5 managers Yankees missed out on by re-signing Aaron Boone

4. Rob Thomson

Hey! That guy that took the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 2022! We know him. HE WORKED FOR THE YANKEES FROM 1990-2017! Then the Yankees had a managerial opening in 2018 and instead passed him up for Boone and let him walk to join the Phillies coaching staff, where he’s been for the last five years. Following Joe Girardi’s dismissal this season, he took over as interim manager and then earned the full-time tag plus an extension.

You might think this is irrelevant because Thomson already left the organization. But he was still bench coach heading into the 2022 season, sitting alongside Girardi as the Phillies continued to underachieve. Think he would’ve rejected a call from the Yankees to come back and potentially manage?

In defense of not making this move, it likely wouldn’t have been well-received at the time. Hiring a guy who’s never managed to replace a guy who just managed for the first time? The massive mistake here was having Thomson in your organization for 27 years and not taking him seriously as a guy who might be able to manage, only to see him take a team on a 10-year playoff drought straight to the Fall Classic after just 111 games on the job.

Yet another example of the Yankees failing to judge character/potential/personalities properly.

3. Bruce Bochy

Legendary San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy retired after the 2019 season and that began the Gape Kapler era. Bochy had managed the team since 2007 and captured three World Series despite only making the postseason four times over that span.

While it’s reasonable to question why he only made it to October four times out of 13 tries, there’s something to be said about his ability to navigate a team in the most high-pressure situations. Even more impressive was that he was able to do so while making the postseason so infrequently.

Bochy just came out of retirement and signed on with the Texas Rangers, which means he was probably open to returning to baseball at some point within the last year if this materialized shortly after the 2022 regular season ended. Maybe if the Yankees had pressed, he would’ve jumped at the opportunity for 2022 … though there’s no way to tell, because we don’t know where Bochy’s mind was at.

If you take yourself as seriously as The New York Yankees, then no option is completely off the table. Sadly, Hal Steinbrenner’s regime has had this team plummet more into irrelevancy than glory. So what reputation are they still trying to uphold?

2. Buck Showalter

Say what you want about the Mets choking, but they were exponentially better under Buck Showalter’s tutelage in his first year as skipper in 2022. If not for the Braves plowing ahead at a 115-win pace for the last three months of the season and the Mets’ top pitchers blowing it in the spotlight, the narrative could’ve been very different for this 101-win team.

Speaking of that, 101 wins! Two better than the Yankees. With a less talented roster. In just as hard of a division. After not having managed since 2018.

The worst part is, he knew this Yankees roster, having been a YES analyst for a few years. He worked for the team! They had a previous relationship when he was manager back in the ’90s and then rekindled that with his television job.

The Yankees let the Mets swoop into their own backyard and take him away, which made it all the more embarrassing. Yankees fans wanted this. Nobody would’ve faulted the team for going in the opposite direction in regard to managerial philosophies, even with Buck’s underwhelming postseason track record.

Instead, we’ll watch him in Queens for three more years. And the moment the Mets get farther than the Yankees in a season, fans will be validated in this stance.

1. Bob Melvin

It’s funny how every offseason another team does something you’d never expect, something you didn’t even think was possible. That team is never the New York Yankees — the Giancarlo Stanton trade notwithstanding, which hasn’t entirely worked out until this point anyway.

The Yankees have the power to make wildly unrealistic scenarios become a reality … but they’ve refused to have that be their style for over a decade now. Instead, it’s all by-the-book nonsense that serves to uphold a disingenuous image (or by-the-wrong-book nonsense like hiring a first-time puppet like Boone out of nowhere).

So when fans pondered last offseason about the Yankees poaching Bob Melvin from the Oakland A’s, many people scoffed at the idea. “You just think that because you’re the Yankees you can have whatever you want, huh? Spoiled fans thinking they can take what’s not theirs!”

Sure … but the San Diego Padres can do it? A team that, up until that point, had made the playoffs once in 15 years? A team that just had an epic late-season collapse that went from playoff aspirations to a sub-.500 record?

Yeah, but we’re the a–holes. Got it.

The fact that the Padres and general manager AJ Preller pulled this off just goes to show how badly the Yankees lack any sort of creativity. Laugh all you want about Melvin’s mismanagement of the Padres’ situation in Game 5 of the NLCS … but he got to Game 5! And it took him that long to make a mistake! Meanwhile, Boone cursed the Yankees’ playoff run beginning in Game 2 of the ALDS.

Melvin beat the Mets on the road and the Dodgers in the NLDS. The Yankees beat the Guardians in a series they made that much more difficult and then got swept by the Astros. These managers are not the same and never will be.

But the Yankees don’t see that. Or, maybe they do, and there’s some desire from the front office to avoid giving someone full autonomy to call the shots in the dugout. Whatever it is, while Boone is a problem, the Yankees’ way of doing business is the larger concern.