A Little Perspective on the 2025 Yankees
- E.J. Fagan
- Sep 4
- 2 min read
By E.J. Fagan
September 4, 2025
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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission.
Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.
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I looked at last night’s lineup for the Astros. Here’s what the Yankees were facing:
The major league average OPS is .722*. The Astros are a pretty good team. They’re running out a lineup with five guys below the average and four above it, with really only two players (Altuve and Pena) well above average.
In contrast, the Yankees ran out this lineup:
The Yankees have three below average hitters, four guys who are top-40 in the majors, one guy who might lead the league in OPS in a normal year and peak Aaron Judge.
How many Astros would even crack the Yankees lineup? Probably just Pena and Correa.
We might get frustrated by guys like Volpe and Wells playing under their potential. But the Astros have had to watch Yordan Alvarez hit barely better than the two of them. They’re watching Altuve slowly fade away. They had to trade for a diminished Carlos Correa to fill a spot vacated by Isaac Paredes’ injury. This team would kill to start some of the players who are regularly on the Yankees bench.
What about pitching? The Astros are basically matching the Yankees this series, with Fried vs. Valdez, Warren vs. Alexander and Rodon vs. Javier. If anything, the Yankees have a slight edge in those three games. Oh, and their ace probably threw a pitch at their catcher.
Yet, the Astros have won more games in 2025 than the Yankees. And it’s not just them.
The Blue Jays ran out this lineup:
That’s definitely better than the Astros lineup, but it’s basically the Yankees lineup replacing Aaron Judge with a .749 OPS. And their pitching staff is very average.
We could go on, but you get the point. This Yankees roster is just packed with talent. It’s been healthier than most teams all season. The team should be running away with the American League right now, but instead they are trying to make a last-minute dash from behind to win the division or the first wild card. This isn’t a case where some club has put together a super team that manages to magically stay healthy all year.
That’s the core case against Aaron Boone as manager. His team is stacked. It’s playing like these other not-stacked teams. The Yankees can and should do better.
But it also puts some of the struggles by Volpe, Wells and Dominguez (and let’s be honest, McMahon) into perspective. Every good team this year has a bunch of guys who are roughly on their level, often at less demanding positions. They’re disappointing because it feels like the Yankees can do better, but they’re still in the normal range. The Astros probably feel similar about Diaz.
And at least none of the Yankees are trying to murder their backup catcher with a pitch. Things could be worse.
The degree of managerial malpractice by Aaron Boone is dumbfounding, no, make that mind bending! Why in the world would you pull Will Warren after 67 pitches? That became, because of Boone's pure idiocy, his fourth shortest outing of the year. After 5 ip of 2 run ball? In the dog days of a pennant race with 2 weeks of games against all the other playoff teams (save Seattle, assuming they get there)? With a bullpen that you know you're on the verge of burning out because starters have so often thrown over 100 p's by 5.1 ip into the game? Here Warren is being extremely efficient and you pull him with a 4-2 lead, with 12 outs to go…
This current iteration of the Yankees has flaws at SS, 3B, to lesser extent at catcher and a bullpen that has underperformed all year. The Yankees have star power players, but in the playoffs their power hitters are often negated by good pitching, throw in poor defense, and you have a recipe for disaster the icing on this cake is the manager. No bueno!
Credit the home plate umpire with the win.
plenny talented batters. Yankees score lotta runs
problem has been with keeping th'other team from scoring.
they've been thin in the starting rotation. they've been without Cole and/or Gil and Schmidt.
the loss of Cole is no small thing.
Fried and Rodon have been very, very good and share the AL lead in games won by starters, with a lot of innings pitched and ERAs around 3.
only other Yankee starter who has pitched more than 100 innings is Will Warren
and his earned run average is not good. it's 4.28
and Warren does not, generally, pitch more than 5 innings per start.
I'll take it a step further.
My biggest issue is that once again BC came into both Spring Training, then the regular season with way too many roster issues, and counting on the trade deadline to be able to patch those holes. And the only rookie to get the call up and help was Cam Schlittler. Oh, and Vivas was the only other rookie looked to for roster help. One out two isn't bad, but only 2 is bad. Why wasn't the since traded Jesus Rodriguez ever given a shot at playing time at 3B. Again, it doesn't mean you can't go out and make the McMahon deal, but at least see what you have internally first. Most of Rodriguez's…