There’s been way too much ink (and even more gigabytes) spent on the Yankees’ massive “flaw” of hitting too many home runs. Now, it’s true that teams can sometimes be way too obsessed with the long ball. But I’m going to show why this does not apply to this year’s Bronx Bombers.
When a player gets into trouble swinging for the fences, he will generally hit a lot of fly ball outs. Extrapolating that across the team, you’d expect a club being derided like these Yankees are to have the same flaw. Unfortunately for those looking for a story, this is just simply not the case.
According to Fangraphs, the Yankees lead the majors in HR/FB, which is the rate at which fly balls go for home runs. For every 100 fly balls this team has hit, 15.5 have left the yard. Further, they are only hitting fly balls 37.2% of the time, which is just 13th out 30 major league clubs. So not only are they not obsessively swinging for the fences, but out of the balls they have put in the air, they have been the most efficient at knocking them out.
Another symptom of desperate home run hitting is a high strikeout total. Not only are they once again close to the middle of the pack with 327, but they are also 4th in the league with a .54 BB/K rate, showing the patience this team has exemplified under Kevin Long. All this has also helped to create their 5th-ranked .333 OBP.
So when exactly can there be a home run problem? Either the homers can be coming at a high cost in outs, or not coming at all. This Yankee offense has neither such issue. Their abundance of home runs is the result of a team putting together good at bats and ending them with solidly struck hits. There’s no unsustainable measure of luck involved in that.
Besides, did the pop-ups and booted grounders of that highly touted 8th inning vs. the Mets really impress you more than moonshots?
The Truest Yankee 
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