Comparing Sheldon Keefe's media savvy to New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone

While waiting for the 2025-26 New Jersey Devils season to begin, many fans watch New York Yankees baseball, and of course, the Yankees' season has been up and down. Offense has been consistent, but the defense and bullpen have been so awful.

A lot of the problems with the Yankees fall on the manager, former player Aaron Boone. But the one thing that people call Boone out for is the way he talks to the media. Boone handles the press of New York in a peculiar and bad way. However, I want to compare how Boone’s handling of the NY media is to how Sheldon Keefe's handling of the media, given the significant differences they exhibit, even in very different situations.

How Sheldon Keefe Handles The Media

Sheldon Keefe’s history with the media has been very tricky. In Toronto, with the Maple Leafs, Keefe, for the most part, kept things smooth when it comes to talking to the press. While he necessarily hasn’t had any major arguments that have ruined his relationship with the Toronto media, he has had moments where some quotes he’s gotten have people questioning his leadership.

The best example is after the Leafs lost to the Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs in Game 7 in OT, he stated in a press conference after the game that, “When teams play the Leafs, they set up the Leafs to beat themselves”.

While most of the Toronto media and fans lambasted Keefe for the quote, there is a part of that statement that makes sense., The team did beat themselves in that series, especially that Game 7 goal in OT. Mitch Marner watched as David Pastrnak skated behind all five of their guys on the ice. The following day, Keefe, in a press conference, stated that he took full responsibility for the series loss, which is a noble gesture, and even though he got fired, many in the media said that Keefe’s firing and troubles with the press were due to the President Brendan Shanahan’s constant pressure. 

When he came over to New Jersey, he didn’t have any problems with the media. New Jersey media is much, much different than Toronto media after all. That is, until a particular press conference in March of 2025 happened.

After losing to the Ottawa Senators at home on March 22nd, Keefe, who was rightfully upset at the loss, said in the post-game press conference that Johnny Kovacevic needed to play better. This was after Kovacevic's comments, where he mentioned the team needing to play with a "playoff mentality."

The quote went viral, and the media and the fans criticized Keefe for the quote. We wrote an article about how he threw the wrong player under the bus.  Keefe praised Kovy the next day, especially since he helped save a goal against the Canucks in the following game and received a “he’s the best” quote, which naturally elicited a joyous laugh in the media. Keefe really wouldn’t have anything else. He said that would have gotten criticized, as he led the Devils to the playoffs that year, and is hoping to be better next season. 

How Aaron Boone Handles The Media

When Aaron Boone was hired as the Yankees' manager before the 2018 season, the idea was that he was supposed to be the next young managerial hire to take over, to try to lead the Yankees to more World Series titles. The problem, however, is that the manager Hal Steinbrenner just hired had no previous managerial experience.

Boone must not only handle a position and all the decisions he has never faced before, but also deal with the New York media, who can be ruthless if you make any mistake. While it wasn't too bad in the first four years, in the last three years, Boone has gotten out of control when it comes to the media. It’s not due to what he does, but what Boone says and reacts to issues that has caused backlash amongst baseball analysts.

It seems that whenever the Yankees have any problems, whether the team is slumping, certain parts of the team are underperforming, like the bullpen recently, or even the fundamentals that every team should know about, Boone reacts as if everything is okay, even when it's clearly not. Boone never takes accountability, for when a player screws up or when a decision he makes backfires. Instead, he doubles down on it. There are a lot of examples from the current season and the 2024 season alone, like doubling down on his decision to use Nestor Cortes in Game 1 of the World Series prior to Freddie Freeman's walkoff grand slam.

Most recently this year, Boone has a few big quotes that the media keeps harping on, such as his defense of Anthony Volpe, calling him “an elite fielder” when he literally leads the league in errors. He also called the Yankees “the best team in baseball” when they kept losing games, which lowered their standing not only in the AL East race but also in the Wild Card race.

Boone’s way of addressing the media is also affecting the players, as seen in Jazz Chisolm's response to a post-game question in Saturday's game against the Miami Marlins, where he was asked if he would do anything differently after being doubled up on a pop fly. If Boone wants to slowly earn the respect of all the fans and media back, the first thing he must do is accept accountability for all the mistakes and errors he and his players have made.

Boone should also start being a little bit more honest about the team instead of trying to be positive all the time, like instead of saying phrases like “we’re going to be fine” or “it’s right in front of us”, he should use words like “the way we’re playing right now is embarrassing” or “we should be playing better with our expectations.” If Boone does not try to fix the way he has poorly handled the media, sooner or later he should be fired as the manager of the Yankees, maybe forcing the Yankees ot change their ways. 

And that's the big difference here. Keefe doesn't shy away from responsibility, whether it's for him or for his players. Boone is very big on keeping blame ambiguous.