Copyright Heavy.
The New York Yankees found Travis Chapman’s replacement. The Yankees will reportedly hire in-house assistant coach Dan Fiorito to be their first-base coach for the 2026 season, which will round out manager Aaron Boone’s staff for next year. Chapman had been the first-base coach and infield coach before he was let go by the team, along with bullpen coach Mike Harkey, shortly after the Yankees’ season was ended by the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Division Series. According to NJ.com, Fiorito was chosen over Ryan Goins, a former major-league player who had been the bench coach of the Los Angeles Angels under previous manager Ron Washington. Dan Fiorito Is A Former Yankees Prospect From New York Fiorito, 35, is a Yonkers native who went to high school at Fordham Prep and played baseball at Manhattanville College. So not only is he a Yankees lifer, he is a New York-or-nowhere type. Fiorito spent four years in the Yankees’ minor-league system as an infielder and advanced as high as Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre. He played 326 minor-league game, with 25 coming in Triple-A, and accrued a .624 OPS and seven home runs. Fiorito has served as a minor-league coach and manager with the Yankees since his playing days ended after the 2016 season. He cut his teeth in Single-A before he managed the Florida Coast League Yankees, Staten Island Yankees and Hudson Valley Renegades from 2019-21 — though he never actually managed Staten Island in 2020 due to the minor-league season’s cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiorito took over as manager of the Double-A Somerset Patriots in 2022 and guided them to the Eastern League championship that year. He also earned Eastern League Manager of the Year honors, while helping develop prospects like Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells, each of whom is in the majors now. Since 2023, Fiorito has been a roving minor-league infield/outfield coordinator. The Yankees 2026 Coaching Staff Is Now Set With Fiorito, and assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel’s return from the New York Mets which was announced earlier this off-season, the Yankees’ coaching staff appears full. So for all the fire-Boone types, your off-season has officially been ruined. Still, continuity is a good thing for the Yankees, especially since Boone has had some of the best regular-season success of any Yankees manager. He ranks eighth among 33 Yankees managers in win percentage (.584) and is seventh all-time in regular-season wins (697), while also guiding them to the playoffs in six of the past seven years, and of course, the 2024 World Series title. The Yankees have finished with an above-.500 record in a pro-sports-record 32 straight years, a streak that dates back to 1993. Granted, every manager above Boone on the Yankees’ wins list has won the World Series, plus Billy Martin who is ninth on the all-time managerial-wins list over his four tenures with the team. Boone, of course, is deservedly maligned for his inability to push New York to that ever-elusive 28th World Series. But the fact is, it’s never been harder to win the World Series than it is for the Yankees now, given the parity and number of rounds/games teams must win to hoist the title.
