New York Yankees 2025 preview
Editor’s Note: On March 10, it was announced that Gerrit Cole would undergo Tommy John surgery.
It is absolutely impossible to replace a player like Juan Soto, but the New York Yankees are still favored to win the American League East Division and are the favorites to return to the World Series as the AL representative. It certainly helps having two-time AL MVP Aaron Judge as the stalwart in the lineup and four big acquisitions from the offseason are going to help with the loss of the game’s most expensive player.
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With Max Fried behind Gerrit Cole in the starting rotation and Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt in the lineup, the Yankees are in search of their 26th playoff appearance in the last 32 seasons. Last year’s runner-up finish marked the first time since 2009 that the Bronx Bombers made the Fall Classic, so the expectation for a franchise with 27 World Championships is to win No. 28 this season. Perhaps it will be new closer Devin Williams who records the final out.
It certainly won’t come easy, as the young and wildly talented Orioles also reside in the AL East, along with the much-improved Red Sox, a Blue Jays team that seems to be taking one final kick at the can with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the lineup, and a Rays bunch that is paying rent to use George M. Steinbrenner field for home games this season.
The Yankees don’t seem to have a lot of flaws on the surface. As with any team, good fortunes in the health department will increase the odds of getting where they want to go. And I would even argue that a season win total line of 91.5 may actually seem like a bit of a tempered expectation for the regular season, especially on the heels of winning 94 games last season with only half a season from Cole.
Alas, the loss of a player like Soto sends a ripple effect through the lineup and creates a need for others to step up.
2025 New York Yankees Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 26)
World Series: +800
AL Pennant: +310
AL East: +110
Win Total: 91.5 (-120/+100)
Make Playoffs: Yes -390 / No +300
New York Yankees Preview: Offense
I’m all for betting on Bellinger at Yankee Stadium with the short porch in right field and a Goldschmidt bounce back, but let’s be honest. Soto is a top-five hitter in baseball with his incredible on-base percentage ability and he even added his first 40-homer season for good measure last year. The Yankees were third in wOBA and second in wRC+ with the dynamic duo of Soto and Judge.
Soto’s 180 wRC+ and .421 wOBA will be sorely missed. Judge had a 218 wRC+, meaning he was 118% better than league average offensively, as he racked up another MVP award with 58 home runs and a .322 batting average. For Judge, who set career-highs in RBI, batting average, wRC+, wOBA, and actually had the lowest K% of his career, the presence of Soto was a huge help. That’s not to take anything away from his accomplishments and he had a 206 wRC+ in 2022 without Soto in the lineup. But, it helps.
Judge is going to regress this season. He’s not going to run a SLG over .700. He’s the first hitter to have a .700 SLG since Barry Bonds in 2004, who finished with an obscene .812 mark. That isn’t a knock on Judge. It’s an assessment of the reality of what happened last season, when he ran a .367 BABIP, a mark he hadn’t seen since 2018, and also had that career-best K%. Projection systems have him between 170 and 185, which is still elite.
But, when you talk about a team with a win total this high, you start thinking about decreases in the aggregate and how they could hurt the ballclub. That’s why the supporting cast is so important. Take Jazz Chisholm Jr., who had a 132 wRC+ in 191 PA as a Yankee after getting away from the hapless Marlins. Take fellow former Marlin Giancarlo Stanton, who had a 116 wRC+, but then was the hottest hitter on the planet in the postseason. Stanton, of course, is dealing with an injury already.
The other hitters with wRC+ marks north of 100 were Austin Wells (105) and Gleyber Torres (104), who is now gone. It would really go a long way in helping the cause if Anthony Volpe could bounce back from his abysmal .243/.293/.364 slash line, but that was somehow an upgrade over what he had as a rookie in 2023 at .209/.283/.383. At least he steals bases and graded as an outstanding defender at shortstop.
Bellinger has not hit the ball hard in recent seasons, as he hasn’t had a Hard Hit% over 40% since 2020 with the Dodgers. He’s still been a productive bat because he puts a lot of balls in play and his batted ball distribution allows him to hit more homers than expected. By xSLG, which is a Statcast metric that is a combination of contact quality, batted ball distance and type, and other factors, Bellinger has actually had a sub-.400 mark in three of the last four seasons. How much he overachieves based on the favorable park dimensions will be interesting to see. The expectation is also for him to play CF, which is not easy to play in New York with the deeper gaps and more ground to cover.
