No matter who was in the dugout for the Yankees this season — and Aaron Boone’s status is still undetermined nearly two weeks after their season ended — the team’s decision-making process will look different in 2022.
The Yankees certainly won’t turn their backs on their analytically driven process, and they might even reinforce it.
The teams remaining in the playoffs — particularly the Red Sox, Astros and Dodgers — have used much of the same methodology the Yankees have used. They’ve just been better at it.
Certainly, the Dodgers got better results using Corey Knebel as an opener, followed by Julio Urias, in Game 5 of the NLDS in San Francisco on Thursday night than the Yankees did a year ago with Deivi Garcia and J.A. Happ in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Rays.
If the Yankees’ decisions early in the offseason — letting go hitting coach Marcus Thames and third base coach Phil Nevin — are any indication, they will be going harder in that direction.
How that would impact Boone, if he returns to The Bronx, remains to be seen.
Nevin is one of his closest friends in the game and Boone leaned on him in different capacities.
Whoever takes his place on the coaching staff will no doubt be more in line with the front office’s analytical bent, something Nevin stated pretty bluntly after he was canned.
“I love the players, love the relationships,’’ Nevin said on Thursday. “It’s just frustrating that the game has changed, and [those relationships are] not a priority to some new people in the game.”
Boone was criticized at times during the season for some questionable bullpen usage and his in-game decision-making has never been considered a strength.
Other aspects, though, such as off-days for players, almost certainly came from above Boone, and it’s hard to see how that will change in 2022 if the Yankees double-down on analytics.
Those rest days might have led to the Yankees playing their one-game wild-card showdown in Boston instead of at Yankee Stadium.
Giancarlo Stanton addressed how important it was not to let any game slip away, regardless of the situation.
“Each game counts,” Stanton said after the wild-card defeat, when he had at least two homers taken away by the Green Monster. “Doesn’t matter if it’s in March [or] April. All we needed was one more and we would have this at home. They will come back to bite you.”
Boone and general manager Brian Cashman have pushed back hard on the notion that Boone is there only to carry out the front office’s wishes, and he clearly has some control. But with no agreement reached between the two sides, and three members of his coaching staff (so far) not retained, it’s fair to wonder if the delay is about control.
Boone could come back on a one-year deal with a team option for a second season. Cashman’s contract will be up after next season.
But as the Cardinals proved in firing manager Mike Shildt with a year to go on his deal because of “philosophical differences,’’ after a 17-game winning streak got them to the NL wild-card game, no manager is safe until the organization says he is.