Mark Leiter Jr.'s return to Yankee Stadium couldn't have been funnier in wake of report

One of the biggest tormentors of New York Yankees fans over the past couple of seasons wasn't someone from outside the organization. Instead, it was reliever Mark Leiter Jr., who ostensibly was acquired to provide value in the middle innings and instead subtracted it to the tune of -0.7 WAR during his pinstriped tenure.

Leiter Jr. was mercifully non-tendered this offseason as New York reshaped its bullpen with an addition by subtraction strategy. On his way out the door, Leiter Jr. hit the Yankees with comments (per a report via insider Bob Klapisch) claiming that they ruined him by refusing to use him in high-leverage situations.

His return to the Bronx on Monday night gave him the opportunity to prove the Yankees wrong. He entered the game in the bottom of the eighth with the A's clinging to a 3-1 lead. He'd give up three straight singles and allowed a run before getting the first out of the inning, a Jazz Chisholm flyout.

Amed Rosario then walked into the batter's box and clocked a three-run dinger to left off of Leiter Jr., giving the Yankees a 5-3 lead, which would end up being the final score.

The stats prove the Yankees were right to avoid using Mark Leiter Jr. in high-leverage situations

It's one thing to say that you can perform in high-leverage situations, but it's another thing to actually do it. The 35-year-old has thrown 356 2/3 innings over his career, with just 57 1/3 of those frames coming in high-leverage situations.

Under those conditions, he's allowed a .286 batting average against, a .350 wOBA (for reference, Trent Grisham posted a .353 wOBA last season), and posted a 12.2% walk rate. All three of those marks are significantly worse than what he's done in low-and-medium-leverage environments. His FIP in high leverage is 4.23 as well, further proving that he hasn't been good.

Part of the job of a high-leverage reliever is being able to come in and get out of jams that guys further down the pecking order created before the game gets out of hand. The veteran righty was terrible at that last season, allowing 15 of the 36 runners he inherited to score. That's a whopping 41.67 failure rate, and those runs get charged to the reliever originally allowed them to reach base, making Leiter Jr. look even more abysmal than his 4.84 ERA suggested.

It feels nice to be on the other side of a Leiter Jr. meltdown for once. The Athletics will soon demote Leiter from these sorts of situations considering he's already blown back-to-back opportunities and cost his team two wins.