2025 Yankee Thread

[moonslav59]

There will be a lot to discuss over the season, but how about starting with the changes to the pitching staff. On the surface, adding Max Fried, someone many Sox fans, including myself hoped we'd sign plus Devon Williams looks like a slam dunk gain. Maybe it is, but we need to look at who the lost from 2024, too. (They also added Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill and Carlos Carrasco to a minor league deal.)

Pitchers lost:

Nestor Cortes: He was the darling of every Yankee fans' eyes from '21-'22 and had a 109 ERA+ in 2024. He's no Max Fried, but he was pretty damn good. He had a 124 ERA+ from '21-'24. He just turned 30.

Clay Holmes: He turns 32, soon, but he's been their horse in the pen for 3 years. 60+ IP all 3 years. Since joining the Yanks in 2021, he has a 2.69 ERA (155 ERA+) and a 1.116 WHIP.

Tommy Kahnle: He turns 36, this year, but has put up good numbers: 40+ IP the last 2 years and since 2022, he has a 2.44 ERA (174 ERA+) and a 1.063 WHIP.

Cody Poteet: A 30 year old with some promise. Had a 2.22 ERA in 24 IP in '24.

I'm not saying the Yanks lost more than they gained, but it may not be the major improvement it's been made out to be.

One could say the loss of Soto and Torres  outweigh the gains on the everyday side plus the pitching net gain.

[bkzwhitestrican]

I would say that I expect the Yankees to be worse this season. Offensively they will probably struggle many games. Judge can only do so much. Stanton is in limbo. Bellinger and Jazz will probably be above average hitters. Everyone else is a question mark. Who knows what to expect from a 36 year old Goldschmidt (at best average production, and at worst a repeat of 2024 Rizzo), Wells was carried by two good months last year so who knows what his output will be, we're still waiting for Volpe to turn into an at least average hitter, and then we're hoping some combination of the kids (Dominguez/Rice/Cabrera/Peraza/Periera) figures it out this season. 

The pitching should be better (assuming good health). On paper the rotation can go toe to toe with any other group in the league. And they better perform that way because they probably won't get a ton of run support. Not worried about the bullpen, they should be solid. Williams/Weaver at the end of the bullpen is elite, and then everyone else is at least average. One thing the Yankees do every year is produce a good bullpen, even with a bunch of nobodies. 

The defense automatically improves without Soto & Rizzo's corpse at least. Baserunning too.

I would project the Yanks to finish with somewhere between 89-92 wins.

[moonslav59]

I went over the pitching adds and subtracts, and it looked like the Yanks might have improved, some, there.

On everyday players:

Lost: Soto (irreplaceable,) Torres, Verdugo, Trevino, Berti & Rizzo

Add:

Soto> Bellinger

Rizzo> Goldschmidt

Torres> more of Chisholm & Cabrera (LeMahieu?)

Verdugo> more from Dominguez & Cabrera

Trevino> Alex Jackson

I see a steep drop, here.

[bkzwhitestrican]

12 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I went over the pitching adds and subtracts, and it looked like the Yanks might have improved, some, there.

On everyday players:

Lost: Soto (irreplaceable,) Torres, Verdugo, Trevino, Berti & Rizzo

Add:

Soto> Bellinger

Rizzo> Goldschmidt

Torres> more of Chisholm & Cabrera (LeMahieu?)

Verdugo> more from Dominguez & Cabrera

Trevino> Alex Jackson

I see a steep drop, here.

I know this is a Red Sox site, but you're either trolling or didn't watch much of the Yanks if you think last year's version of Rizzo is better than anybody, and likewise Verdugo (both are currently jobless) . Even Jazz is an upgrade over last year's version of Gleyber. Losing Soto is of course the biggest loss and the other offensive upgrades won't make up for that loss. 

 

[dgalehouse]

There is nothing the Yankees can do to compensate for the loss of Soto. However, they did make some nice additions. They have to be considered the team to beat in the rather mediocre A.L.  I think the Orioles have not improved and have probably gotten a little worse than they were. The Red Sox have improved and could very well be a factor. As always, injuries will be a difference maker. 

[bkzwhitestrican]

The Sox's roster looks pretty good this season. Crochet takes their rotation up a notch, and the high number of young promising hitters in your system is concerning to me. 

