About the Off-Season: Taking Stock

Today is February 1st. Pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training for the Yankees on February 12th and position players will arrive on February 16th. It appears that the Yankees have finished constructing the roster for the 2026 team.  That is both a good and a bad thing. It's good that they seem to be finished but the end result does not inspire a lot of confidence.

I have been reading some commentary that is usually loaded with sarcasm basically saying that the Yankees are awful because they only tied with the Blue Jays for the best record in the American League last year. The point that some writers are trying to make is that the Yankees have a very good team. That's true. But they don't give tickertape parades to very good teams.

Every single person, whether it's an individual fan or a player or the owners and executives of the Yankees has to make a decision. They have to look around at the team and decide, “is this good enough. Is this sufficient to meet my goals?” Well, that depends on what your goals are. If the ownership and management of the Yankees, their fans and their players are satisfied with having a competitive team that if everything breaks the right way and they get very lucky, might have a chance to play in the World Series, then that's fine. It's safe to say that they have probably achieved that goal.

However, if the owners, executives, players, and fans of the Yankees want to have a legitimate chance of winning the World Series, this group is not going to get that done. Why not? because it's basically the same team as last year and actually it is not quite as good as the team that they had last year, and that team didn't get it done. And by the way, other teams, including the team that went to the World Series from the American League, the Blue Jays, and the team that won the World Series, the Dodgers, have all improved. They were already better than the Yankees and now they have improved.

The Yankees added the following three players to the roster. In other words, these are the only three acquisitions the Yankees made who were not on the team at any time in 2025. They are, Cade Winquist, Ryan Weathers, and Angel Chivilli. Of the three of them, Weathers offers the most promise but, he is injury-prone and there has been some talk about possibly putting him in the minors to work on things. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Hopefully he is able to contribute on the Major League level. The other two are projects who may not even be on the Major League team at any point during this season.

In addition, the Yankees lost Devin Williams, Luke Weaver, and Paul Goldschmidt from last year's team. They all had issues and were not consistent or totally reliable all year long, but they were all solid contributors at some point during the season.

So, where does that leave us? This will most likely be the starting lineup for the Yankees on Opening Day unless other moves are made:

Trent Grisham                CF

Aaron Judge                     RF

Cody Bellinger                 LF

Giancarlo Stanton       DH

Ben Rice                                1B

Jazz Chisolm                     2B

Austin Wells                      C

Ryan McMahon              3B

Jose Caballero                SS

I will discuss the pitching in a future article. For today, I will address the starting lineup. 

Honestly, I don't have a lot of faith in Trent Grisham. He reminds me of Aaron Hicks. He regressed defensively last year. He did put up good numbers, but he was streaky, and it is quite likely that last year's performance was an aberration. He could very easily revert to the player who bats 190.

 Aaron Judge is what they call in Algebra class a given. Unless he is injured, he is likely to put up MVP caliber numbers.

Cody Bellinger is a solid player and had a very good year for the Yankees last year. Again, barring injury, it seems likely that he will have another very good year for the Yankees.

Giancarlo Stanton was injured for a good portion of the season last year, as he is almost every year. He did put up very solid numbers during the regular season but disappeared in the postseason, which is the reverse of what he normally does. He is one year older, injury prone, and a risk to injure himself if he plays the outfield. Relying on him is a game of chance. His best days are clearly behind him, and it is completely unknown as to what you can expect from him. Maybe he will hit 30 home runs and drive in over 90 runs. Maybe he will get hurt and miss 100 games and only hit 7 home runs. They are equally likely possibilities.

I think Ben Rice is going to be an All-Star this year if he plays every day. I think he will have a tremendous offensive season. His defense is less than perfect at first base but, that can improve.  I hope the Yankees do not consider bringing in someone like Goldschmidt again to take at bats from Rice. Goldschmidt was useful for most of the season last year, but he is fading, and I would rather see Rice play every day and learn to hit left-handed pitching.

Jazz Chisholm junior had a 30/30 season last year and since this is his walk year, I would imagine that if he is healthy, he would have another very good year. He tends to get injured frequently as well, so that would be the only real concern with him. He wants to play, and he wants to put up big numbers. Things start to go downhill from here.

Austin Wells may or may not have been injured last year. He has turned himself into an excellent defensive catcher but is far too streaky offensively. If he straightens that out, he can be a solid player for the Yankees. That's a big if. Maybe he is what his numbers said he was last year. A slightly above average hitter with some power who is streaky.

Ryan McMahon is an excellent defender but is not a very good hitter and did not do well offensively for the Yankees. I do not have a lot of confidence in him as an offensive player and the Yankees did not take the opportunity to upgrade at third base.

Jose Caballero did well during his time with the Yankees last year and provides a lot of speed. He did better offensively than one would suspect and could be a decent everyday shortstop who provides a tremendous amount of speed and spark to the offense. However, he will likely only be the starter until Anthony Volpe returns. That could be a major problem. Volpe did not have a very good offensive year last year. Yes, he did hit some home runs. But he also struck out way too much. He tied for the league lead in errors and his base running skills regressed.

Basically, the Yankees lineup is full of a bunch of ifs. And even the ifs aren't that impressive. The bottom third of the lineup is not going to intimidate anybody.

That leads us to one of the biggest problems. Aaron Boone has not shown an ability to develop young players or even an interest in doing so. He only plays rookies or younger players when he has no choice. He stuck with DJ LeMahieu forever he has done it time and time again. I guarantee that if Trent Grisham struggles mightily, Boone will still trot him out to center field every day instead of allowing Jasson Dominguez and or Spencer Jones to get into the lineup. Jones will most likely be in Scranton again. 

If Caballero does well at the beginning of the season, I still anticipate that no matter what, Volpe will come back and play every single day. Perhaps Volpe will do better once he has recovered from his injury and the subsequent surgery. Who knows? Boone seemed to think that the injury did not affect his play. I don't agree with that but if Boone is right, that is not encouraging. 

Another issue is that Brian Cashman said during the off-season that the Yankees were too left-handed offensively. He stated that they needed to get some right-handed hitters in here. They didn't. If anything, they are even less right-handed than they were last year because Goldschmidt is gone. They did not acquire a right-handed hitting backup catcher. If Giancarlo Stanton gets injured, the Yankees will have even less of a right-handed presence than they do now.

Don't forget, we will have the annual Boone-Swoon this season. Who knows how long it will last. The point is that although it is true the Yankees made the playoffs last year and tied the Blue Jays for the best record in the American League, they were clearly not the better team. They lost the season series to both the Blue Jays and the Red Sox. Both of those teams have improved from last year. The Yankees have not. At this point, simply by looking at the offense, I don't think this team is capable of winning the World Series. In fact, I think it is more likely that the Yankees do not make the playoffs in 2026. In a few days, I will look at the pitching.