Many people are criticizing the New York Yankees, but what may be more concerning for the team is a coach helping their star player Aaron Judge.
Richard Schenck, a personal hitting coach who counts Judge among his clients, responded to an X post on Thursday with a critique of the New York player’s offensive development amid a 13-game losing skid in 17 games.
They lost 13 of 18 while he hits like an MVP
The Yankees’ offensive player development is terrible.
– Richard Schenck, JFD PPP LQC TTE (@Teacherman1986) July 4, 2024
A day later, Yankees manager Aaron Boone responded to Schenk’s criticism while speaking to reporters, essentially ignoring his assessment.
“People are going to say things and certainly everyone is entitled to their opinion,” Boone said. “Especially when you go through a rough patch and you wear that uniform, I know people are going to get shot at and stuff like that.
“You can’t be totally consumed by all these things. We have enough to worry about, making sure we are paying attention and doing our best every day. So that’s the focus.”
The judge also responded, confirming that he meets with Schenck every two weeks. He refused to respond to criticism of his organization. Also via Hoch:
“It doesn’t involve me, to be honest,” Judge said. “It’s someone else making a comment. I’m not going to comment for someone else. …I have no control over what someone else does. It’s out of my control. I have nothing for you.
What’s uncomfortable for the Yankees is that Schenck is right.
Even with the drop, the Yankees still entered Friday 54-35 and in good position to make the playoffs, provided they play decent baseball again. Most of their success can be attributed to a rotation that ranks sixth in MLB in ERA and fourth in innings pitched, a decent bullpen, and the two generational talents on their roster, Judge and Juan Soto.
Both sluggers are strong MVP candidates. The rest of the lineup, however, is extraordinarily sparse.
OPS+ is a statistic that calculates how a player’s OPS compares to the league average when taking into account the parks and season in which he plays. A 100 OPS+ denotes a league average player, a 125 OPS+ denotes a player who is 25% better than average, and a 75 OPS+ denotes a player who is 25% worse than average.
Here is the complete list of hitters on the Yankees’ active roster with an OPS+ of 100 or better with 50+ plate appearances: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto.
All other players are worse than league average. The next best player is Alex Verdugo, who is currently slashing .248/.305/.398, which equates to an OPS+ of 97. Giancarlo Stanton (120 OPS+) would help, but he remains on the injured list due to a hamstring strain .
Thus, the Yankees’ offense is almost exclusively driven by Schenck’s client and an already established superstar that New York paid a premium to acquire. Schenck probably could have been even tougher.
