If nothing else, Brian Cashman is honest.

It's part of what makes him such a successful general manager, and why a network like ESPN would want to secure him for an interview.

On Monday, ESPN's SportsCenter rolled into Tampa, Florida for Yankees spring training and sat down with the lead Yankees decision maker.

When the subject turned to first-year manager Aaron Boone, Cashman used a NASA analogy to illustrate how the managerial position has changed over the years.

Yes, Yankees fans: Boone is the franchise's star astronaut heading into 2018

"I liken it to NASA and a space shuttle," Cashman said. "We're building a space shuttle. In our case, it's going to be less than a $197M space shuttle this year. At the end of the day, we're building a space shuttle. We've got a mission. We need an astronaut with specialized skills to fly that space shuttle and take us where we want to go. Expecting--like anything else in life--things aren't going to go the way its planned.

"You're going to stay in touch with mission control all the way. And we'll provide you players along the way--ones you may not even know much about because they'll be playing in Scranton or they're playing in Trenton or acquired in trades or from scouting recommendations. We're going to have to tell you why the guy is here to help close the gap on it."

Then Cashman explained what he expects from Boone after Mission Control (the front office) hands over the players.

"But the astronauts specialty is to plug-and-play, in-game decisions," Cashman said. "So we're trying to hire people with the skills to do those things. But we're not turning the keys over. The astronaut isn't the whole space program. I think the industry has recognized that so many things go into this to putting a team on the field.

"The manager is a huge piece of the puzzle, but one piece of the puzzle. The manager isn't the whole space program. I think that's the difference now."

Cashman's decision to move on from Joe Girardi in favor of Boone was one of the most controversial moments of the offseason. With expectations heating up, we'll soon see if Cashman chose the right astronaut to fly the space shuttle into orbit.

Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.