Yankees: A-Rod’s Aaron Boone take is too much for us to handle

No, this is … we don’t … but we … not today, please? All we ask.

Thursday’s midday massacre of the New York Yankees coaching staff seemed to perfectly follow the timeline pitched earlier in the day by Buster Olney. Per the ESPN insider, New York’s silence on the mutual playoff off day Wednesday indicated some sort of shuffle was coming. Things remained unsettled. Aaron Boone would likely come back … or would he?

On Thursday afternoon, things both cleared up a bit and became more bizarre simultaneously.

Hitting coach Marcus Thames, assistant P.J. Pilittere and third base coach Phil Nevin were all relieved of their duties; Nevin, Boone’s best friend on the team, was informed of the decision by Brian Cashman, not his former skipper.

Suddenly, it seemed like the Yankees were waffling on Boone’s future. NJ.com’s Brendan Kuty reported nothing was secure. Was Boone willing to return with an all-new coaching staff? Were the Yankees hoping he’d react in anger and walk away of his own accord, ridding them of an ugly decision?

Most fans have reached the same conclusion: they hoped he’d be gone because something was rotten in the 2021 clubhouse, but they’d accept the front office spending through the nose instead to render Boone’s quirky foibles a moot point. Even if some hold the viewpoint that Boone could succeed, it’s hard to find a full-throated endorsement of his actual skills … well, unless you ask Alex Rodriguez!

A-Rod was reached (wow, where’d they find him?) this week to talk about Boone’s future, and he dropped a white-hot take about a multi-year deal that we’re not ready to reckon with just yet.

A-Rod thinks Yankees manager Aaron Boone should be back for a *while*.

According to Rodriguez, during an appearance on FS1’s “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd:

"“I would give him a three-year extension,” Rodriguez said Tuesday on FS1’s “The Herd with Colin Cowherd.” “Aaron Boone did a fantastic job. If anyone thinks that Aaron Boone has anything to do with the Yankees’ failures, they’re wrong.”Boone has been New York’s manager since 2018. He is not under contract for the 2022 season, but ESPN’s Buster Olney reported Tuesday, citing industry sources, that Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner seems inclined to keep Boone.“He likes (Boone), and I don’t think he blames him for what happened,” a source told Olney."

Three years! One would be unreasonable; imagine a lame-duck manager in the Bronx?

OK, it just happened, so you don’t have to imagine very hard. But imagine it again?!

As we see it, it’s either two years or zero. Boone walks away, or he gets a little runway. Three years seems like overkill based on his production and growth curve, but color Rodriguez impressed with a solid two-year regression after 2019.

The ex-Yankee prattled on in predictable fashion, seemingly unaware of what made him successful throughout his career. He railed against the current baseball landscape, criticizing an “unnamed team” for having 30 people in charge of their game plan by claiming Joe Torre would never have such a mess. Didn’t Torre demote Rodriguez in a playoff lineup? Guess that’s water under the bridge, at least in the face of the common scourge of analytical over-planning.

Add in Rodriguez’s publicly broadcast hatred of home runs (and Joey Gallo, specifically) and you’ve got selective amnesia. He hit bombs. Famously.

Who knows why Rod’s so clearly in Boone’s corner after a pair of very un-Yankee-like finishes? Perhaps it’s just the resulting goodwill of this impression?

Or maybe there’s a late-career beef with Brian Cashman we know nothing about?

Regardless, there’s not a single fan on earth who loves Boonie as much as Alex Rodriguez seems to. That’s got to count for something.

Yankees: A-Rod throws shade at Giancarlo Stanton on ESPN broadcast

New York Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton, often compared to Alex Rodriguez, got owned by the ex-Yank on the ESPN broadcast during Game 1.