NEW YORK – Aaron Judge spent most of the past two weeks trying to override the Yankees’ caution about his right calf muscle, an ongoing battle that ended with the captain watching all five postseason games from the bench.
With the offseason underway far too early for his taste, Judge delivered a pointed message to the front office, urging managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman to make whatever changes are necessary to avoid this outcome in Octobers to come.
“We’re the Yankees,” Judge said after the club’s 4-3 loss to the Rays in Game 3 of the American League Division Series. “I feel like they should go all in and do what they need to do and find. If we’ve got holes, if it’s finding certain players or personnel, whatever we need, you’ve got to go out there and get it.
“That’s why I signed back here to play with the Yankees, to fight for a championship every single year, to go all in. That’s what I do every offseason, get ready to give this team and this city everything I’ve got. So I expect them to do the same.”
Asked if he believes the Yankees have gone all in, Judge hesitated.
“It’s tough to say,” Judge said. “I want to trade for everybody, sign everybody every single year, but I know that’s not realistic. So they give us a winning team every single year, but that’s not good enough here in New York. We’re the Yankees. You’ve got to go out there and chase championships and go all in every year. So I’m excited to see what they do.”
Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., outfielder Trent Grisham and closer David Bednar are among the team’s most prominent pending free agents. Cashman’s contract is set to expire this offseason, while manager Aaron Boone has one year remaining on an extension he signed in February 2025.
Speaking to reporters from FOX Sports and the New York Post before Wednesday’s Game 3, Cashman said he believes Boone is "a really good manager,” adding, “We're here for a reason. There are a lot of reasons behind that, and certainly he's part of that.”
After Grisham struck out to end the Yankees’ season, fans could be heard chanting in favor of a managerial change. Asked about his status and expectations following the game, Boone replied, “Those conversations and things are for another day.”
The 2026 season marked Boone’s ninth at the helm, a 93-win campaign that improved his regular-season record to 790-565 (.583). But the Yankees have not delivered the World Series championship Boone spoke optimistically about on the day he was hired. His closest call was the 2024 pennant, after which the Dodgers ousted New York in five games.
“Every year is different,” Boone said. “The landscape is different. The team you go in, how you’re playing, all those kinds of things. I could speak to this series; we didn’t play a clean game in Game 2. But ultimately we didn’t swing the bats enough and put enough runs on the board to move on or extend the series.”
Yankees right-hander Cam Schlittler said Boone has been an “amazing” manager, adding, “Every guy in this locker room stands behind him.”
“He’s someone that’s going to put his players first, and I think that’s very important,” Schlittler said. “He’s been great to this team and to the guys in here. We trust him. There’s not a single day where I haven’t trusted him or a decision he’s made. I have a great relationship with him, and I’ll back him up.
“I hope that I’m playing here for a long time and he’s still the manager. He might take the blame for the way we perform, but at the end of the day, it comes down to us. The expectation needs to be a little bit better.”
Judge said no one in the clubhouse is satisfied with this year’s outcome, promising the team will be ready to “take it to the next level” in 2027. That will happen, Judge expects, with Boone continuing to fill out the lineup cards.
“He’s our manager. He’s running the ship,” Judge said. “He puts us in the right position to go out there and succeed. Especially a season like this, where I’m banged up and missing 100 games … for him to manage it the way he did and put us in the best position to get into the postseason and get an opportunity to win a World Series, he’s definitely had our back.”