The New York Yankees are bad at baseball fundamentals. That's the reason for their summer slide, and the root cause of all their ills. Defensive miscues and baserunning blunders have become commonplace, and have been the primary reason they've underachieved.
That's the narrative we've been told, and we have all seen it with our own eyes. There's no way it can't be true, right? Well, not exactly.
A review of key defense and baserunning statistics put together by Paul Hembekides and shared by Buster Olney on X calls everything we know about the Yankees and their struggles with little league fundamentals into question.