[moonslav59]

22 hours ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

I know this is a Red Sox site, but you're either trolling or didn't watch much of the Yanks if you think last year's version of Rizzo is better than anybody, and likewise Verdugo (both are currently jobless) . Even Jazz is an upgrade over last year's version of Gleyber. Losing Soto is of course the biggest loss and the other offensive upgrades won't make up for that loss. 

 

The "Rizzo>Goldschmidt" statement was not meant to imply Rizzo is better than Goldscmidt. It was meant to denote a change from Rizzo to Goldschmidt. I'm also not sure the players replacing Verdugo will be worse. Jackson might be better than Trevino, too. To me, the drop off from Soto to Bellinger outweighs all other possible gains, and makes your everyday set-up worse than 2024. The loss of Torres is big, too, and you guys had Chisolm for much of 2024, anyway, so it's not a full Chisholm to Torres situation- on paper.

Feel free to disagree.

Sorry for the misuse of the ">" symbol.

I will say, it is not a certainty the 37 year old Goldschmidt will hit over the .637 Rizzo hit in 2024 or the .730 he hit from 2022-2024 at ages 32-35.

[Thunder]

This is the first offseason I can remember in which it seems like nobody in the media is hyping up the Yankees. Should be interesting to see how it all plays out. Cole, Fried and Rodon make for a good top of the rotation, but losing Gil at least for the short-term is a huge loss. Their offense will definitely struggle. Nobody will be pitching to Judge anymore, although after he showed he was an automatic out in the playoffs, maybe pitchers around the league will try to get cute and occasionally throw him a meatball.

 

The make up of this Yankees team reminds me a lot of the Rays teams of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Enough pitching to save the world, but meager offense. In the Rays case, it was always just young and unproven position players. The Yankees seem to have once again loaded up on past-their-prime injury prone players. Should end well. I think the Red Sox have a real shot to win the division. The Yankees certainly got worse, and I think the Orioles did too. 

[Jasonbay44]

 

[bkzwhitestrican]

[moonslav59]

The team that no longer has Soto, Torres, Cortes, and Holmes....

No Cole.

Stanton has both elbows bothering him.

Gil out with lat strain.

LeMahieu out for a long time.

The Sox are not the only team with injury issues.

[bkzwhitestrican]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

The team that no longer has Soto, Torres, Cortes, and Holmes....

No Cole.

Stanton has both elbows bothering him.

Gil out with lat strain.

LeMahieu out for a long time.

The Sox are not the only team with injury issues.

Yep Yanks were relatively healthy last year but the odds of it happening two years in a row were doubtful. The AL should be interesting this year with no seemingly great team.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

1. Aaron Judge, Yankees (Previously: 1)
The subjective voters and objective metrics agree: Judge remains the king of Hitter Power Rankings. This is a player who produced arguably the greatest offensive season by a right-handed batter in Major League history in 2024, and his average (.381), OBP (.494), slugging (.730), OPS (1.224) and OPS+ (250) are all better so far in ‘25. What more do you need to know?

https://www.mlb.com/news/2nd-hitter-power-rankings-of-2025

[bkzwhitestrican]

 

7 hours ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

1. Aaron Judge, Yankees (Previously: 1)
The subjective voters and objective metrics agree: Judge remains the king of Hitter Power Rankings. This is a player who produced arguably the greatest offensive season by a right-handed batter in Major League history in 2024, and his average (.381), OBP (.494), slugging (.730), OPS (1.224) and OPS+ (250) are all better so far in ‘25. What more do you need to know?

https://www.mlb.com/news/2nd-hitter-power-rankings-of-2025

March/April are usually pretty unreliable indicators for the rest of the season, so I'm not buying into the team's offensive uptick just yet. But Judge doing what he's doing is just more of the same. 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

14 hours ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

 

March/April are usually pretty unreliable indicators for the rest of the season, so I'm not buying into the team's offensive uptick just yet. But Judge doing what he's doing is just more of the same. 

That's because you're a typical debbie downer Yankee fan.

[bkzwhitestrican]

1 hour ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

That's because you're a typical debbie downer Yankee fan.

