Jazz Chisholm trade could prevent Yankees from upgrading Aaron Boone this offseason

Parsing through the Jazz Chisholm discourse in the wake of the Yankees dealing for the versatile sparkplug has been exhausting. We should be celebrating a trade acquisition, not picking it apart to remove the excitement.

Is Chisholm a clubhouse problem? Was Brian Cashman leaking concern as a smokescreen so he could scoop him up without surrendering an upper-tier prospect? Who exactly does have an issue with Chisholm the teammate, anyway?

Chisholm and ex-Marlins "leader" Miguel Rojas certainly disagreed, and have taken that war of words to the public sphere in 2024. But where else are these reports of clubhouse discord coming from? Are players throughout the league scared of the sizzle, voting Chisholm to the top of their "overrated" rankings because he was a safe choice to bag on? As Yahoo!'s Jake Mintz posited this weekend after speaking to someone affiliated with an MLB team, has Chisholm struggled to overcome a lack of acceptance?

And, if it's merely a struggle to be accepted that we're dealing with, how did Marlins manager Skip Schumaker, the 2024-25 offseason's primary managerial free agent, contribute to or alleviate that? What is their relationship like? With Chisholm now locked down in the Bronx through 2026 (probably), would Schumaker be willing to continue their professional relationship? Or is one of the Yankees' greatest Aaron Boone alternatives now effectively off the table?

This whole situation requires an English degree-level close reading of every interview, Instagram caption, and side-eyed glance. But for what it's worth, both Chisholm and Schumaker have seemed very appreciative of one another in the deal's immediate aftermath.

Chisholm, on Instagram, thanked both Don Mattingly and his more recent ex-manager for "letting me be me." Schumaker, on Bally Sports Florida, wished his former pupil success, but noted that Chisholm "meant a lot to this organization, to the fanbase" without explicitly stating "and also to me."

Is there love lost between soon-to-be-former Marlins manager Skip Schumaker and Yankees' Jazz Chisholm?

Reports about Chisholm-related dysfunction in the Miami clubhouse were too loud to completely ignore, but too unsubstantiated to do anything tangible with. With each passing month, it seems more likely the Marlins' old guard (eg, Rojas) and Chisholm got off on a bad foot and stood on that bad foot for years, indicating that things had gotten brighter in recent months prior to the deadline deal.

But Chisholm still was traded, and Schumaker wished his dynamic player well, never acknowledging why it was an open secret that he'd be dealt from early July through the moment things became official.

If Chisholm is rejuvenated down the stretch, that will only further embolden the Yankees' desire to keep Aaron Boone in place for 2025, no matter what Schumaker thinks.