6 Thoughts on the New York Yankees Season So Far

by EJ Fagan

May 2025

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.

Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.

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We’re at that point in the season where things start to settle in. The trade deadline is far enough away that it’s too early to seriously speculate about who the team could acquire, but the season is far enough along that we have a decent idea of how good teams are. The Yankees are pretty good and the competition in the AL East is pretty mediocre.

But I still have my thoughts. Here are six disconnected takes on the Yankees so far.

The rotation is great now?

Since May 1st, Yankees starters have a 2.40 ERA. That’s the best in baseball. They’re only 17th in innings pitched, but the team has played the fewest games of anyone. Adjusted for games played, they are top 5 in innings.

Talk about a turnaround. We were sounding the alarms on Yankees starting pitchers after the first month. They had gotten strong performances from Fried and Rodon, but the rest of the rotation had an ERA over 6.00. Not anymore - Schmidt, Yarbrough and Warren have all put together 3+ start stretches of solid pitching against tough lineups.

Speaking of Warren,

Will Warren Might Be a Keeper

His ERA is down to 4.05. He’s striking out tons of batters. His pitches move like crazy. I don’t want to oversell Warren, but his Statcast page is starting to tell a story:

Warren’s season line, which includes his bat starts in April, sure does remind you of 2024 Carlos Rodon. Lots of stuff, but he gets hit hard. We’ll see where he levels out to. Boone had a quick hook on Warren early in the season, so he might have recovered in some of those short starts.

It would be amazing if Warren could be the next Jordan Montgomery: a young, durable #3-4 starter who is under team control in his prime. He doesn’t need to be (and it’s likely to be) an ace.

I Was Wrong About Cody Bellinger

I have like three unfinished draft posts that are titled “Cody Bellinger Doesn’t Deserve the Benefit of the Doubt.” The basic argument was going to be that Bellinger should sit more than Grisham, Dominguez and Rice because he wasn’t very good in 2024 and his 2023 rebound may have just been lucky.

Boy, was I wrong. After a horrific start to the season, Bellinger’s numbers have officially rebounded in a big way:

That Statcast page is All Star caliber on its own, but the trends are even better. Since May 1st, Bellinger has been the 8th best hitter in baseball with a .354/.417/.646 batting line and a 14% strikeout rate. Props to Boone for sticking with him.

Goldschmidt Needs to Platoon

Ben Rice started at first against Jacob DeGrom. Goldschmidt came off the bench to draw a walk, scoring the third run to tie the game. This setup needs to happen a lot more often.

Since July 1st of last year, Paul Goldschmidt is hitting .263/.298/.397 against right-handed pitching and .402/.467/.748 against left-handed pitching. The dude needs a platoon partner.

At the same time, Ben Rice needs to play more. His performance has dropped off since he stopped playing every day (.226/.288/.453 in May). He’s got a .922 OPS against righties but a respectable .750 OPS against lefties. It makes no sense to start Goldschmidt over him against a right-handed starter. Rice should probably DH against lefties with Dominguez sitting. But, I worry that the Yankees are shaping up to option him down when Stanton finally returns.

The upside is that Goldschmidt, Dominguez and Rice become dangerous weapons off the bench when they sit.

Dominguez Has Some Familiar Competition for AL ROY

Jasson Dominguez was hot even before he hit the big walk off home run. He’s been the 23rd best MLB hitter in May with a .267/.382/.578 batting line and 22% strikeout rate. He’s still awful against lefites, but the Yankees are sheltering him more than in April. The defense seems to have improved a tick too.

The trends are good, but Dominguez has some work to put himself on the radar for AL Rookie of the Year. He’s currently 7th in fWAR at 0.5 in part due to bad defense. Jacob Wilson for the Athletics is in first place with 2.1 fWAR. But do you know who is second? Old friend Carlos Narvaez, who has been worth 1.4 fWAR by combining average hitting with Gold Glove defense.

Good for Narvaez. Even if Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz turns into a good prospect, this one is a bit of a bad trade.

Volpe Pops Out With New Stats

Statcast released some new data on swing paths. I’m still processing what it all means. Because the stats are inputs rather than outputs, it’s not easy to say that a player is good or bad based on their attack angle or whatever. But, you can say that a player is extreme or unusual.

Volpe pops out as unusual in two ways. First, 63% of his swings are in the ideal attack angle between 5 and 20 degrees - basically a line drive swing. Most of the players near the top of ideal attack angle are pretty good, including Soto, Carroll and Bregman, although there are a few duds included. He was above average in ideal attack angle swings in 2024, but has improve a lot in 2025.

At the same time, great hitters like Guerrero and Kwan are among the worst in baseball, so take it with a grain of salt.

Second, his average attack direction is 5 degrees toward the opposite field, or about 7th least-pull in baseball. He was actually a little more toward the opposite field last year, but was pretty pull oriented during his rookie season.

His bat speed has also increased considerable in 2025, following the change he made for the 2024 playoffs.