Yankees GM Denies Team Is Run By ‘Analytics,’ But Maybe It Should Be

The New York Yankees missed the postseason entirely in 2023 after a disappointing ALCS loss to the Houston Astros in 2022.

With well over a decade since the team’s last World Series and a mediocre roster, disastrous free agent signings and seeming lack of investment, many fans have been calling for general manager Brian Cashman’s job.

Some of those fans have suggested that the Yankees’ front office reliance on analytics is responsible for their seeming decline. A suggestion that Cashman roundly rejected Tuesday during the GM meetings.

“No one is doing their deep dives, they’re just throwing bull**** and accusing us of being run analytically. To be said we’re guided by analytics as a driver is a lie.”

It’s hard to be more forceful than that!

There’s just one problem though - what if the Yankees are struggling because they don’t use analytics?

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 4: General Manager, Brian Cashman talks to Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees before the game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Yankee Stadium on April 4, 2023. (Photo by New York Yankees/Getty Images)

Yankees Problems Go Deeper Than One Issue

“Analytics” is often used as an inaccurate bogeyman for fans unhappy with the modern game. But in practice, it simply represents evaluating players, situations and roster construction with all of the available information.

And in the past 5 to 7 years, the teams that use analytics the most have generally been more successful.

The Dodgers have been baseball’s most dominant regular season team since 2017, followed closely by the Astros. Those two teams might be the most analytically inclined organizations in the sport.

The Astros in particular have made the ALCS for seven consecutive seasons, something Yankees fans would be thrilled with.

Arguably the team’s worst move, trading for Giancarlo Stanton, who now looks like a permanently injured shell of his former self, contradicted “analytics,” which cautions against trading for aging players with one specific skill set and no positional defensive value.

By contrast, their best player, Aaron Judge, is an analytics monster; someone who gets on base, hits for power, and contributes above average defense.

The Yankees have a lot of needs, lots of money committed to mediocre players, and not a great free agent class. Things may not get better quickly, but their best path forward in the years ahead may in fact be putting more towards the analytics Cashman seems to despise.