Owner Hal Steinbrenner says Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman safe for now
Steinbrenner promises to keep Boone, GM Cashman and N.Y. core
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner vowed to keep manager Aaron Boone, general manager Brian Cashman and the core of his team, shaking off a crushing loss to the Los Angeles Angels in which New York wasted a four-run, ninth-inning lead.
Steinbrenner spoke with reporters Thursday, the morning after the 11-8 defeat. The Yankees are 41-39, fourth in the AL East, 8 1⁄2 games behind first-place Boston. The Yankees’ Thursday game against the Angels was postponed and will be played Aug. 16.
“It’s absolutely aggravating, maddening,” Steinbrenner said. “It has been tough to watch and the players know that. They’re better than this. This is not the product that we expect and it’s not the type of play that they expect themselves.”
New York had discussed the availability since Monday, and the 51-year-old owner was clear that he does not act like impulsive father George, who ran the Yankees from 1973-2008 and changed managers 21 times.
“He certainly did that a lot. I think what people forget is that often times it didn’t help, it didn’t work. And often times, quite frankly, he was criticized for it, right?” Steinbrenner said. “So I’m just a believer in seeing an entire body of work from an employee, irregardless of what department they’re in. And we do that year to year to year and every year.”
Steinbrenner usually discusses the state of the Yankees after quarterly owners meetings, but because of the pandemic had not held a questionand-answer session with reporters since February 2020.
“I’m aggravated, frustrated, angry,” he said. “But again, that’s not going to push me into a kneejerk reaction to get rid of somebody that I believe the players respect, want to play for, want to win for and overall has done a good job keeping that clubhouse together through this difficult three months.”
Steinbrenner is constantly compared with his father.
“It’s a very justified question to ever ask and to always ask, because he was one of the greatest at what he did,” Steinbrenner said.
“And all I can do is do my best, be my own person, make the decisions in the way that I’ve always made decisions, which is putting in as much thought into a decision as possible, taking the time if I have the time to do just that. There’s no doubt I’m going to live a little bit less spur of the moment than he was in a lot of ways.”
He voiced support for Cashman, the general manager since 1998. “Brian and I have been doing this a lot of years together. He’s extremely intelligent,” Steinbrenner said. “I think he’s done a good job. This team that we put together leaving spring training was a very, very good team. And they just haven’t played up to their potential that I believe we still have.”
In the loss to the Angels, Aroldis Chapman walked three batters and gave up Jared Walsh’s tying grand slam. Chapman is 1-2 with a 17.47 ERA and two blown saves in six chances over his past eight games.