September 7, 2025
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There are still a few weeks left in the season, of course, but who has been the biggest surprise (for you) on the Yankees this year?
I'll start:
3.5 WAR, 131 OPS+, 30 Home Runs.... Trent Grisham.
I never, not in a million years., saw this coming. It's been fun to watch.
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Biggest negative surprise- Volpe, didn't expect him to be this bad. Runner up is Wells, I didn't know about the hand injury last season seems to still be affecting his hitting. Also expected better from Williams.
Positive surprise, agree with Grisham. Also didn't expect Belli to be as good as he has been. Schlittler may add himself to the list if he keeps up the good starts.
On a meh-level, Leiter has surprised me some, I expected he'd be DFA'd by mid season, been much better than I expected even if not great.
I can't argue with any of the candidates mentioned -- it's be a surprising season in both directions. But I'll add one more who no one has mentioned: Devin Williams. He was supposed to be a lock-down closer, and he's now reduced to being trustable only in the middle innings of blowouts.
Runner up...Stanton
Volpe. I thought he would be more than a .210 hitter this season, and I did not see the 17 errors coming from a guy that won a gold glove already. The clock is officially on with him going into next season. Some say it is an organizational issue, and who knows, maybe it is. There are teams waiting in the wings for the Yanks to cut bait on him, and will swoop in and grab him, and then detox out of him the bad habits he seems to have developed. Time will tell. Bu I am very surprised at his regression.
Cam Schlittler - despite his most recent start v. TOR - has been a much needed and totally unexpected addition to a starting rotation decimated by injury going back to Spring Training. Even more unexpected was that the NYY's would DFA Marcus Stroman and eat about $10m to keep Schlittler in the majors.