Meet The New Analyst Who's Going To "fix" The Yankees!

I’ve been stewing on this story for days. I’ve been trying to convince myself the Yankees are going down a better path. A path that helps fix this team…. but I’m just not getting there.

Back in February we heard about the Yankees new analytics analyst HERE. Last week we learned more about his talents HERE and my goodness this man may be a genius. Any organization would be lucky to have this man working for them. He could have his pick of the litter, honestly but….here we are.

In all fairness, our new analyst Aaron Leanhardt has been in the Yankees organization since 2018, so he’s not “new” just new to this role. Leanhardt has a Ph.D in physics from MIT and has spent the last two years as the club’s assistant minor league hitting coordinator after serving as a hitting coach for three low-level affiliates. Is this really the resolution Hal Steinbrenner has from his “deep dive” since last season? This man is clearly brilliant, but why do the Yankees think he is going to fix them?

It feels like this “solution” has been a big part of the problem. According to sources linked above Gerrit Cole has met him and Aaron Judge has recently bonded with him but what is Leanhardt going to implement to help this team hit? Judge said the Yankees “needed to do a better job of funneling analytical data to players in the right format” but why does Leanhardt have that ability? Besides his glowing resume and great reviews from his former students in college, how is he going to translate what he doesn’t understand down to our guys to execute successfully?

It just feels like more of the same to me. What happened to the idea of “information overload?” Because a lot of the analytics stuff is just hot garbage. Stop giving so much mumbo jumbo to these guys. I know the game has changed, but the idea of “see the ball, hit the ball” or “see the ball, field the ball” still applies. The Yankees don’t need more analytics…. they need someone to teach fundamentals again. That is what will help them hit and score.

Leanhardt is clearly a brilliant man. I have no doubt he can help run important labs for scientific research or make groundbreaking discoveries with NASA, but the Yankees need a true baseball mind. This hybrid junk of analytics and baseball hasn’t worked. 

I admire your work Leanhardt, I just don’t think it should be continued on the baseball field. I will be more than happy to be wrong and admit it later, though. We’re all tired of losing, so here’s to hoping this doesn’t end in failure again. If it does…. will the Yankees finally learn their lesson?

–Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

BYB Senior Managing Editor

Twitter: @nyprincessj