need to be fair: If you’re one of those Boone critics, it’s OK to say he’s been pretty damn good in 2024.
(*Ironically, Ray Boone was a rookie with Cleveland in 1948 – the team about which “Our Game: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball” is based on, that I’ve been telling you about. Phenomenal book, FYI.)
Day baseball today as Carlos Rodon will be toeing the slab in the Boogie Down for the good guys against the Oakland Athletics. Yanks batters will be squaring it up against former Yankee, JP Sears – game time, 1:05 pm.
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