Seven Takeaways From The New York Yankees’ 2025 Season

Cam Schlittler Softened the Blow of Losing Gerrit Cole

Even with the addition of left-hander Max Fried last offseason, it’s hard to fathom the Yankees rotation ranked fourth in baseball with a 3.61 ERA.

Cole missed the year with elbow surgery, 2024 American League Rookie of the Year Luis Gil made just 11 starts with Clarke Schmidt making just 14. Yet, they had six starters make eight starts or more with an ERA under four.

While there’s bound to be rust as Cole gets back into the groove, this rotation is superb before any external additions.

This is thanks to the emergence of Cam Schlittler , who posted a 2.96 ERA across 14 starts and a 1.26 ERA in 14.1 postseason innings. This kid looks special, plain and simple. The kind of dominance he displayed in a winner-take-all game against the Boston Red Sox was historic, full stop.

He averaged 96.4 mph on his fastballs in the regular season, a number that soared to 97.3 in the postseason.

Back to Cole, even though he’s 35 years old he remains a premier pitcher in MLB. As a Yankee, he’s been more than worth the contract general manager Brian Cashman gave him. He has a 3.12 ERA across 125 career starts for the Yankees, with a 2.93 in 12 postseason outings.

Getting another workhorse at the top of the rotation back for free takes a lot of pressure off Cashman this winter. It’s additionally hard to put together a better one-through-four than Cole, Fried, Carlos Rodon, and Schlittler.

Shortstop Is a Position of Need

It’s hard look at Anthony Volpe‘s defensive struggles in 2025 as more than a one-off, especially with the news he played through a partially torn labrum.

Offensively, he just is who he is, and that’s okay. But as the Yankees search for ways to upgrade the roster, they have to look at all avenues. However, it appears Jose Caballero will get the first crack at being an upgrade while Volpe recovers from offseason surgery.

The market for shortstops is pretty barren. Outside of Bo Bichette, the top free-agent options include Willi Castro, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Amed Rosario. While familiar with two-thirds of this list, and none are bad players, the Yankees likely want to aim higher if moving off of Volpe.

They’d have to get creative to pull it off before 2026, and perhaps this is more of a deadline solution next summer, but they can only afford to burn so many Judge years before it’s negligent roster management.

It’s worth mentioning that Volpe posted a 120 wRC+ in his first 32 games played with 15 extra-base hits. After that, it was a 72. Perhaps the injury impacted more than his defense? Not so fast, he had a 120 through 30 games in 2024, 79 after.

He may be a fast starter, and maybe he’s worth giving one more year with a healthy shoulder to assess accurately. After all, he’s only 24 years old. However, he should be on thin ice for the Yankees moving forward.

Ben Rice Is an Upper-Echelon Hitter in Baseball

Ben Rice dealt with consistency issues in his rookie season but flashed with the bat frequently in 2024.

Fast forward to 2025 and he’s a fixture in the heart of the lineup. While Rice played 138 games, you could feel his absence when he wasn’t starting or playing at all. In 530 plate appearances, Rice slashed .255/.337/.499 with 26 home runs and a 133 wRC+. As impressive as those numbers are, he underperformed his expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) by nearly 60 points (.358 actual, .410 expected).

Of the 146 hitters with 500 plate appearances or more Rice ranked sixth in xwOBA and tied for 21st in wRC+ with Jose Ramirez. He’s already in that pantheon of hitter in MLB; he just hasn’t been around long enough to stick there nationally.

He only posted a 104 wRC+ with a .271 on-base in 119 appearances against lefties, but that’s more than passable for someone so potent against the strong side of the platoon. It makes sense why he didn’t play some matchups, especially with how veteran Paul Goldschmidt hit against southpaws this year but loosening the reins should be a priority for Boone and co. moving forward.

He turns 27 in January and has team control through 2030. While some Yankees fans may “want” a more established name in the heart of the order — be careful what you wish for. Rice is merely a year or two away from being a household bat.

How Soon Is Too Soon for Jasson Dominguez?

He’s 22 years old, so he’s far from a finished product at the major-league level, but at what point do the Yankees need to shuffle where Jasson Dominguez fits in their plans?

From a counting stats perspective, they’re likely fine with the output he’s shown for 149 games. He’s hit 16 home runs, driven in 58, and is 29-for-34 on stolen base attempts. The problem? He’s posted 0.8 fWAR and has -11 DRS with -12 OAA in 1,005 defensive innings in the outfield.

Again, worth mentioning he’s just 22, so it’s pretty early to label this kid a designated hitter. But should that be his label? If it is, it’s hard to envision him sticking around in the Bronx since Stanton has up to three more years of control.

Perhaps lightening the regular-season workload for Stanton even further creates more opportunities for Dominguez to focus on hitting, but three years is a long time. Once a top prospect in baseball, the shine is wearing off and narratives form. He doesn’t need to be a Gold Glove-caliber defender, but dramatic improvement is necessary.

It’s hard to be an everyday player when your best tool is a 105 wRC+ bat, but time will tell for the youngster.

Decision Time Is Coming on Jazz

One of the most polarizing figures in baseball, Jazz Chisholm has been a phenomenal Yankee.

In 176 games, he’s slashing .251/.330/.486 with 42 home runs, 49 stolen bases, a 128 wRC+, and 6.7 fWAR. He’s really fit in at home, as his numbers go up to .272/.354/.500 with a 142 wRC+ in 278 home plate appearances.

He’s also become a solid bat against lefties since the trade, posting a 109 wRC+ in 209 plate appearances.

If there’s one thing about Chisholm that gets under the skin of his opposition, however, it’s that he’s unapologetically himself. He has no problem talking trash, staring out at the mound, etc., but he backs it up more often than not.

That said, 2026 is his final year of team control. While he’s been an awesome Yankee, do they view him as a long-term cog in what they’re building? It sounds outrageous to insinuate that answer is no, given the aforementioned numbers. He plays with an edge that, again, gets under the skin of the opposition. But he’s also given the Yankees an edge they’ve lacked since the early 2010s.

The situation regarding Chisholm is hardly at an “extend or trade” fever pitch. However, it may be in the Yankees best interest to make a decision early in the offseason regarding his long-term future.

There Needs to be a Change in October Approach

Prefacing this by saying Judge, Rice, and Stanton are definitely three guys who need to change nothing about their games. Their job is to do damage. That said, the Yankees cannot be a team reliant on pop coming one-through-nine.

There were some signs they knew this at the deadline, hence the acquisitions of Austin Slater, Rosario and Caballero. But that shift in approach should trickle into offseason moves and messaging.

With the possibility of losing outfielders Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham, the Yankees outfield could look mighty different in 2026. While making a play for Kyle Tucker seems ideal, they can’t throw their hands in the air if they don’t land him and fall back into old habits.

They don’t need to overcorrect the issues that’ve plagued them in recent years by adding someone like Luis Arraez, but don’t fall down the well of targeting someone like Japanese phenom Munetaka Murakami. While the power he possesses is enticing, it comes with a lot of swing-and-miss.

This doesn’t go for only acquisitions, either. There needs to be better messaging to the guys already on the roster that sometimes playing for one run is better, not just easier, than playing for the crooked number. Let the situation dictate the approach; don’t lose sight of the importance of the long ball, but don’t be too dependent on it that you often leave runs on the table.

That mindset is apparent as the division rival Blue Jays stand one win away from a World Series title.