Goldschmidt is now 37 and played as a league average bat last season. He struck out more than ever before and walked less than ever before. His contact authority was still there though and I can’t help but wonder if the move to New York gives him a one-year bump. He gets a big park factor upgrade here and a whole lot more protection in the lineup, especially because he’ll move down and not be under as much pressure as a run producer.
One thing I will give the Yankees a ton of credit for is that they’ve remained strong and competitive, while also getting younger. Guys like Volpe, Wells, and Oswaldo Cabrera are all homegrown talents and Jasson Dominguez, who I’ll talk more about shortly, all look to be very meaningful this season.
New York Yankees Preview: Pitching
The Yankees finished eighth in ERA and 18th in FIP last season. I have to be honest. If you had told me that they’d miss Cole for half the season, deal with a prolonged Clarke Schmidt absence, and have to rely on the health profile of Carlos Rodon, I’d have expected a worse outcome.
But, to their credit, Rodon and Nestor Cortes both managed to stay healthy and combine for 62 much-needed starts. It didn’t hurt that Luis Gil came largely out of nowhere to win the AL Rookie of the Year, though his inconsistency became a big concern at times. Even Marcus Stroman performed admirably, though I can see why the Yankees don’t really want to rely on him much this season after a 4.31 ERA with advanced metrics that suggest a decline in production.
Cortes is gone, but that’s the price of doing business to get a closer like Williams, whose “Airbender” changeup is one of the nastiest pitches in baseball. Clay Holmes is also gone, but the Yankees were chock full of depth in the bullpen, so those aren’t going to be major worries, especially if Luke Weaver is good in a setup role again. Fernando Cruz is also a low-key great add.
A high-key great add is Max Fried. Fried’s injury-plagued 2023 season was an afterthought last year with 29 starts and 174.1 innings of work. He’s the ideal fit to pitch at Yankee Stadium as a lefty with a huge ground ball split. Over 54% of balls in play against Fried have been worm-burners and nearly 59% of them last season. Prior to the 2023 season, in which Fried’s injuries were a strained hamstring, forearm neuritis, and then a blister, he was pretty healthy.
Given the mileage on Cole’s arm as he approaches 35 and his recent injury worries, as well as a drop in velocity, Fried is a great piece to this puzzle. Cole still had a 3.41 ERA with a 3.69 FIP over 95 innings while resting as opposed to going the Tommy John route. If Rodon, who had a 3.96 ERA with a 4.39 FIP in 175 innings, can give the Yankees something similar, coupled with Gil off the ROY and Schmidt, who is a very underrated arm, this is a strong unit.
Gil did only throw 49.1 innings in the second half with a big drop in K% and command. I do think he’ll be better equipped for the workload increase this season, but the high BB% with an unsustainably low BABIP and a shallow arsenal worry me. Still, the Yankees have more than enough arms to overcome it.
New York Yankees Player to Watch
OF Jasson Dominguez
The 22-year-old Dominguez has a .274/.373/.444 slash over 353 minor league games. While it sounds like it would be a problem to play that many minor league games and not stick at the MLB level, remember that he debuted during his age-18 season. He’s been a top-100 prospect consistently by every reporting outlet and was a two-time participant in the Futures Game held during the All-Star Break.
Dominguez is universally projected to be an above average bat by all of the projection systems cited by FanGraphs and is the 16th-ranked prospect for FG. He missed out on some valuable development time in 2023 and 2024 because of Tommy John surgery. He has battled injuries and we’ll see if the MLB grind causes his body to wear down, but he’s a big-time hitting prospect. He’s also a poor defender, so we’ll see how that plays out.
New York Yankees Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
This looks like a really solid ballclub. Bellinger and Goldschmidt add some professional at bats and there are some young players who look to have some room to improve this season. Judge will continue to be one of the game’s elite hitters and Chisholm really took to New York and the entire scene very well after getting away from the Marlins. It’s a good lineup top to bottom that could be lengthened if Dominguez and Volpe hit.
The pitching staff is also very good. Will Warren is a safety net, top-100 prospect who worked 33 MLB innings last season and should provide depth in case of injury. Cluster injuries are possible with a lot of guys that have seen the inside of a trainer’s room, but this team is a deserving favorite to take down the AL East title, even if I’m going a different route in the division. The Yankees have gone Over 91.5 wins in five of the last six non-COVID seasons and had 91 wins in 2017. They’ll probably go Over it here and I’ll keep an eye on their health throughout the spring before making my final decision.
Stronger Lean: Over 91.5
