New York Yankees fans have wanted Aaron Boone fired essentially since he was hired to replace Joe Girardi. While many of their complaints are unfair, Boone has been far from perfect during his stint as the man in charge. One thing he tends to do is defend his players to no end. While it makes sense not to throw anyone under the bus, New York fans are smart; they aren’t going to buy into things that simply aren’t true. Boone’s lack of accountability for his players following another brutal Yankees loss reached yet another new low, this time with D.J. LeMahieu.

While LeMahieu didn’t commit any egregious miscues like Anthony Volpe the night before, his lack of range at the position was apparent. And it has been for a while: At this point in his career, he’s simply not athletic enough to play up the middle, which makes the team’s decision to keep him at second base with Jazz Chisholm Jr. at third all the more puzzling. Rather than granting what’s plainly true to anyone with eyes, Boone simply said when discussing whether he should swap places with Chisholm Jr. that “I think both guys are really talented defenders wherever they line up.”

Boone is entitled to his own opinion, but the eye test and the statistics suggest the exact opposite. It’s time for Boone to not only be honest with the media, but make necessary changes to make his team better.

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Yankees are better off with Aaron Boone making suggested defensive change

LeMahieu was once a Gold Glove-caliber defender at second base, and Chisholm looked pretty good at third base last season, especially given it was a new position for him to learn on the fly. But in 2025, it’s pretty clear that the Yankees are better off with these two infielders changing spots.

There’s no shame in these metrics either. LeMahieu is a 36-year-old — understandably, he’s lost a lot of range. Chisholm is inexperienced at third base — understandably, he is far from elite at the position. I question whether LeMahieu’s arm strength is good enough to play third base regularly, but there’s just no disputing that flipping Chisholm and LeMahieu is their best alignment.

While it’s good that Boone said that “we’ll continue to look at things like that” in regard to making a change with their infield alignment, his refusal to say a single negative thing about his players is infuriating.

Yankees fans have had enough of Aaron Boone at this point

The Yankees might be in first place in the AL East, but after dropping their 12th game in their last 18 contests, their lead has been cut to just a single game over the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays. They’re playing their worst baseball of the year, have struggled all season to beat their division rivals, and yet Boone can’t seem to think of a single negative thing to say.

Even before Tuesday’s game, Boone went out of his way to praise Volpe, who has been slumping both offensively and defensively.

I fully get supporting your guys and having their backs all the time, but Boone takes it too far. Being a manager in New York and never having a single criticism for your players is just not a good thing. If the players can’t handle criticism from their manager when they’re playing poorly, that’s a separate discussion.

When the team is playing poorly, Yankees fans want to see accountability taken. Boone going out of his way to praise players who are clearly struggling, both when watching them and looking at statistics, is really hard to listen to. It’s hard to expect players to improve if they aren’t being held accountable. Hopefully something changes in that regard, but with Boone in year eight, the odds of that are incredibly low.