I don't get it.

 

Another weekend, another failure to score more than 6 total runs in a series or homer even once, playing a mediocre team in a bandbox ballpark.

Another game lost on a silly error by silly Gleyber Torres, well on his way to his second straight year leading all AL second basemen in miscues. He also led all AL shortstops in errors, when he played that position, with 9 in the shortened, 2020 Covid season. He is also on track for his 3rd season in 7 with more errors (17) than home runs (12).

He also looks most games as though he is trying to remember the words to "Wichita Lineman."

Incredibly, Gleyber has only 2 homers and 6 doubles in the 39 games he's played since July 24th. He has driven in only 17 runs in that time, 12 of them coming in just 5 games, meaning that in the other 34 contests, he has just 5 ribbies.

In that same time, Gleyber has also raised his batting average from .232 to .247, so I suppose this might be interpreted as an attempt to rein in his swinging for the fences, particularly once he became our leadoff man, and to concentrate on getting on base. (He also has a relatively constrained 28 strikeouts and what is—for him—an impressive 23 walks in this time.) 

But by no means could Gleyber be considered an on-base machine; indeed, his OBP has increased only from .308 to .325 in this time. So what's the deal?

Turning to The Vertiginous One, Flopsie has hit exactly 1 home run since July 6th. In that same time, he has exactly 9 doubles. In those 49 games, he has 11 RBI.

Nor can this be blamed on more circumspect hitting. Flopsie's BA has dropped from .246 to .235 in that time and his OBP from .300 to just .295, as he has 19 walks and 35 strikeouts. Plus, of course, contributing the most disastrous error of the season thus far.

So is this analytics, or snot?  

Where the hell is the supposed, analytic payoff of swinging for the fences all the time? Half this Yankees team—or more—couldn't find a fence with a radar system, never mind a batted ball. They couldn't reach a fence if they were following Tom Sawyer with a bucket of whitewash. They couldn't find a fence if they were reading the words to "Don't Fence Me In."

(Thank you! And please remember your waitresses—they'll remember you.)

All of this endless malarkey about the Yankees' supersmart, brainiac understanding of the new game, and they have maybe three real power hitters on this team, in Judge, Soto, and Wells. With two of them slumping, they're lost.

Just as the Yanks' "Gas Station" fueled up only broken arms and broken careers, their version of "analytics" churns out player after player, year after year, who can hit for neither average NOR power.

I say it's snot.