It’s earlier than we’d all want to be doing these end-of-year recaps, but here we are. Year in and out, the Yankees do try to assemble a team without much volatility, but in 162 games and a postseason
run, you’re always going to get a few guys that pop up without us expecting it. It’s important to note that surprises aren’t always positive — your toilet can back up without warning, after all.
Ben Rice
I’m not saying that Ben Rice is the next Aaron Judge, I’m just saying that in his first taste of MLB action, Rice looked cooked. A 74 wRC+ and 27 percent strikeout rate across 50 games in 2024 sure didn’t set expectations high (though there were signs of promise), and the Yankees inked veteran Paul Goldschmidt to a one-year deal to shore up first base. A year later, the Yankees are proverbially shaking Goldy’s hand and letting him go, while Rice has emerged as a middle-of-the-order bat who can somehow also catch.
A 133 wRC+, 26 home runs, an offseason bulk-up, and one of the reddest Statcast pages you’ll see propelled Rice into the long-term plans of the organization, and while there’s still some shaky defense at first to finalize, he feels custom-built to bat fifth for the better part of the next decade. As Yankee fans we’ve been through this before a decade ago, when Greg Bird’s left-handed swing seemed purpose built for the Stadium, and while I may not be ready to be hurt again, Rice’s underlying batted-ball data makes me a little more optimistic that 2025 is just the start.
The Trade Deadline
Remember what I said about that toilet backing up?
The Yankees very clearly focused on the bullpen at the end of July, bringing in Jake Bird, David Bednar, and Camilo Doval to reinforce a rather shaky relief corps. Bednar was OK and effectively settled in as the club’s closer (much appreciated given Devin Williams and Luke Weaver faltering), but those other two trades have yet to bear real fruit.
Bird wasn’t even on the MLB roster longer than five days, allowing seven runs in his first three appearances with the club. The Yankees still have two years of control over the right-hander, so hopefully they can figure something out with him, but to get absolutely zero value in 2025 out of your deadline acquisition wasn’t something I would generally bet on. Doval showed flickers of his talent since coming over from San Francisco, but too many walks and getting nailed by bad sequencing didn’t exactly make us too confident in him. He’s definitely more in the category of “project.”
Ryan McMahon was good defensively but pretty poor at the dish as another added piece, managing just an 84 wRC+ while under contract for two more years at $16 million per. I’ll reserve the right for McMahon to improve, but he does look a little Joey Gallo-esque over at the hot corner.
José Caballero came over from the Rays, and he was a pleasant surprise at least:
Honorable Mention: Aaron Judge
You could argue that Judge is actually the opposite of a surprise, as so much of the AL MVP race does seem to come down to “well, Judge is always fantastic, let’s recognize someone else” … but we can’t let 200 wRC+ seasons become ho-him. Since integration, Judge’s 2025 campaign ranks as the 13th-best offensive performance, only bested by men named Bonds, Williams, Mantle, Thomas, Bagwell, McGwire, and himself twice. He was 94 points of OPS better than his staggering 1.051 projection, and a win and a half better than his preseason pegging by FanGraphs.
To contextualize that projection, Shohei Ohtani will likely win the NL MVP again, and the titanic battle of just who you’d rather have between him and Judge — I’m still taking Judge — will go into yet another round. Ohtani’s OPS was 1.014, a fantastic mark that establishes you as one of the very elite batters in the game. Judge’s projected OPS was better than Shohei’s actual mark, and what Judge eventually did on the field lapped the Dodger’s star. And as an added perk, he won his first career batting title, hitting .331 in a year where no one qualified in the majors hit higher than .311.
We are witnessing one of the finest hitters in the history of baseball, and I choose to marvel at it no matter how frequently he repeats his own success.
Cam Schlittler
You knew he had to be here. Cam started the season with Double-A Somerset, and ended it called upon to stave off the end of the year — and I had full confidence in his ability to do it. The Yankees may have found an ace-in-waiting in Schlittler, riding his red-hot fastball to a 2.96 ERA across 73 regular-season innings. With three fastballs regularly sitting 98 mph, you kind of start to drool at the pure stuff, and the composure the righthander showcased makes you think the sky could be the limit.
The Yankees will return a strong rotation in 2026, with Gerrit Cole hopefully returning at close to full strength by midseason. That means Cam Schlittler might end up the best No. 4 pitcher in baseball. The expectations will be high, but he’s answered every call so far in his career, and immediately becomes one of the featured players to look out for heading into next season.
Regardless, we’ll always have that Wild Card Series start.
