SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Coming soon to the Yankees’ player development process: a bigger emphasis on bunting.
In a bizarre moment during his Zoom press conference with reporters on Tuesday, while he was being pressed for specifics on substantial changes the Yankees might make, Hal Steinbrenner finally offered an example.
“So one thing that was discussed in August is bunting — I think Aaron Boone thinks that we’re not teaching the young players to bunt enough,” Steinbrenner said.
Steinbrenner went on to say that, yes, in line with where the game was heading a few years ago, the Yankees “cut back on the bunting skills” in the minor leagues.
“But Aaron Boone feels it’s becoming a bigger part of the game again,” Steinbrenner said. “He feels it’s important. So we’re gonna start right up again at the player development level, with everything we were doing a few years ago.”
Hours later, during his fiery hour-long defense of the organization, Brian Cashman brought up bunting during an answer about critics unfairly piling on the Yankees during a rough year.
“You hear about how we don’t bunt enough — we didn’t lose 80 games because we didn’t bunt enough,” Cashman said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t adjust. We’re teaching bunting. I know Hal talked about that on your call. That’s not why we lost in ’23. It’s not. It’s not that we don’t practice bunting in the minor leagues, either, although we are low in the in-game use of bunting. That was something that was raised. It’s not a big key issue for us.”
In August, former Yankees minor leaguer Ben Ruta criticized the organization’s overreliance on analytics and lack of teaching fundamentals.
Cashman fired back on Tuesday, referring to him as “bitter boy” and criticizing the media for amplifying his claims.
“You guys gave him a platform, this organizational player that’s in all the papers ripping away on what’s wrong with our player development department as he flushed out with us and wound up in another organization … and he wasn’t even as good there as he was with us,” Cashman said. “Citing HitFX as our important numbers and saying it doesn’t include strikeouts — he doesn’t even know that it does include strikeouts.
“But he’s getting a platform and everybody sings about what ails the Yankees, and it’s like, how is this even happening?” an exasperated Cashman continued. “It’s embarrassing to have stuff like that play out.”
Cashman said the Yankees were still going through the process to determine whether their full major league coaching staff would be back next season.
At the very least, they will have a new hitting coach (expected to be James Rowson but not yet official) and new bench coach after Carlos Mendoza left to become the Mets manager.
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