With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror, we've officially reached crunch time in the 2026 MLB season — for both contenders and non-contenders alike. For the former, there's no more time to waste in pushing towards the postseason; for the latter, you've got just a few weeks left to start laying a foundation for 2027 and beyond.
And that's especially true for certain managers around the league who could well be coaching for their jobs over the remainder of the year. The bar is different for Aaron Boone than it is for, say, Tony Vitello, but both find themselves on unstable footing with precious time left. What can ell eight skippers do to survive the chopping block? Let's dive in.
Aaron Boone, New York Yankees
The goal: Get back to the World Series — if Aaron Judge is healthy
How the rest of this Yankees season goes will largely come down to whether Judge — and to a lesser extent Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton — are able to come back healthy in time for the postseason. It's simply hard to imagine New York scoring enough runs without him, even if their pitching staff has managed to single-handedly keep them above water in recent weeks.
If Judge can't get right until 2027, that's a built-in excuse that Boone can use to hang around for at least one more year. And really, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner have given no indication that they're unhappy with his performance, even as the team's World Series drought gets close to two decades. If this team hits October at something close to full health, though, there's no reason why they shouldn't be the class of the wide-open American League, and the spotlight will once again be on Boone's playoff performance.
Joe Espada, Houston Astros
The goal: Win the AL West
It seemed like Espada was a dead man walking just a couple of months or so ago; both he and GM Dana Brown were in the final years of their contracts, and Houston got off to a sluggish start that made a playoff push seem far-fetched. But the Astros have now taken hold of the AL West thanks to Yordan Alvarez and a dynamite offense.
Which means everybody's feeling a little safer, at least for now. Owner Jim Crane is notoriously impulsive, especially when his team falls short of expectations. Get back on top of this very winnable division, and it'll be hard to argue against bringing Espada back given the pitching limitations he's had to deal with. Flame out in September, though, and he's as good as gone.
Mark Kotsay, Athletics
The goal: Find a reason to believe in 2027
Really, this is just us trying to be nice. Kotsay has always felt like a bit of a placeholder, someone relatively cheap who would keep the seat warm ahead of the team's move to Las Vegas in 2028. And that was before he presided over what's become a nightmarish 2026 campaign, as the A's have completely collapsed after a promising start.
Kotsay has a Herculean task ahead of him over the next six weeks or so. Shea Langeliers and Brent Rooker are out for the year and Nick Kurtz is currently on the IL, meaning we won't see this promising young core together again until 2027. If the A's manage to show some gradual improvement in August and September, Kotsay could buy himself one more year, but things have gotten so bad that it'll likely take a miracle for John Fisher not to pull the plug just like he did on his GM.
Don Mattingly, Philadelphia Phillies
The goal: Reach the NLCS
Mattingly got off to a dream start to his stint as interim manager in Philly, but it's been a considerably bumpier ride lately, as his bullpen management comes into question and his offense continues to struggle for consistency. The Phillies have stabilized a bit after a sweep at the hands of the Marlins at the end of July that felt like rock bottom, but this is still a team with serious flaws — and precious little time to fix them before an all-important postseason.
Mattingly knew what the expectations here were when he took the job. Philly is locked into an aging and expensive core, and there's immense pressure to get that core over the hump before the decline inevitably comes (if it hasn't already). A competitive loss to the Dodgers or Brewers in the NLCS might be enough for him to stay on for 2027 and beyond, but another early October flameout will have the Phillies looking elsewhere.
Matt Quatraro, Kansas City Royals
The goal: Remind ownership of your contract extension
A Royals team that began the year with legitimate postseason aspirations hasn't posted a single winning month yet, and they're off to a 3-6 start to August. That about sums up how this season has gone, but it's somehow felt even worse, with Quatraro and his charges sleepwalking through one listless performance after another.
At this point, the good will from that 2024 ALDS run has well and truly worn off. Kansas City doesn't seem to have soured on Quatraro just yet — he's still employed, after all — but if things don't get better soon, it's hard to come up with an argument for bringing him back for one more year. He is extended through the 2029 campaign, though, and money tends to drive these decisions.
Kurt Suzuki, Los Angeles Angels
The goal: ... stage a coup?
Really, Suzuki might be the single deadest man walking on this list. It was bad enough that he was only signed to a one-year contract over the offseason, but the fact that the Angels have been so bad this season — bad enough to see a changing of the guard in the front office, with John Mozeliak taking over for Perry Minasian — suggests a full-scale overhaul in the coming winter.
Recent reporting suggests Mozeliak will almost certainly become the next lead exec in Anaheim, and he'll almost certainly want to install his own man (Albert Pujols?) in the dugout to implement his vision. L.A. slogging through another miserable season will do nothing to convince him to keep Suzuki around.
Tony Vitello, San Francisco Giants
The goal: Win at least 70 games
After an extremely shaky start in which he looked very much like a college coach with zero Major League experience under his belt, Vitello has managed to be a relatively normal manager over the last couple of months. Of course, it hasn't helped his team much, as San Francisco is currently 2-7 in the month of August and sold at the deadline.
But Vitello's boss, Buster Posey, isn't going anywhere. And it's worth remembering that Vitello was his handpicked guy less than 12 months ago. There was always going to be a learning curve, but Vitello has tamped down on the gaffes in front of microphones and has handled a turbulent clubhouse relatively well. If he can get to 70 wins — essentially going .500 from here on out — the bet here is Posey gives him a year two before having to admit defeat.
Dan Wilson, Seattle Mariners
The goal: Win the AL West
Wilson was good enough in an interim capacity late in 2024 to earn the full-time job, and he won 90 games and got Seattle to Game 7 of the ALCS in his first full year in charge. But really, the Mariners reached that point almost in spite of their manager, not because of him, and he's been an active deterrent to success as the team has disappointed in 2026.
This is still, on paper at least, an extremely dangerous team. But Wilson has yet to find solutions that will allow them to stack wins consistently. And given how pressing it is for Seattle to capitalize on this contention window with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Julio Rodriguez and others smack in their primes, I'm not sure what the argument would be to keep him if he can't get this team back to October.
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