Britton: Yankees too data driven
Zack Britton provided an interesting glimpse into how analytics flow in the Yankees organization.
Britton, the former Yankees and Orioles reliever who retired earlier this month, appeared on this week’s episode of “The Show,” The Post’s baseball podcast hosted by Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.
As Yankees fans have grown restless with the combination of missing the playoffs this year and not having won a championship since 2009, Britton was asked whether manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman are the right men for their respective jobs.
Britton, who pitched for the Yankees from 2018-22, complimented Cashman and Boone for their baseball acumen — but was critical of the organization’s use of analytics.
Britton said that Cashman communicated “great” with him personally, but described a general organizational “disconnect” in how analytics are implemented with the team.
“I think sometimes, and this happened with me personally, when analytics comes into play, we get our iPad,” Britton said. “You can go down the rabbit hole with analytics and you can kind of find anything to justify anything, right? The numbers, you can skew them any way to paint the picture you want to paint.
“I think, with Brian, it might just be needing to blend the two a little more. I’m not sure because I’m not really in the front office. I only knew what I saw as a player and what I was exposed to, and I’m not exposed to what’s happening behind closed doors in the front office.”
While he didn’t provide precise details, Britton further described a “rift.”
“So I don’t really know what discussions are going on. I just know that, 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, and what we were seeing on the field as players,” he said.
“Sometimes that creates a rift, which is not what you want. You want from a clubhouse culture standpoint everything to mesh well together — whether that be the communication from the front office, to the play on the field, and I felt that sometimes the two just weren’t connecting well.
“What the players were saying, like, ‘Hey, we should be doing this,’ and ‘This has been working well,’ and then sometimes the way that was implemented through the data didn’t line up, and I don’t think I’m the only player who feels that way.
“But I don’t think it was Brian Cashman or Aaron Boone. I think it’s an organizational thing.”
Aside from their reliance on date, Britton lauded Cashman and Boone and the job they have done.
“I think Brian Cashman’s the longest-tenured GM in the game. He’s a great baseball guy. I’m not so sure you’re gonna find a better baseball guy, a guy that’s experienced multiple ways to win championships,” Britton said.
“Aaron Boone is the same way. You look at the baseball family, and as a player — you’re not gonna really find a better baseball résumé. Booney does a great job with the players. The players love playing for him. Boone’s the right guy for New York. He handles the media well, I think. He communicates with players well. He’s a good manager for the player now that’s coming up, because that’s a new type of player.”