Aaron Boone's comment on Carlos Lagrange proves Yankees sealed his fate weeks ago

Our hopes for a Carlos Lagrange appearance on the New York Yankees' Opening Day roster have officially been dashed. The Yankees have demoted the six-foot-seven phenom, ending the dream. While they could technically reverse course and promote Lagrange within the season's first couple of weeks to still be eligible for the Prospect Promotion Incentive, it seems unlikely.

In the grand scheme of things, it's perfectly reasonable not to rush the prized prospect. While Lagrange has done everything you could have asked of him and more, he's still a 22-year-old who has just 16 appearances at Double-A and hadn't thrown more than 41 2/3 innings in a single season prior to 2025.

For what it's worth, he certainly thought that he was ready, and aside from the 103 miles per hour heat, he conquered his biggest bugaboo (the walks) by posting a very good 7.8% walk rate this spring. Pair that with a 0.66 ERA and you can see he did everything he could to make this as difficult of a decision as possible.

Aaron Boone acknowledged that, but his comments indicated even if Lagrange was Superman (and he practically was), the decision to send him down was already made. “He made it a difficult decision, which coming into this, I wouldn’t even thought there was a decision,” the Yankee skipper said.

Yankees continue stale personnel process with Carlos Lagrange decision

There's something incredibly frustrating about the rigidity of what Boone's comments imply. While we can acknowledge that Lagrange might be best served by honing his craft in Scranton for a while, the reality of the spring performances by the back-end rotation candidates makes it hard to say he isn't one of the five best starters the Yankees have right now.

This decision came on the heals of another Ryan Weathers implosion, with the southpaw now sporting an 11.68 ERA after a bludgeoning at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays. Meanwhile, Luis Gil has been able to blow his fastball by exactly no one, continuing a concerning trend that began with his injury-delayed 2025 debut.

For a team with World Series aspirations, are we truly expected to believe that Lagrange won't give New York a better chance to win games in April than either of these two? Or that it's an experiment not worth trying? After all, both Weathers and Gil have options as well. It's not a "use them or lose them" type of situation.

This is par for the course with Boone. His recent untethered praise of J.C. Escarra proves his talent evaluation skills are questionable, even when the dominance is clear to the naked eye.

We're not necessarily arguing that Lagrange should have made the big league roster. We concede that there are valid reasons to leave him down in support of his long-term future. Instead, we object to the stale decision making process, and worry about what that holds for the future. Lagrange might be back in the minors now, but he should earn a big league role at some point in 2026, as long as the Yankees' stubbornness doesn't get in the way.