WHY THE WARRIOR SHOULD BE THE YANKEES HITTING COACH

Source: The Canadian Press

The Yankees have been awful to watch. Well, I don't have to tell you that. After Friday's loss against the Blue Jays, the Yankees have lost 13 games in a 16-game span in a single season for just the third time in the Wild Card Era (May-June 1995, Sept.-Oct. 2000). Saturday's loss made it 14. But, today is Paul O'Neill Day at the Stadium. If anything or anyone can wake up these corpses it has to be the Warrior. What is more interesting is listening to O'Neill diagnose the Yankee hitting woes from the booth. It got me thinking. Why isn't he the Yankee hitting coach? 

Paul O'Neill was the American League batting champion in the strike-shortened 1994 season batting .359. O'Neill spent the first eight seasons of his career with the Cincinnati Reds where he was a World Series champion in 1990 and an All-Star in 1991. Over his career, O'Neill batted .288 with 2,105 hits, 281 home runs, 1,269 runs batted in and an OPS of .833 over 2,053 games played.

About a year ago NJ.com interviewed O'Neill as if he was the manager of the New York Yankees.
"If O’Neill had Aaron Boone’s job, he’d be making a few hitters drastically change their approach to reflect who they should be at the plate.  Says O'Neill: “If you were a manager and you take this team, I’ll have (Luke) Voit, Stanton and Judge in my office, ‘You guys, I need you to hit home runs.’ “Then I’m going to take LeMahieu, Torres and Urshela and say, ‘Guys, I need you to be .300 hitters. I need you to drive the ball all over the place and keep the ball in play.’ Fast forward to today, you will hear the Warrior diagnose Aaron Hicks' hitting mechanics, and replace Urshela with Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Voit with Anthony Rizzo. He knows hitting. Maybe he needs to step out of the booth and into the clubhouse. 

"The worrying Warrior figures if you give Yankees hitters specific roles, there’d be more guys on base for the big boys, and they’d probably be putting crooked numbers up a lot more often.“If you break it down to that, I think you’re going to have a much more balanced team than everybody going up with the same approach,” O’Neill said. “Does that make sense?” reported NJ.com. I would say absolutely. 

Balance. Everyone has a role. And just better managing. I just don't understand how Aaron Boone makes his choices? A computer makes the lineup. He pinch hits players when no one is on base. And he runs his pitching staff down to nothing by having a new pitcher every inning. I mean, if the Yankees tied the game in the 9th, I often wonder who would pitch the 10th? Aaron Judge?

Guys like O'Neill call the game straight. They use their wisdom from many years of playing to provide color and perspective. I would love that wisdom to get to the guy who needs help at the plate. Every team goes through slumps. But this team has a systemic issue that starts in the manager's seat and ends in the bullpen. Let's get the Warrior in to work with the hitters and CC Sabathia in to work with the pitchers. I will save that perspective for next time. For now, let's see if the Warrior's presence at the Stadium can motivate this team to turn the corner and start winning again. 

--Suzie Pinstripe
BYB Senior Managing Editor
Twitter: @suzieprof