...Because losing the big games shouldn't stand in the way of a successful career.

I've found the perfect replacement for New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone: United States Senator John Thune.

And while we're at it, let's send Boone to Washington to lead the Senate Republicans.

Neither institution would notice much difference. And both men would feel right at home.

Consider the similarities.

The New York Yankees are among the most valuable franchises in professional sports. They generate mountains of revenue, fill stadium seats, sell merchandise around the world, and employ enough analysts to calculate the precise probability that a left-handed batter will foul off a 2-2 slider on a rainy Tuesday in September.

What they don't do, at least since 2009, is win the World Series.

But why should that matter? The organization is thriving! The brand is strong! The spreadsheets are magnificent!

Aaron Boone has mastered the art of managing an enormously successful institution that regularly disappoints the people who actually care whether it wins.

Enter John Thune.

The Senate Republicans have just suffered a political shellacking. They've lost their majority, surrendered seats across the country, and face a difficult road back to power.

Naturally, their first order of business is to reelect the same leadership.

No need for a heated debate about what went wrong. No need for an insurgent candidate demanding a new direction. No need to ask whether the men who managed the losing season should be entrusted with the next one.

Just gather the boys in a room, close the doors, cast a few secret ballots, and congratulate yourselves on another successful leadership election.

It's the Yankee Way. Without the pinstripes.

To be fair, neither Boone nor Thune is personally responsible for every defeat. Boone doesn't swing the bat, and Thune doesn't appear on every state's ballot.

But somewhere along the way, both organizations seem to have developed a peculiar understanding of accountability: when the team loses, the players, circumstances, and occasionally the fans are to blame. When the institution prospers, management deserves another contract.

The Yankees have reduced much of baseball to an elaborate exercise in statistical optimization. Every matchup is calculated, every decision justified by data, every failure explained by the probabilities.

The trouble with probabilities is that they make excellent explanations for why you lost. They are considerably less satisfying to the guy who paid $300 for a seat and watched his team strike out with the bases loaded.

Washington has its own version of analytics. Consultants, pollsters, strategists, fundraising specialists, and legislative tacticians can explain precisely why a Republican Senate candidate lost by 1.7 percentage points in a state Donald Trump carried two years earlier.

The explanation will be sophisticated. The PowerPoint will be beautiful. And the consultants will be back next cycle.

Perhaps that's the real secret of institutional longevity: Never confuse losing the game with losing your job.

I can already picture Thune in the Yankees dugout.

Bottom of the ninth. Two outs. Bases loaded. Down by one.

The fans are screaming for something bold.

Thune calmly calls a meeting of the veteran players, carefully considers the views of the clubhouse leadership, and announces that the team has reached a bipartisan agreement to preserve the existing batting order.

After the final strikeout, he congratulates everyone on a hard-fought effort and promises to continue building consensus. "We got this... we're this close."

Meanwhile, Boone would fit beautifully in the Senate.

He could explain that the Republican conference had excellent underlying metrics, that the electoral losses were statistically anomalous, and that the fundamentals of the organization remained sound.

Asked whether he intended to change strategy, he would reply that the team simply needed to execute better.

He'd be reelected unanimously.

Of course, there is one important difference between the Yankees and Senate Republicans.

The Yankees have won 27 World Series championships. Their fans remember what winning looks like.

Senate Republicans, on the other hand, may be discovering that the most important election isn't the one held in November. It's the one held behind closed doors a week later.

And in that election, the incumbents rarely strike out.

So I hereby nominate John Thune as the next manager of the New York Yankees.

He's experienced. He's respected. He knows how to work with ownership. He won't make unnecessary waves. And he understands that the most important thing about a disappointing season is maintaining confidence in the leadership team.

As for Aaron Boone, there's an office waiting for him in the United States Capitol.

He already knows the essential rule of Washington:

You don't have to win the championship. You just have to survive the season.

Play ball.