The Yankees’ road to the postseason is clear. They either get a full, healthy, good season from Aaron Judge, in which case they should skate in, or they don’t, in which case things get a lot darker. It isn’t just local radio hosts saying that the Yankees are relying heavily on Judge; in his writeup of the Yankees’ 2026 ZiPS projections, FanGraphs’ Dan Szymborski also claimed, “The offense, of course, starts, ends, and runs through Aaron Judge.” This isn’t to say that the Yankees aren’t a good team
as currently constructed—they are—but it is concerning that so much of their hopes are tied to just a single player.
Well, leave it to baseball to make prognosticators look like fools. The Yankees received very little contributions from Judge in the first six games of the season, with the gargantuan slugger only able to muster a .125/.160/.375 slash line across 25 plate appearances. And yet, they ended the first road trip of the year with a 5-1 record. So much for “As Judge goes, so do the Yanks.”
Granted, it’s only six games, so we shouldn’t be drawing any sweeping conclusions from this sample about this team. If Judge’s OPS still begins with a 5 six weeks later from now, the Yankees’ record probably will look a whole lot worse. But the Yankees winning two series despite their captain largely being a non-factor is a good reminder of the quality of this team. Sure, Judge is far and away the best player on this squad. But don’t mistake these Yankees for the prime Mike Trout-era Angels. This is a good team from top to bottom, and they have the tools to withstand cold spells from their franchise player.
First, let’s talk about the offense. Over the first six games of the season, the Yankees collectively hit .227/.287/.359, good for a team wRC+ of 89. That sounds awful, but when you account for the fact that Judge’s 50 wRC+ is dragging that down, it looks somewhat better. Leading the charge were regulars Giancarlo Stanton (266 wRC+), Ben Rice (264 wRC+), and Cody Bellinger (135 wRC+), with Paul Goldschmidt also making the most of his two starts (148 wRC+). Now, none of them are going to maintain that level of production for the whole year, but these are all good hitters, and in the case of Stanton and Rice, both have enough slug in their bat to carry an offense for a series or two at a time.
And the Yankees don’t need to ride on their backs for the entire season. Even outside of Judge, several bats went cold during the Yanks’ first two series. Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm Jr., two lineup mainstays, both recorded wRC+ marks below 30. It hardly needs saying that this isn’t reflective of their true talent. Chisholm has been an above-average bat for the past four seasons, and he has enough pop to go berserk in any given series. Wells has yet to live up to the offensive potential that evaluators saw in him as a prospect, but he still owns a career wRC+ of 99, far from a black hole. If these two can provide something closer to their career norms going forward, which isn’t an unreasonable thing to bank on, the Yankees’ lineup will be plenty deep even when Judge is slumping.
If you still have reservations about this offense, then may I offer my second point: The Yankees don’t need to score five runs every game, because the pitching is more than capable of holding up its end of the bargain. Andrés already provided an excellent summary of the Bombers’ superlative pitching in his reaction to the first road trip of the year, but the numbers are so gaudy they bear repeating: the starting corps owned a 0.53 ERA, 0.68 WHIP, and 35 punchouts in 33.2 innings. The bullpen was quietly elite too, with the exception of one bad inning from Paul Blackburn in the Yanks’ only road trip loss: a 1.83 ERA and 2.07 FIP over 19.2 innings. Yes, they’re pitching out of their minds at the moment, but it’s not like this is a ragtag group that’s randomly overperforming. FanGraphs’ Depth Charts projections had the Yankees’ starters at 10th-best in MLB, and ranked the bullpen even higher at No. 7. This is a strong collection of arms that’s having a fantastic start to the year, and the returns of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Clarke Schmidt should offset any regression coming for the current staff.
So, the conclusion is clear: the 2026 Yankees are far from being a one-man show. Aaron Judge remains the centerpiece of the squad, but that’s more a testament to his otherworldly talent rather than an indictment of his teammates. Yes, I’d like to see Judge post a third consecutive 10 WAR, 200 wRC+ season and have a postseason for the ages. But even if Judge doesn’t quite live up to those standards, his surrounding cast is well-equipped to pick up the slack. Judge doesn’t need to carry this team. It can stand on its own.
