Yankees wont open books to outside analytics firm, as Mike Fishman talks about teams issues

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The New York Yankees don’t want outsiders to see their state secrets. Michael Fishman, the Yankees’ assistant general manager, said at MLB’s Winter Meetings on Monday that the team’s relationship with Zelus Analytics is one-sided.

The Yankees have a partnership with Zelus where they’re able to view their work product, but the analytics company isn’t able to see the team’s processes.

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“We are not opening our books at all,” Fishman said. “We’re getting access to what they’ve done; they’re not getting access to what we’ve done. It’ll be on us to determine how to use their work and how to use our work and decide what to use, when and (what) adjustments to make. But they’re not doing an audit of us.”

It will likely take “many months,” according to Fishman, before possible changes are made to how the Yankees’ analytics department operates. It’s entirely possible that any changes won’t be made until next offseason.

“It’s not something we’re going to have answers for right away because a lot of the work we’ve done internally, it’s taken many years to develop and test,” Fishman said. “It’s a long process and not something that we want to rush into.”

The Yankees’ analytics have become a hot-button issue around the team, especially after general manager Brian Cashman went scorched-earth last month against the department’s critics at the GM meetings. He disagreed with the perception that the organization was too analytically driven, and lamented how the team suffered, in some cases, from a lack of buy-in because of how unsuccessful the team was this year.

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge told reporters in October that he believed the team might be looking at the “wrong” numbers. Recently retired relief pitcher and former Yankee Zack Britton said he believed the team needed to do a better job of being more well-rounded in terms of how it attacks opponents. After winning the American League Cy Young, Gerrit Cole mentioned how he wanted the team to have as much of an understanding of underlying analytical data as possible.

That leads to questions about whether the Yankees have done a good enough job of communicating which numbers should matter to players. At least one player, a league source said, uses a non-Yankees analytics group to help him do his job better.

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“We’ve never done a good enough job,” Fishman said when asked about educating players on analytics. “We always could have done better. I think there were definitely some things that we could have explained better or educated better, (such as) why we value certain metrics, why something could be telling the story of what happened in the past and not pretty predictive of what happens in the future.”

Zelus won’t be helping the Yankees fix their communication issues; that’s something that will have to be done internally. The Yankees are only looking at Zelus’ statistical models, so any changes made to how analytical reports are given to players will have to be a separate process. Fishman acknowledged that he, director of quantitative analysis David Grabner and other staff members have had discussions with players to gather feedback on what needs to improve and that “there are changes we have decided that we plan to make but haven’t fully implemented.”

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner told reporters last month that “big changes” would be coming to the organization. So far, none of those stated big changes have been revealed. Fishman said there are some cases where tweaks are needed and some cases where “overhauls are needed,” but he wouldn’t specify what areas needed significant change. When asked if he felt the analytics department feels pressure to deliver “big changes” to the roster, Fishman said the goal is to just put together the best possible team.

“You can’t overreact and make a bad move because of the pressure,” Fishman said. “You still have to kind of make the best decisions for the franchise.”

Some of the team’s recent signings and trades haven’t worked out, namely Josh Donaldson, Joey Gallo, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Carlos Rodón. That’s led to intense external criticism of how the Yankees evaluate players and questions about whether their models are outdated. Fishman doesn’t believe that’s the case.

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“I don’t think so, because we have continued to try to adjust and test so when we develop a model and we’re having success with it and relying on it, we don’t just say all right this is great, let’s keep using it,” Fishman said. “We continue to test that model and see if there are adjustments that need to be made to it. So even some of the models we’ve had success with, there have been tweaks over the years to make it a little better. So it’s not something we just kind of rely on and say, ‘Hey, this is successful, let’s use it.'”

Considering Cashman’s passionate defense of the group and the lack of a full-scale audit of the department, it ultimately seems the Yankees have full confidence in how they use their analytics.

“(Cashman) recognizes the work the analytics department has done,” Fishman said. “I think he understands that the analytics department has created a lot of really good information, tools and recommendations over the years.”

(Top photo of Brian Cashman and Aaron Judge: New York Yankees / Getty Images)

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