Aaron Boone will return to the New York Yankees’ dugout for the eight-year running. The organization exercised a club option on his contract for the 2025 season on Friday to little surprise, after taking the Yankees to their first World Series since 2009 and his first as manager.
Boone spoke on a Zoom call on Monday to address his extension, the World Series loss and the team’s offseason plans.
The Yankees have gone 603-429 (.584 winning percentage) under Boone and have made the postseason in six of the seven years in charge — missing out in 2023. He has not been given any guarantees past next season yet.
However, the Yankees do have a trend of waiting until the last minute to renew deals — Aaron Judge had to wait until the final day of spring training in 2022 — and there are a few more months before the first pitch is thrown.
“Yeah, I mean, here I am,” Boone said. “The reality is there’s tons of people going to work every single day with that existence, where it’s year-to-year. We just had a season where I had that realization this year, that reality this year. We were able to overall put together a strong season and get to the World Series, but the reality is this is the existence a lot of people, not only in baseball but in life in general, have. I’m excited to be here.”
After a heartbreaking Game 5 loss in the World Series to Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boone said it would stay with him “probably forever” after getting so close. However, he referenced the 2019 loss to the Houston Astros and the 2023 season as postmarks to look forward.
Boone said he was able to look back on “the amount of good things that went on this year and winning the division,” remaining hopeful for the future, but admitted that it still “stings.”
“I’m proud of so many people this year and I feel like some people that came into the mix for us and became significant parts of what we’re doing that maybe you didn’t necessarily even expect coming out of spring training,” Boone said. “We saw the development of a couple of young pieces that are going to be really crucial figures for the Yankees moving forward, as well as some surprises that we feel like are going to play significant roles moving forward. So I think there’s a lot to be proud of.”
An unmistakably crucial part of the Yankees’ bid to return to the World Series in 2025 is attempting to get Juan Soto to resign. In the regular season, Soto hit 41 home runs, with a .288 average, .989 OPS and 109 RBIs. His free agency is on the verge of inciting a bidding war between the Yankees, Dodgers and New York Mets.
Boone confirmed he will be part of the effort to keep Soto in talks over the next few weeks with him and his agent Scott Boras.
“I’m sure maybe he’ll have questions now that he is a free agent and want to address certain things, but, I’m just going to go in there and be myself, be confident in my relationship with Juan and in the ability to have a honest conversation with them,” Boone said. “And hopefully cement the point of how valuable and how much we think of him, not only as a player but as a person. I got to live that with him this year. That would be my sales pitch.”