Ha maybe. Or maybe I've seen enough seasons to know better.

Separately, they had this stat on Judge during yesterday's game that was pretty absurd. 

[Jasonbay44]

Judge is turning 33 next week and has shown absolutely no sign of slowing down and what’s scary is he’s almost somehow getting better. He is a freak.

When I saw his age I thought of that viral tweet about LeBron 10+ years ago where someone posted “LeBron is 30, this f***ery wont go on much longer.” 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

59 minutes ago, Jasonbay44 said:

Judge is turning 33 next week and has shown absolutely no sign of slowing down and what’s scary is he’s almost somehow getting better. He is a freak.

When I saw his age I thought of that viral tweet about LeBron 10+ years ago where someone posted “LeBron is 30, this f***ery wont go on much longer.” 

best hitter in the game right now

[Jasonbay44]

7 hours ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

best hitter in the game right now

One of the best of all time. He’s pretty damn good. 

[Kimmi]

On 4/19/2025 at 9:50 PM, Jasonbay44 said:

One of the best of all time. He’s pretty damn good. 

By all accounts, he's also a pretty darn good human being, which makes it easier to root for him.

Key word being "easier".

[Thunder]

Aaron Judge is my favorite player in the game. I have no issue in saying that as a Red Sox fan, and really don't care if any of you want to give me s*** for it. I just love everything about who he is and the way he portrays himself to the world.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

.406

Avg

 

8

HR

 

27

RBI

 

43

Hits

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

Aaron Judge reaches double-digit homers before May

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

Aaron Judge is the 1st player in MLB history with at least 9 HR, 20 BB and 45 H through his team’s first 30 games of a season

[moonslav59]

It seems a few Yankees might be significantly over exceeding 2025 expectations, and I have to wonder about the odds of it continuing:

.972 Trent Grisham (.651 in previous 1300 PAs.)

.935 Ben Rice (.613 in rookie year in 178 PAs)

.879 Goldschmidt (Turns 38 in SEPT and was at .763 from ages 35-36)

.759 A Wells (Not out of line for a young player who hit .722 before 2025.)

These are their top 4 batters, by OPS after Judge's 1.275.

I doubt Fried continues his 1.01 ERA, and I sure wish we had signed him over Buehler, but WTH...

Rodon at 2.96 looks doable, going forward, but who knows, whit him?

Luke Weaver at 0.59 in 15 IP. Hmmmm....

 

[bkzwhitestrican]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

It seems a few Yankees might be significantly over exceeding 2025 expectations, and I have to wonder about the odds of it continuing:

.972 Trent Grisham (.651 in previous 1300 PAs.)

.935 Ben Rice (.613 in rookie year in 178 PAs)

.879 Goldschmidt (Turns 38 in SEPT and was at .763 from ages 35-36)

.759 A Wells (Not out of line for a young player who hit .722 before 2025.)

These are their top 4 batters, by OPS after Judge's 1.275.

I doubt Fried continues his 1.01 ERA, and I sure wish we had signed him over Buehler, but WTH...

Rodon at 2.96 looks doable, going forward, but who knows, whit him?

Luke Weaver at 0.59 in 15 IP. Hmmmm....

 

True on Grisham and Goldschmidt, I think serious regression is in the cards for both. Rice is in his second year and he looks to have improved a lot, though probably not to the tune of .930 OPS. I think he can finish the year in the .800s though. Weaver and Fried are both all star caliber players. There will probably be some regression since their current ERAs are ridiculous, but it's not like them pitching really well is a shock. 

On the flip side the Yanks also have players seriously underperforming who could improve. Bellinger should snap out of his funk at some point. Jazz (when he returns) probably won't run a batting average of. 180 with a 37% K rate all year. Devin Williams will hopefully improve upon his 10 ERA. Schmidt has gotten a few starts under his belt since coming back from injury and appears to be rounding into form. 

So all in all I don't think the team as a whole is outperforming expectations. 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

True on Grisham and Goldschmidt, I think serious regression is in the cards for both. Rice is in his second year and he looks to have improved a lot, though probably not to the tune of .930 OPS. I think he can finish the year in the .800s though. Weaver and Fried are both all star caliber players. There will probably be some regression since their current ERAs are ridiculous, but it's not like them pitching really well is a shock. 

