3 old school managers Yankees fans shouldn’t be begging for (and 1 they should be)

Got some bad news for you. If you wanted the Yankees to fire Aaron Boone and replace him with a legendary name with a resumé stacked with success, then Bruce Bochy was the guy.

Texas already got him. Last offseason. Worked out pretty well. They also spent a lot and built a representative roster, nearly choked, acquired Aroldis Chapman (probably by accident?), and wound up in the Wild Card series. Jordan Montgomery started Game 1. They swept the Rays. Pretty neat.

Therefore, the Yankees will be keeping Boone in place for 2024, per reports. It's a lame duck season; the manager will serve his seventh (!!!) season in pinstripes without a contract extension in place. He can be handed his walking papers at the end of the year, but will likely never be officially fired. The new Yankee Way. The antithesis of George Steinbrenner's reign. Again, never a happy middle ever.

Boone isn't the Yankees' largest issue. He was given a lopsided roster and is beloved by the few in-their-prime stars the team does have in place (actually, has anyone ever asked Gerrit Cole if he likes him?). But, after zero pennants in such an exciting window, it's fair to watch your eyes wandering to nearby alternatives.

If Boone is ever replaced -- and it'd be after 2024 -- then it's highly likely young, new blood will slide into his vacancy. It'll be on the Yankees to discover the next Skip Schumacher, not give Jack McKeon a place to rest into his mid-90s. That's how the game typically works these days, after all. Ex-players who are well-trained in the game of modern baseball have a significant leg up.

Plus, for good measure, the non-Bochy fleet of old-school guys gets weaker every day.

3 old-school managers who'd be worse for Yankees than Aaron Boone (and 1 who might fit)

No Thanks: Joe Maddon

Once upon a time, Joe Maddon was the perfect chaos agent for a young Rays team that broke all of baseball's long-held rules. It was almost impossible to beat his story as a baseball lifer who lived inside well-worn clubhouses for 30 years, worked his way up several different org charts, then was finally given a chance by a group of analytics pioneers who had no other path to victory in the loaded AL East. It worked immediately; Maddon's Rays won the American League in 2008 and he became the gold standard of "old school, new school" blended methodology.

Then he became a star. Somewhere along the line, it would seem he stopped listening to the new-school numericals (or, at least, put more stock in crafting his image). Innovations took a back seat to Wacky Roadtrips and Dress Like a Taco Night. By the end of his Cubs tenure, it seemed his fuse had burned out, as the team took a postseason step back annually. His Angels career should've been longer than it was, but it's telling that all it took was one lengthy losing streak in 2022 for his homecoming to go bust.

2008 Maddon would be an exceptional hire for the Yankees, but his currently outsized personality would feel like a terrible culture fit without a total regime change above him. And that's not happening.

No Thanks: Buck Showalter

Do you, uh, still want Buck Showalter after the descent you watched in Flushing, Queens this season? Done. Cut. Print it. End of section.

It's obvious Showalter the Human deserved a better fate than having to tearfully announce his own firing without warning to the media at a postseason press roundup. The Mets haven't made meaningful strides in the PR department under Steve Cohen, and left a great baseball man out to dry one final time before he was able to rid himself of the uniform.

We harbor great sympathy for Showalter, who was a Yankees bridesmaid as the dynasty was revving its engines, but found himself dismissed after the team's 1995 playoff collapse, replaced by Joe Torre when the young Yanks required a tactical change in direction. Experimenting with Showalter in the Bronx would've felt interesting directly after his Orioles tenure, and plenty of caffeine-fueled overnight WFAN callers berated the Yankees for passing on the veteran -- fresh off a stint on the YES Network -- in the 2021-22 offseason.

Unfortunately, his Mets tenure will be remembered as an expensive failure, and one where he somehow overstayed his welcome after Year 1. His bullpen doctrine was rigid, similar to the one that got his Orioles felled in the 2016 Wild Card Zack Britton disaster. His clubhouse maybe gelled, maybe didn't, but regardless, it inspired Tommy Pham (one of Showalter's favorites) to admonish the offense when he left. The rookies never improved; neither the kids nor the old man came out on top here.

It would've provided plenty of joy if a nearly finished Showalter had been able to caretake a Yankees title in, say, 2018 or 2019, but it would be tough to justify the hire after watching New York's crosstown rivals recede under his stewardship.

Great Yankees Fit: Bob Melvin

For the better part of a decade, we wondered what a Bob Melvin managerial tenure with the Yankees' payroll might look like. The ex-A's skipper finally got the chance to turn around a big-budget roster with the San Diego Padres' mismatched crew in 2022, and after piloting a playoff upset of the Dodgers last fall, he may or may not be on the outs after his Pads coincidentally finished with the same 82-80 record as the Yanks. Peter Seidler seemed to hint this week that the inevitable divorce between Melvin and GM AJ Preller might not be so fated after all, and Preller followed suit later in the week. Regardless, Melvin deserves another big-market chance, and if the Yankees ever figured out a way to un-jumble their roster, they should be all over him. How long could this doomed marriage really last in San Diego, anyway?

If hired by the Yankees, though, Melvin would be dealing with a different kind of mania than the poking and prodding that has made his life by the beach so difficult. Hal Steinbrenner isn't the hands-on tinkerer that Preller seems to be. Rather, he's a money-maker who inherited a cash cow and still finds room to be "generally angry" a few times per year as the team flounders, but can't bring himself to care any deeper.

Melvin, an opinionated field general and tactician, would probably clash with Stein Lite over a defined difference in their respective wills to win. It might not work out here, but 2023 Melvin certainly has the recent bonafides the other older candidates lack. Unfortunately, if ever offered the job, he should pass.