STATS DON’T LIE FOR YANKS
Five trends Bombers need to change in 2022
The Yankees love to tout their analytical prowess.
In recent years, the team has dedicated millions of dollars to its analytics department, a shadow operation whose impact is hard to understand from afar. Where the Yankees once fixed problems with dollar-sign shaped spackle, they now try to fill the holes with numbers and data.
While much of the analytics team’s job is likely focused on scouting reports (i.e., researching how a certain Yankees hurler’s pitch shapes and location tendencies will play against certain hitters), they are also acutely aware of the statistical categories where the club is falling behind. The real way for the analytics employees to earn their money would be applying the in-game data from the iPads and hi-tech cameras to fix the statistical areas where the Yankees are lacking.
Unfortunately for them, there isn’t just one area to address. Even worse, there isn’t a magic wand to turn all of the bad into good overnight, and club employees aren’t even permitted to speak to the players right now.
When they are able to reconvene, one would imagine the numbers guys and the on-field guys will put their heads together and try to solve the following issues.
HOW TO HIT RIGHTIES
Anyone with access to the YES Network realized that the Yankees were trotting out a hilariously imbalanced lineup last year. Prior to the Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo trades, there were nights when Brett Gardner or Rougned Odor were the only left-handed hitters in the lineup. A predominantly right-handed batting order meant season-long futility against right-handed pitchers.
The Yankees, as a team, hit .230 against righties. Not only is that hard to fathom given their collective talent level (and payroll), it also ranked 27th out of 30 teams and would have placed lower if not for the dreadful Diamondbacks and Orioles. According to FanGraphs, the Yankees were 3% worse than the average team when a right-hander was on the mound. This is, obviously, a huge problem when most of the league’s pitchers use their right hand.
A popular complaint from the fans — “Just put the ball in play!” — applies especially to this problem. The Yankees struck out in 24.9% of their plate appearances against right-handed throwers, the sixth-highest percentage of any team in the league. Simply putting the ball in play is much easier said than done, but that’s a great place to start when it comes to this issue, whether that means altered swing approaches or adding more lefties to the roster.
GETTING HOME SAFELY
In addition to the glut of right-handed hitters, another one of the 2021 Yankees’ problems was visibly apparent. You didn’t need advanced sabermetrics to see that the team was awful at baserunning.
This problem came to a head in the Wild Card Game when Phil Nevin famously waved Aaron Judge home, sending him straight into a rally-killing out. Nevin has since been fired, and new third base coach Luis Rojas now has the task of keeping the Yankees from running into outs.
The Bombers made 50 outs on the bases, giving them the fifth-highest total in the game. A staggering 22 of those outs came on plays at the plate, tying them with Kansas City for the dubious league lead. That obviously cannot continue, but Nevin’s often ill-fated aggressiveness could have also been tied to another statistical problem that needs repairing.
RUNNERS IN SCORING POSITION
Perhaps Nevin windmilled everybody home out of fear that the next guy wouldn’t be able to get them in from third.
The Yankees could only muster a .238 batting average and .699 OPS with runners in scoring position. They were 14% worse than league average in this respect, and it was even worse with two outs. As the pressure mounted, the Yankees shrunk. In two-out, runner-in-scoring-position scenarios, the batting average drooped to .215 with a .643 OPS.
This is one of those statistics that could be more of a random, context-based situation than an inherent problem. The 2019 team hit a tremendous .294 with runners in scoring position and were 25% better than the league. Even getting halfway back to that number would go a long way in 2022.
CHANGE IS HARD
According to FanGraphs’ tracking data, the Yankees were the worst team in the entire league against one particular pitch.
At negative-25.7 runs above average, the team was consistently choke slammed by changeups. Identifying the roots of this decaying tree should be of top priority for new hitting coach Dillon Lawson, as well as Eric Chavez and Casey Dykes, the two new assistants brought in underneath him.
Some of the worst offenders were DJ LeMahieu, Gary Sanchez and Judge. Per Baseball
Savant, each of those three hit .181 or worse against offspeed pitches. LeMahieu and Sanchez’s well-documented power evaporation can be somewhat traced to their difficulties with changeups. Those two, respectively, slugged a repulsive .243 and .277 on offspeed pitches.
AVOID THE AIR
While pitching was an unquestioned strength in an
otherwise underwhelming season, there is one thing that should be brought to the pitchers’ attention before next season begins.
Playing in Yankee Stadium, where typical fly ball outs become lame home runs, means the staff should make a concerted effort to limit their amount of batted balls in the air. In 2021, the Yankees had the highest fly ball percentage in MLB.
Miraculously, they ranked 20th in home run to fly ball ratio and only 15th in total homers allowed.
That doesn’t seem totally sustainable for a group that was playing with fire all season. Unless there are offseason plans to move the fences back in the Bronx, turning some of those fly balls into harmless grounders would be a great recipe for improved cardiac health.