The Yankees are turning toward some minor-league prospects in Oswald Peraza and Everson Pereira to provide some sort of spark and optimism as they limp toward the finish line and potential first sub-.500 season since 1992.
But some of the criticism about the Yankees’ massively disappointing season has centered on its inability to develop prospects and its coaching philosophies at the minor-league level.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone did not feel some of the things out there are totally accurate.
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“I saw some of the clips…the one that we don’t care about strikeouts, I don’t know if they’re lying or they just don’t know,” Boone told the “Talkin’ Yanks” podcast on Tuesday. “We’re in middle of the pack strikeouts and we’re [still] struggling.”
Among some of the criticism toward the Yankees came from former farmhand Ben Ruta, who wrote told the “Foul Territory” podcast about the Yankees’ obsession with exit velocities and heavy reliance on analytics rather than teaching fundamental baseball.
Ex-Yankee Erik Kratz was on the podcast, who was also critical of the way the organization handled pitching prospect Deivi Garcia, who was recently designated for assignment.
Boone acknowledged that there is some fair criticism and the team is always looking inward at ways to improve, but he also noted that “fact, fiction and emotion” need to be separated from it.
“Everyone is going to come knocking at the door ready to critique and understandably [so],” Boone said. “We gotta accept that and look inward at some of the things we can try and do better…I think you can look at any organization and probably go find a minor league player that came up in the organization that is no longer playing that may have a critique.
“I have heard that we’re teaching hitters to hit the ball hard, like, we want hitters to hit the ball hard. Is it fair game to question or shine a light on certain things, whether it be myself, the organization or development, I get it. We’re the Yankees; that’s fair game. You also want to separate fact, fiction, emotion from like everything just like … you want to run to something and say something and that’s not really true, though.”
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