Why I'm Optimistic About the 2026 New York Yankees

E.J. Fagan
6 hours ago
5 min read

by EJ Fagan

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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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Spring Training is almost over and I’m feeling pretty good about the Yankees. Here’s five reasons why.

No Spring Training Injuries

I haven’t written a lot about the team this Spring. That’s in part because I’ve been so busy. But it’s also in part because there has been no real news among the major league players so far. Everyone is healthy or on track to return as expected.

That’s a huge contrast with the last two Spring Trainings. The Yankees entered the Spring 2025 with seven starting pitchers and exited with four. Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole got hurt at the end of Spring 2024.

Our AL East competition? Not so much. Baltimore has lost Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg. Toronto is going to start the season with Anthony Santander, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber and Jose Berrios on the IL.

Injuries are cruel in baseball. Teams that stay healthy are usually the teams that win. Things could go South quickly, but for now the Yankees are in good shape.

The Team is Deep and Flexible

Some Yankee player are inevitably going to miss time this season. For most of the past five years, the Yankees exited Spring Training with the barest depth. That quickly led to the Yankees playing waiver wire replacement players as soon as a few guys went down.

This year, the Yankees almost have too much depth, especially in the outfield and rotation. Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones are about as good as it gets for an outfield replacement player. Carlos LaGrange and Elmer Rodriguez might be mid-rotation MLB starters or better already.

They’re a little less covered in the infield, but JC Escarra, Amed Rosario and Paul Goldschmidt are solid options. More importantly, they have flexibility. They have a ton of guys who play different positions and can be moved around between Rosario, Oswaldo Cabrera, Jose Cabarello and even Escarra and Ben Rice. It would take multiple injuries to be in a spot where they are pulling waiver wire types again.

The bullpen is the only real area of concern. They’re thin even before injuries.

The Projection Systems Like the Team

I understand why everyone was a little disappointed in the “run it back” Yankees. I too would always like to see upgrades. I especially think that they might regret not adding to the bullpen real quick. But running back a good roster isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The projection systems agree:

Fangraphs: 86.5 wins, 1st in AL East (two games over the Red Sox and Blue Jays)
PECOTA: 88.9 wins, 2nd in the AL East (0.5 games behind Blue Jays)
Kalshi*: 35% to win AL East, first (Blue Jays 27% Red Sox 23%)
Various Vegas Odds: Yankees +175ish to win AL East, first behind the Blue Jays (+300ish)

*I know, I hate betting markets too. But for something predictable like sports I think they offer a lot of predictive value. Now let’s regulate them out of existence or at least prominence please, Congress.

These sources are all telling similar stories: the AL East is competitive, and the Yankees are at or near the top of the competition. There’s actually quite a lot of disagreement between the sources on the strength of the Red Sox and Orioles, but everyone agrees that the Yankees are fielding a strong roster. No one is anomalously predicting that the Yankees win 84 games or something.

I also think that a well-balanced roster is likely to outperform projections. The Yankees have the bench to take advantage of platoon splits in a way that they won’t be able to estimate.

Another note: Aaron Judge is such an outlier that the breaks projection systems. Fangraphs has him as the best right fielder in baseball by a mile with just 7.3 projected WAR. He seems like a pretty darn safe bet to post 9+ WAR if even mostly healthy.

I Believe in the Team’s Upside

Okay, now we’re entering full irresponsible optimism mode. It’s March, let me dream.

I see a lot of guys on this team who are looking good. My list:

Austin Wells was the best catcher in the WBC tournament. If he’s healthy, I think we should all remember what he’s capable of hitting. Wells had a plus bat at every minute of his career until his nerve injury last year. It was bizarre to watch him transform into a glove first catcher. He could post an .850 OPS or something and not surprise anyone.
Trent Grisham looks a lot faster in the outfield and has acknowledged his poor fielding performance. He’s capable of playing better defense and should be motivated by free agency. Even if his offense takes half a step back, he could easily be a 4+ WAR player with above average center field defense.
Even with a few bad WBC games, Aaron Judge still has a 1.000+ OPS this Spring. Still the GOAT.
Giancarlo Stanton has 4 home runs in 22 plate appearances.
Jasson Dominguez looks like a completely different player from last year. We heard stories this Spring about him learning how to work like a major leaguer from Amed Rosario. There’s a lot of subtext here, but I read some reports as noting that Dominguez was coasting on youth and talent rather than work, but realized that he needs to put in a lot more effort to stick in the majors.
Will Warren looks incredible. His fastball has ticked up just enough to finally make his breaking stuff play up. It wouldn’t shock me one bit to see him start to post vintage Jordan Montgomery stats.
Cam Schlittler is throwing gas.
Gerrit Cole is throwing gas.
I know the results are bad, but just read this blurb from Eno Sarris: “Since Weathers came up with the Padres and until this moment in spring with the Yankees, he has changed so much as to be nearly unrecognizable in his current form. He’s added more than 4 mph on the four-seamer, added an inch of ride to the four-seamer, added 3 mph to the sinker, added three inches of glove-side movement to the sinker, added 3 mph to the slider, added three and a half inches of drop to the slider, added an 85 mph sweeper, added 2 mph to the changeup, added 10 inches of drop to the changeup. That’s intense. His first Spring outing got everyone’s attention, but his second outing wasn’t as good by results. Still, this spring his strikeout and walk rates are pristine, his ground-ball rate is through the roof, and his arsenal looks optimized for success. He has a terrible injury history and hasn’t topped 100 innings since 2023, but for now he’s soaring up rankings lists.”