The Yankees went 2-1 in their first three series, but yesterday’s game marked a familiar kind of loss, an extra-inning defeat that just as easily could have been a win. Still, the Yankees sit 6-3 to start their season, a strong start for a squad that faced two NL teams with playoff aspirations entering the year. A better pitch here and a big hit there are what holds this team back from having a truly torrid start, but when they win they typically crush their opponent.
A lose-close and win-big team is usually a very good one, but the Yankees still have some glaring issues to go with the gaudy offensive numbers from the very young 2025 campaign. We’re not drawing conclusions this early, but we are making notes about things they have done well, need to do better, and what’s real this time of year. Some things stabilize quickly, others take a much larger sample size, but here’s what I’m seeing through these first nine games:
The Yankees Are the Bronx Bombers Again; How Long Can It Last?
Entering the season almost every projection system had the Yankees dropping a lot of bombs in 2025, and they’re doing just that right now. Even better, this team has seen a slew of hitters improve their bat speeds over the offseason, so they’re in a position to overperform their offensive projections this season. I am extremely excited about what I’ve seen from the offense to this point, and their depth in the OF/DH spot provides them leeway without Giancarlo Stanton.
It’s honestly the first time I’ve ever seen the Yankees have a backup plan for losing the 2017 NL MVP, and that’s an encouraging sign because their direct replacement has come in the form of 12th-round pick Ben Rice. He swings a fast bat with good swing decisions and tons of power, and the Yankees could view him as the eventual first baseman of the future if he continues to hit the way he has to start the season.
He’ll regress from his current numbers, but I could definitely see a 120 wRC+ with a .350 OBP from Ben Rice this year, and the swings against LHP have been solid as well. Jasson Dominguez, Austin Wells, and Anthony Volpe look improved from last year in terms of swing speed as well, so if they can remain above-average hitters we could have a special group of young players contributing in the Bronx this season.
Looking at which teams have gotten the most production from their age-27 or younger hitters, here’s where the Yankees rank:
> HR: 1st (14)
> wRC+: 4th (155)
> fWAR: 2nd (2.3)
> Barrels: 1st (23)
> xwOBA: 3rd (.365)Youth movement. Love it. pic.twitter.com/q8CVtlqJmd
— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) April 7, 2025
The bats are young, talented, exciting, and possess extremely high upside thanks to how hard they hit the ball while having some of them field some extremely difficult positions. Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells are likely not as good as Ben Rice or Jasson Dominguez are offensively, but both are far more valuable defensively, and that gives this team a nice blend of WAR value entirely from within. Jazz Chisholm has provided some pop and he’s only 27 years old, the sky is the limit for this group if they can keep adjusting and improving at the dish.
Cody Bellinger is the only full-time starter struggling, but he’s hitting the ball harder and the underlying data suggests he’s getting unlucky. His .238 BABIP won’t hold up and we’ll soon see his bat come around, but in the meantime, he’s immediately been an excellent outfield defender for this squad. The Yankees should hit Ben Rice first and Aaron Judge second every day, but I honestly don’t care about the way they order this offense as long as the two-time AL MVP is hitting near the top of the order.
Paul Goldschmidt is someone I held more pessimistic views of entering the year as he came off of a career-worst season while getting up there in age, but he’s been a pleasant surprise. The contact rates are surprisingly good, but I would eventually shift him into a role where he faces exclusively LHP if possible when Giancarlo Stanton returns from the injured list. What I hope happens is that he gets it rolling against righties and gives Aaron Boone as tough of a decision as humanly possible; depth matters given how quickly injuries can deplete your offense.
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The Yankees do have some swing-and-miss issues alongside chasing a bit more than they usually do, but that is baked into their aggressive approach at the plate. SEAGER is a swing decision metric that evaluates how well a hitter balances swinging at pitches they should swing at versus how often they lay off pitches they can’t do much with. The Yankees grade out well in that metric because they don’t chase a ton but swing in-zone at around a league-average clip, which is difficult to do while remaining patient.
How this approach holds over the course of 162 games remains to be seen, but projections love this offense and I think they’re a right-handed bat away from being really good. Third base remains a position where this team needs to add a bat because the hitters across this lineup will cool off and they settle in that ~110-115 wRC+ range as a group. Giancarlo Stanton’s return could help especially against LHP, but I still want that right-handed infield bat this deadline. In the meantime, Trent Grisham has a career 111 wRC+ versus southpaws and has a 140 wRC+ in his last 187 trips to the plate.
Did I forget to mention that Aaron Judge continues to be the best player on planet Earth? This offense is pretty fun.