On the flip side the Yanks also have players seriously underperforming who could improve. Bellinger should snap out of his funk at some point. Jazz (when he returns) probably won't run a batting average of. 180 with a 37% K rate all year. Devin Williams will hopefully improve upon his 10 ERA. Schmidt has gotten a few starts under his belt since coming back from injury and appears to be rounding into form. 

So all in all I don't think the team as a whole is outperforming expectations. 

I can see progression with some "underperforming players," and I thought of mentioning it, but I couldn't bring myself to express any optimism over any Yankee players.

[bkzwhitestrican]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I can see progression with some "underperforming players," and I thought of mentioning it, but I couldn't bring myself to express any optimism over any Yankee players.

Fair enough. I can understand the sentiment, 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

Yankees Greats: 25 Iconic Players Who Built New York’s Legendary MLB Legacy

[bkzwhitestrican]

I know everyone here was expecting a lot of regression on offense for the Yanks with Soto and Torres leaving. It still might be coming, but with a quarter of the season in the books it hasn't really shown up so far. Here is how everyone is performing to date: 

• Aaron Judge - 1.279 OPS (this is absurd and he likely won't hit at this peak level all season, BUT if there's any player who can it's Judge) 
• Trent Grisham - .996 OPS (still waiting for the other shoe to drop with Grish, but we'll ride the hot streak while it lasts. On an optimistic note, his Baseball Savant page has him listed in the 92nd percentile or above in xWOBA, xSLG, Barrel%, and Chase Rate, so maybe there is some sustainability here) 
• Paul Goldschmidt - .902 OPS (can a 37 year old former MVP really turn back the hands of time? So far the answer is yes. We'll see if he can keep playing at this level as the wear and tear of the season affects him. But for now he's been way better than expected) 
• Ben Rice - .900 OPS (it's not unheard of for a second year player to make a leap on offense, and it appears that's where Ben Rice is at. His batted ball data is crazy and leads me to believe this is sustainable, though not to the tune of a .900+ OPS. He still has trouble with breaking/offspeed pitches [currently hitting .354 against fastballs, and .098 against everything else] so I'm sure pitchers will adjust accordingly)
• Anthony Volpe - .770 OPS (could this finally be the year Volpe doesn't suck at the plate? Maybe. He is extremely streaky so it's hard to tell what's real with him. But his approach in his at bats does seem better this year, as evidenced by his 11.7% walk rate [up from 6.1% last season])
• Jasson Dominguez - .761 OPS (the Martian is finally getting consistent playing time and seems to be settling in nicely. He may have to abandon switch hitting if he doesn't improve from the right side [currently hitting .305 as a lefty, and .116 as a righty] but at only 22 years old he still has time to develop)
• Austin Wells - .748 OPS (weird offensive season for Wells. His batting average is weak and he isn't walking much, but the hits he does accumulate have been of the multi-base variety [16 of his 27 hits this season were XBH]. A sub .300 OBP isn't pretty but if he can offset it with homers then I guess we can't complain)
• Jazz Chisholm - .714 OPS (currently out with an oblique injury and won't be back until around mid-June. Jazz has been selling out for power this year and I can't say I'm a fan of this approach. Sure he's hit some dingers, but he's currently sporting a .181 BA along with a 31% K rate. Hopefully he finds a more balanced approach once he returns.)
• Cody Bellinger - .688 OPS (he's certainly been a disappointment on offense so far, but he has been playing a little better lately [raised his OPS from .521 to .688 over the past month]. Settling in as a slightly above average bat with good defense and speed would be a positive outcome.)
• Oswaldo Cabrera - .631 OPS (currently out with a fractured ankle and his return date is unknown. As a utility player Oswaldo is useful, but he'll never be someone you'd want to plug into your lineup everyday. A .243 BA is decent but it's mostly singles.)
• Oswald Peraza - .617 OPS (he was a top 100 prospect once upon a time, but his bat never developed enough to make him an everyday player. He needs a team that is willing to play him everyday so that he might have a chance to develop at the plate since he does have decent pop. Unfortunately he won't have that opportunity with the Yanks, and is currently a defense first bench player)