When New York Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge spoke about the imbalance in the batting order and the disconnect between statistics, it certainly brought some key points to light.
At times, it seemed as if the players and management were on different pages, but Judge is keen on giving his feedback and allowing the front office to utilize it from a player’s perspective.
Judge may have a point, specifically regarding how the front office has tried to build the team and the reality of actually playing the game. Via The Show, a New York Post sports podcast, former Yankee closer Zack Britton made a similar connection.
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The Yankees Have a Communication Problem
Britton, who spent more than four years with the Yankees, noticed that some of the things management was presenting were different than what they saw on the field.
“As a player there, a lot of times in the clubhouse, it felt like there was this disconnect between some of the things we were presented with & what we were seeing on the field as players.”
Britton had one of his best seasons as a professional with the Yankees, hosting a 1.91 ERA across 61.1 innings before things took a turn for the worse. He pitched just 19 innings in 2020, 18.1 innings in 2021, and 0.2 innings in 2022. Britton retired this off-season, opening up the door to offering his feedback and experience with the organization.
Britton didn’t have many bad things to say; there were just a few key points that indicated a potential rift in statistical utilization. He had nothing but good things to say about general manager Brian Cashman and his connection to the game.
With Cashman‘s back against the wall coming off a disappointing 2023 season, the expectation is that he will spend his way out bringing in some key free agents and potentially acquiring Juan Soto via trade. However, owner House Steinbrenner has taken a bigger role in trying to find the disconnect between the front office and the product on the field. Most of it seems to be analytical, which may be why the team hired a third party to track their usage of analytics to produce positive results.