This Pitching Staff Needs Help As Soon As Possible
After wooing you with positive data about the offense, I regret to inform you that this group may not be able to pull a rabbit out of its rear with the rotation right now. They desperately await the return of Clarke Schmidt, who can bring some much-needed strikeout stuff to the rotation and improve the middle of this group. I do believe in Max Fried and Carlos Rodon at the top of this rotation, but the trio of Marcus Stroman, Will Warren, and Carlos Carrasco have too many of the same problems.
They won’t throw their fastballs in-zone because none of them have the zip on their heater to get it by hitters, and this nibbling puts them in situations where they have runners on and have to make a pitch in the zone. MLB competition is no joke; they will crush these mistakes even if you’re facing a poor offense, and that’s exactly what we saw when Stroman and Warren struggled in their four-inning outings. The most disappointing of this group early on is Will Warren, who is sitting 92.3 MPH on his fastball which is over 1 MPH slower than last season.
Cold weather could be affecting his early-season velocity (he saw a velocity dip to start last year in Triple-A), but he doesn’t have time to keep himself in the rotation with Schmidt coming back on April 15th. If he was sitting 93-94 MPH like he has his entire career, those sinkers have more life and can be a real pitch for him. His slider looks great, and his four-seamer is getting results, but the sinker and changeup haven’t been located well which are indicators of poor command, which isn’t particularly shocking.
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Despite throwing over an MPH slower than usual, his Stuff+ scores are still average for a starter, which is what leaves me believing that in the long run, the right call would be to keep Will Warren in the big leagues. I hate to burst the Carlos Carrasco bubble (and I hope he proves me wrong of course), but his stuff is simply not good at all, and Warren is one of the few arms on their MLB depth chart who can throw an above-average four-seamer. This pitching staff needs more good fastballs in the rotation, they lost their two best four-seam profiles when Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil went down.
I could be wrong and Carlos Carrasco’s sinker-slider combination could shred through Detroit this week, but I just have a hard time believing it’s a winning strategy to roster two old starters with bottom-of-the-barrel heaters. Clarke Schmidt looked sharp in his rehab outing and reportedly began throwing a one-seam sinker, the effects of which we got to see briefly in his lone Spring Training outing against the Orioles. It averaged 2 inches of IVB during that start; Schmidt’s lowest IVB on his sinker during an outing was in 2022 (4.3 inches).
His cutter is really good, so if his sinker can go from a net negative to a net positive pitch for him, we could see the Yankees add the much-needed fastball support with their 2017 first-round pick. They’ll need to do more work at the deadline for this rotation, this group simply doesn’t have enough upside and they’re going to play a numbers game with the roster so we’ll be looking at two veterans anchoring the backend of the rotation who have little-to-no upside instead of developing Will Warren, which does sort of bother me.
The lack of dominant fastballs carries into the bullpen as well, but this is a group I’m very fascinated by and still completely unconcerned for. They have multiple key names returning soon with Ian Hamilton and Tyler Matzek expected to re-join the team before the end of April, and they bring mid-90s heaters that can get whiffs and rack up strikeouts. Jonathan Loaisiga should follow not too long after, as should Jake Cousins, and that’s when this bullpen will go from good to golden.
What does suck is that to keep a fresh bullpen they had to option Brent Headrick to make room for Adam Ottavino, but I’m still going to rave about how good the left-hander is. His heater sits 93.2 MPH with almost 20 inches of ride on average, and his elite extension gives it some extra zip as it approaches the plate. Headrick has the goods to be one of the best relievers on this roster, and they need fastballs like his in their bullpen to ensure that they can get whiffs in the zone.
Now that he’s in Triple-A, I’ve got a bit of a wild idea for him; stretch him out and make him a starter again. He was a starter last year in the Twins’ organization and he has fewer pro innings than Will Warren, if the stuff gains hold this could be a fun backend rotation option that can solve the aforementioned bad fastball issue they’re dealing with right now. He’s also got a sick slider and a revamped splitter, so some time in Scranton could be to his benefit if he trusts those weapons a bit more.
Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, and Mark Leiter Jr. are better than their ERAs would suggest, Luke Weaver is still awesome, and Devin Williams will get the ball rolling soon. That group is good, and they have long relief options with Yoendrys Gomez and Ryan Yarbrough who Aaron Boone can bring in with the hopes of getting 2-3 inning performances to bridge short starts or just avoid using his big-time arms.
I will all but guarantee that Brian Cashman adds a bullpen arm at the deadline, regardless of how this group performs, but despite the injuries, they’re near the top of the league in K% and K-BB%. One final note here and this goes to every pitcher on the team; stop walking the eighth and ninth hitters. You can throw strikes to these guys.