Yankees and Major League Baseball arrive at a crossroads

And he’s directly descended from Daniel Boone

We can already see a different manager will lead them. Aaron Boone will bring his more relaxed, Torre-esque approach with him, and try to engage with the players in a way Girardi never did.

This is a big risk, one I thought they would not want to take. It seemed as if Girardi has saved his job during that preview playoff run.

But good is the enemy of great, and it is hard to question Cashman. He has tied his legacy to Boone’s, and it seems like a good bet. My guess is his style, age and knowledge of the game will allow this team to explode into its potential, as the Lakers once did under Pat Riley, another broadcaster turned manager.

Look for a loose but focused club next year that plays with passion.

Show me the players [Editor’s Note: Stop this, or there will be consequences]

Next, it’s the players Boone will manage that is the next significant crossroads — because you can’t give away wins in a championship year. A team is benefited in myriad ways by winning its division, and the earlier the better.

And lest we forget, every game in the ALCS was won by the home team. Would the Yankees and Dodgers have met if the Yankees had home field? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.

And for those reasons, the Yankees cannot afford to keep even their potentially best players on the farm and allow lesser players, players they know are not championship caliber, to get at-bats in the bigs. Or wait to find out for sure about overlapping position players.

Every asset at Triple-A must either be used to win this year or traded for a player who can help the Yankees this year and beyond.

That means you keep Jordan Montgomery but trade Jake Cave.

Ellsbury gets the bronze

Going into the 2017 season, the Yanks could afford to view such players as Jacoby Ellsbury and Chase Headley as inconvenient truths. Now, they know they must jettison those guys because it takes every roster spot to win a title.

That’s why Cash has gone out of his way to announce Ells as the fourth outfielder, for the first time. He is trying to motivate him to waive his no-trade for a chance to start somewhere. My guess is it works. The same is true for Headley: He will go sometime between now and next July. CC might come back for the right contract, but that helps the team.

Fortunately, as the saying goes, when God opens the door to kick out old and under-performing players, he opens a window to let in some better, younger players.

In this case, that means at least Gleyber Torres.