NEW YORK — Losing seasons end in silence. Seasons that end the way this one did end in a referendum. Two days after the Yankees were swept out of the postseason, the anger in the fan base had nowhere to go, so it went looking for names.
The frustration was not hard to find. A champagne summer collapsed into a quiet October, and a roster built around one of the highest payrolls in the sport produced five runs in three games against the Tampa Bay Rays. By the time the final out landed, the questions had already turned from what happened to who should pay for it.
That is the mood hanging over the franchise this week. It is not grief. It is a reckoning, and it is being conducted in public.
A reader poll gave that anger a scoreboard. More than 11,000 voters were asked whether a list of Yankees figures should get the boot or stay in the Bronx, and the responses arrived in a flood. The results read less like a survey and more like a verdict on an entire era of Yankees baseball.
The appetite for change was overwhelming. Nearly every name on the ballot drew a majority demanding removal, a sign of how little patience Yankees fans have left after another October exit. They were not looking to trim the edges. They wanted the house rebuilt.
Four figures drew more than 80 percent support to be shown the door. The margins were brutal, and they left little doubt that this was a Yankees fan base finished making excuses for a team that keeps falling short of its own standard.
The timing sharpened the edge. The poll closed with the sting of a first-round sweep still fresh, and the Yankees had just watched a season of title expectations end without the club ever holding a lead in the series.
Where the manager landed on the list
For all the heat around Aaron Boone, the poll delivered a revealing wrinkle. The manager was overwhelmingly unpopular. He was simply not the single most unpopular man in the building.
Boone drew 85 percent support for his firing in a New York Post poll, with only 15 percent saying he should stay. It is a staggering number for any manager. Yet it placed him fourth on the fans’ priority list.
Three Yankees players ranked ahead of him. Jazz Chisholm Jr. drew the most heat at 91 percent. Trent Grisham followed at 88 percent. Giancarlo Stanton came in at 86 percent. Boone’s 85 percent sat just behind that trio, a single point below Stanton.
Poll: should they get the boot or stay?
| Rank | Figure | Boot | Stay |
| 1 | Jazz Chisholm Jr. | 91% | 9% |
| 2 | Trent Grisham | 88% | 12% |
| 3 | Giancarlo Stanton | 86% | 14% |
| 4 | Aaron Boone | 85% | 15% |
| 5 | Brian Cashman | 73% | 27% |
| 6 | Anthony Volpe | 21% | 79% |
The order carries a message. Yankees fans want the roster torn down before they come for the man filling out the lineup card. One reader comment captured how long the anti-Boone drumbeat has run.
“I’ve been calling for Aaron Boone’s firing for years, and not for any specific baseball reason. Just the simple fact that he hasn’t won with the talent on that team. George [Steinbrenner] would have fired him long ago,” one person commented.
Boone has not won a championship since taking over as manager in 2018. He has reached the World Series once in nine seasons at the helm, a 2024 loss to the Dodgers. He has one year left on his contract.
The front office did not escape the verdict
Just below Boone sat the executive who has backed him. Brian Cashman, the general manager, drew 73 percent support for his removal, with 8,535 votes cast against him.
Cashman has run the Yankees baseball operation for 29 seasons, a tenure that includes four World Series titles and seven American League pennants. The recent criticism has centered on his loyalty to Boone and on roster moves made while the championship drought stretched on.
Cashman has not signaled any plan to change the dugout. Asked about the manager’s future, he offered a clear endorsement, calling Boone a “really good manager.”
One voter directed the anger straight at the front office and at how the Yankees build their offense.
“Cashman should go or change the organization’s approach to hitting,” another voter commented. “Need to stop relying on the home run. That doesn’t work in the playoffs against better pitching. Concentrate on putting the ball in play and minimize strikeouts. Get players that can hit .270-.280.”
The one name fans wanted to protect
Not everyone was marked for exit. Amid a poll built almost entirely on removal, one Yankee emerged as the player fans wanted to build around.
Anthony Volpe, the shortstop who spoke openly about his frustration after the sweep, drew 79 percent support to stay. Only 21 percent wanted him gone. He was the rare Yankees name the poll treated as part of the solution rather than the problem.
One commenter laid out a blueprint that kept Volpe at the center while clearing much of the lineup.
“Stanton, Chisholm gotta go. Yanks need [a] catcher big time,” another voter explained. “Stop playing with Volpe’s head [and] make him [the] everyday second baseman.”
A broadcaster says the quiet part out loud
The sentiment did not stay confined to a poll. The morning after the elimination, one of the most prominent voices in the Yankees orbit delivered a blistering assessment on the air, acknowledging the team’s consistency before turning sharply critical of what it has produced.
Michael Kay, the longtime play-by-play broadcaster, framed it bluntly.
“I tip my cap to them being in the playoffs ever year. I tip my cap to them having a chance to win a World Series every year,” Kay said. “But the cap tipping stops because they haven’t won one.”
Kay argued the problem runs deeper than any single roster hole. He questioned whether the Yankees are bringing in the right players for the biggest moments.
“Are you getting the wrong people. Why are the people not performing in those moments,” Kay said. “And if you find out the reason don’t get those people no matter how sexy they look on a spreadsheet.”
Then he reached for the number that shadows everything the franchise does, a drought that frames every firing vote in the poll.
“I’m not asking to win four championships in five years,” Kay said. “But none in 17, none in 17. It’s incomprehensible.”
What the ranking signals about offseason
The ordering matters because it hints at where the pressure will fall this winter. The Yankees fans have essentially drawn a map. The roster comes first. The front office comes next. And the manager, despite an 85 percent firing vote, sits a notch below the players in the pecking order of blame.
That does not make Boone’s seat safe. An 85 percent disapproval number would end most tenures. But the poll suggests a Yankees fan base that no longer believes a single change in the dugout would fix what ails the team. They want accountability from the players who went 5-for-51 at the plate and from the executives who assembled them.
Boone’s fourth-place finish, in other words, is less a reprieve than a statement of scale. The Yankees problem, as the fans see it, is bigger than any one man.
For now, the Yankees sit with a verdict from their own supporters. The roster is first in line. The front office is right behind. And the manager, for once, is not at the very front of the firing squad.
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