Yankees Aaron Boone: The puppet; Brian Cashman: The puppeteer

No rookie manager, without any type coaching experience in the history of post  WWII baseball has ever won a World Series trophy. Why would Yankees ownership hire Aaron Boone to do what no man has ever achieved?

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman is why Boone is manager; and quite frankly, I’m getting tired of watching him do his Jeff Dunham impression this season with Boone as the ‘tipping his cap’ puppet.

Can anyone really believe that Yankees’ owners, Hal and Hank, would have entrusted the helm of their club to a manager with zero coaching experience without putting Boone on a very short Cashman leash? This after arriving to within one game of the World Series the prior season.

The “bottom line” conscience Steinbrenners are now entirely under the spell of Brian Cashman, due to his very impressive success in getting the Yanks’ payroll below the luxury tax threshold, all the while rebuilding the club’s farm system, and constructing this championship caliber team on the fly.

The firing of Joe Girardi, who actually managed the Yankees success on the field, was at the very least, a little unusual. Girardi’s firing certainly makes it seem like Cashman has taken credit, in front of the team’s ownership, for all the Bombers’ success, and blamed ol’ Joe for all the club’s failures.

Cashman’s 20-year tenure as the Yankees’ GM is the most successful in MLB history

To better understand this scenario, we must look at Cashman’s 20-year history as the Yanks’ general manager. As I explained in my article “The Tale of Brian Cashman,” earlier this year:

"During his first 14 years at the helm, the Bronx Bombers won nine straight division titles, then again in 2009, 2011 and 2012. Overall during his 20-year tenure, from 1998 to 2017, the Yanks have been to the playoffs 16 times while winning 12 AL East titles, 10 ALDS, 6 ALCS and four World Series Championship. In that span, the club won 1890 games, losing 1350 — a .583 clip and averaged over 90 wins per season.In fact, in Cashman’s 20 years at the helm, the Yankees never had a losing season. No other team or GM in baseball history can make that claim."

Cashman is without doubt a great GM, but this article questions his ability to field manage the Yankees, and why should he do it in the shadows? Why not just name himself GM and manager?

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The problem for Cashman was always, and still is that he never received the credit for the Yankees’ amazing run. Most people took the position that Cashman had inherited the “Core Four”, ready to win dynasty.

Last season, it was Brian Cashman’s team that came ever so close to defeating the Houston Astros, and I have a suspicion that Cashman blamed Joe Girardi, whom he could never control, for not punching a World Series ticket.

 If the Yankees do not succeed this season, the puppet will take the blame

Apparently the Yanks’ GM was in total control after his hiring a very controllable Boone, and it will be Cashman alone that will be responsible for bringing the Yankees 28th World Series title back to the Bronx. If Cash doesn’t succeed, his Boone puppet will surely take the blame.

Next: Dellin Betances at the end of his rope

Since Cashman, acting as puppeteer, is also a rookie manager, never having coached or managed a team on the field, the Yanks now have two inexperienced managers, and as the season progresses, the Yankees’ owners may wake up from the Cashman spell.