While the New York Yankees have given no indications that manager Aaron Boone is on the proverbial hot seat, there is growing outside speculation about his long-term future as he enters his ninth season at the helm of the 27-time World Series-winning club. The inescapable fact is that Boone has gone longer than any manager in Yankees history since the dawn of the live ball era in 1920 with zero championships — and Yankees fans are not happy about it.
But according to one Yankees analyst, help may be on the way — and the Yankees’ next managerial candidate just rose to sudden prominence in the World Baseball Classic. Among his qualifications, the proposed candidate, like Boone, is a former Yankees player. In fact, of the 14 Yankees managers since George Steinbrenner — father of current Yankees chairman and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner — bought the team in 1973, all but five were former Yankees players, or played in the Yankees’ farm system.
According to analyst Esteban Quiñones of Pinstripes Nation, that candidate is 40-year-old Francisco Cervelli, the former Yankees backup catcher who was a part of the last New York team to win a World Series in 2009. But Cervelli is better known to current fans as the manager of the Team Italy squad that shocked the baseball world by winning their first five WBC games to get all the way to the tournament semifinal, when their Cinderella run ended on Monday night with a 4-2 defeat to a powerful Venezuela team.
“The comparison to (Boone’s direct predecessor) Joe Girardi is notable. Girardi won the World Series in just his second season managing the Yankees in 2009,” Quiñones wrote on Monday. “Boone has not matched that. With Cervelli proving he can lead a talented roster on the international stage, the idea of him as a future Yankees manager has gained traction.”
In fact, with the start of the 2026 season now less than two weeks away, Boone has managed 1,194 Yankees games without winning a World Series. Since 1920, that is the longest any Yankee manager has gone without bringing a trophy back to the Bronx, and it’s not close.
The manager with the second-longest tenure without a championship is Buck Showalter, who managed 582 games from 1992 through 1995 without a championship. It should be noted that former Yankees catcher Ralph Houk managed the team for 1,271 games from 1966 to 1973 without a World Series — a period when the Yankees under the rather indifferent corporate ownership of the CBS television network rarely fielded a competitive team.
But that stint was Houk’s second as Yankees manager. In his first, from 1961 through 1963, Houk led the Yankees to World Series titles in his first two seasons, and back to the World Series in his third season when they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
More MLB: Yankees Could Land Bryce Harper With One Simple Roster Move: Analyst
“Is it a copout to suggest that the Yankees should target Cervelli if they finally part ways with Aaron Boone? Not really; this franchise loves bringing its own alumni home, as the Boone and Joe Girardi hires proved,” wrote FanSided analyst Jake Elman on Tuesday. “Cervelli and the Yankees are a perfect match.”
What happened in 1920 to make the effective start date for modern Yankees history, even though the franchise has existed since 1903?
That was the year the Yankees purchased a young two-way player from the Boston Red Sox named George Herman “Babe” Ruth. In his first year with the Yankees, Ruth belted a previously unimaginable 54 home runs, marking the start of baseball’s live ball era. This led the Yankees to the World Series for the first time in 1921 and again the year after that, losing both.
But in 1923, the Yankees moved from the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan to the brand-new Yankee Stadium, known as “The House That Ruth Built,” in the Bronx. Ruth hit 41 home runs that season and led the Yankees to their first World Series championship.
More MLB: Yankees Pitcher Elmer Rodriguez Gets Unwelcome News Before Next WBC Start
About the Author
Discover more from USA NEWS
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
