A Yankees Season Update

A Yankees Season Update

By James Vlietstra

June 4, 2025

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The calendar has just turned to June. The MLB season has just crossed the one-third mark. According to Baseball Reference, the Yankees are currently the favorites to win the World Series, with a 17.9% chance. So obviously in a season of ups and downs, something is going well. 

The Yankees currently have 11 players with at least a WAR of 1.0, including five on pace to exceed 5.0 before the season’s end. 

Aaron Judge is having a historically great season in which he could realistically challenge for the greatest WAR in over 100 years, the most hits, the most total bases, highest OPS+, Triple Crown, and possibly a .400/.500/.800 slash line. The second half of the season could be truly memorable.

Their starting rotation, led by Max Fried and Carlos Rodon, is consistently providing excellent starts. This was a major concern in spring training when Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil went down with injuries and Marcus Stroman soon followed. Ryan Yarborough has really stepped up when given the opportunity. 

At this point, the Yankees have only used 35 different players. I selected two random teams to compare, the Mets (41), and the Orioles (49). This indicates a relatively healthy team. And on that subject, Scott Effross, Clayton Beeter, Fernando Cruz, JT Brubaker, Jake Cousins, Alan Winans, and Jazz Chisholm are all on rehab assignments or have already completed them. 

On offense, newcomers Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger have performed up to expectations. Meanwhile Trent Grisham has exceeded his. Before the season, I said if Anthony Volpe could top .700 OPS or 100 OPS+, he’d be an All Star. He is well above both those marks. Ben Rice has done a tremendous job filling in for Giancarlo Stanton. 

I was hoping that Austin Wells was going to improve and remind us of Jorge Posada. As of now, that hasn’t happened, but the team is over performing in so many other positions, that so long as he is adequate defensively , his offense is sufficient. Show of hands who expected him to be contributing more for his defense than offense?

I was also hoping that Jasson Dominguez would be a key contributor and front runner for the AL ROY. He hasn’t had a bad season, but he came into the season as the organization’s top prospect, before graduating. He is a notoriously better second half player so perhaps we see a completely different player as the season progresses. 

Their number five prospect coming into the season was Will Warren. At the beginning of spring training, there was talk we may see him at some point this year. Due to the injuries that hit the rotation I mentioned earlier, he too has graduated and is getting critical early season innings on the big league level. 

Yoendrys Gomez was the number 25 prospect. He graduated, but was out of options and subsequently DFA’d. Number 19 prospect Jorbit Vivas has gotten quite a bit of playing time while Jazz Chisholm has been hurt. 

With Chisholm returning soon, the bench will need to be addressed. Since Oswald Cabrera went down with an injury, two of Oswald Peraza, Jorbit Vivas, Pablo Reyes, and DJ LeMahieu have been in the lineup daily. Before DJ’s three hit game on Sunday, all four were hitting in the  .150/.250/.300 neighborhood. LeMahieu (contract) and Peraza (out of options) will likely be in the Majors until at least Independence Day  but the other two should not be on the 26-man roster. 

The Yankees are on pace to run away with the division as they already have a  6.5 game lead and that’s with being two games off their Pythagorean win total. 

In a soon to follow article, I will go through the minor leagues and see who are some of the possible options to be called up as I run through the entire MLB Pipeline top 30.