Yankees analytics department must explain ‘not liking’ Hoy Jun Park

The New York Yankees could still use a kick in the teeth despite a recent offensive surge — which has happened, whether you believe it or not.

Not coincidentally, that slight dead cat bounce coincided with the absence of two of their biggest underperformers: Clint Frazier, who’s out with vertigo, and Gleyber Torres, who missed several games recently while battling hamstring issues, then returned against the Astros looking slightly rejuvenated.

So how do we fix this? How do we make “increased offense” permanent? Plenty of Yankees fans have their eyes on immediate Triple-A upgrades, like the versatile Hoy Jun Park, who’s finally coming up to the Bronx on Thursday after a rash of COVID positives in the clubhouse.

It seems the team doesn’t agree — specifically, the team’s analytics department.

We’re not sure what this all means, but according to Bob Klapisch — who knows this team pretty well — the Yankees’ analytics department isn’t exactly enamored with Park, who’s OPSing 1.106 at Triple-A with a .323 average and nine bombs.

They’ve also been moving Park all over the infield and outfield in recent weeks, so we could really use an explanation for that if they really don’t like him much!

Does the Yankees analytics department really hate Hoy Jun Park?

You have to wonder if Klapisch editorialized the “analytics department” portion of the quote just to get a rise out of Yankees fans, who’ve already boiled themselves into a froth.

It did, however, take an awfully long time to get him to the bigs and test out the fit (and he’s still only on the taxi squad), and it likely never would’ve happened without a pair of position player absences poised to throw this whole season into a ravine.

Perhaps the team doesn’t like the player’s future as much as a sect of increasingly desperate fans do. That’s fine. But if the analytics department has really made an overarching determination on a player who’s done nothing but get results this year, that stings and feels out of place.

It’s especially jarring because…well, if they don’t view him highly, then they’re certainly wasting a lot of his time begging him to prove his versatility! In recent weeks, Park has started repeatedly in center field, then spent Wednesday’s doubleheader in both left and at shortstop.

Gleyber Torres’ struggles, mixed with his recent hamstring tightness, seemed like a perfect opportunity for a phantom IL stint and a Park audition even before we were tossed up against the wall on Thursday.

If they were instead shuttling him around to every position on the field purely for trade bait purposes, that’s frustrating — and we’re not even involved in the process.

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