Did The New York Yankees Do Enough?
The Yankees will be good again this season, but how good will they be exactly?
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The New York Yankees made it all the way to the World Series in 2024. They won 94 games last season. Aaron Judge led all Major League Baseball players in Total War at 10.1 last season. New York has won at least 90 games four out of the last five seasons. The team has made the postseason nine out of the last eleven seasons. In a loaded AL East, Fangraphs’ projections give the Yankees the edge to win the division. The Seattle Mariners are the only AL team in Fangraphs’ projections to have a better chance of winning the World Series. There is no question that the team general manager Brian Cashman has put together for 2026 should be another great one that could return to the World Series for the second time in the last three seasons.
Still, when it’s the Yankees, you always have to wonder if Cashman and company did enough.
It will be a 20-year title drought if the Yankees don’t win another championship within the next four years. The last title drought that went for this long in New York ran from 1979 to 1996. In fact, with the Los Angeles Dodgers being the Los Angeles Dodgers, it is not at all unfeasible that the Yankees will eclipse their longest championship drought since they became the Yankees all the way back in 1913. There is only one other period in the team’s history with a comparable championship drought from 1963 to 1977. The Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009, and have only been to one since. The Yankees have won at least 90 games in seven of their last nine seasons, and that’s including the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
The biggest item of business that Cashman took care of this offseason was re-signing star outfielder Cody Bellinger. After losing Juan Soto to the New York Mets the previous offseason, history did not repeat itself for the Yankees, and the team was able to retain the 2019 NL MVP award-winner. Had Bellinger signed elsewhere, the feeling and tenor in New York would be quite different. When the Yankees lost out on Soto to the Mets, it was a major gut punch to the fanbase. Had they lost Bellinger in a similar fashion in back-to-back offseasons, winning 94 or more games for the third consecutive seasons would have seemed almost inconceivable. However, the Yankees re-signed Bellinger to a five-year, $162.5 million deal in late January. Only Judge is projected by Fangraphs to produce a higher WAR in the everyday starting lineup for the Yankees next season. Over his last three seasons, Bellinger has averaged a WRC+ of 123. You could lose Soto and still be OK, as the Yankees found last season, but you could not lose Bellinger, too, in back-to-back offseasons.
The Yankees’ lineup, particularly at the top of the order, should be very good once again. It’s a very strong 1-6, with some wildcards at the tail end of it in Ryan McMahon and Anthony Volpe. The latter is still young, and it’s uncertain what he’ll ultimately evolve into at the plate. The former has hit 20 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons. If he can get to around 100 WRC+ in his first full season in New York and keeps mashing, you love it in the bottom third of the order. Giancarlo Stanton is 36 now, though, and played in 77 games a season ago. Even more concerning is that this came after four consecutive seasons where he gave you at least 100 games played. Still, the Yankees are just 1.2 batting WAR away from being projected to have the second-best offense in MLB this season.
It’s the pitching that is the biggest wonder for New York in 2026. When does Gerrit Cole return? When does Carlos Rodon return? The Atlanta Braves are in a similar boat with Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep. Both teams are projected to win their division in late February, but you would also feel a lot better about their title chances with both starters back in the fold and pitching well. For both teams, it’s unlikely their early-season absence will cost them in late September, but if all four arms were healthy and available in late March, who wouldn’t like the Yankees and Braves chances to win 94-plus games and the pennant?
In Queens, the New York Mets had an offseason only Tobias Funke could love. With so much roster turnover and so much money spent in New York, the gap between the Mets’ and Yankees’ payrolls in 2026 at No. 2 and No. 3 is the largest in the sport at $56 million, per Fangraphs, the pressure and angst should primarily fall on the Mets. The Mets collapsed and missed the postseason entirely last season after signing Soto away from the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers did the opposite, bringing back Bellinger, Trent Grisham, and Paul Goldschmidt. They avoided arbitration with Jazz Chisholm Jr. Is there another level Ben Rice gets to for the Yankees at first base and at the dish?
If the lineup mashes, Cole and Rodon both return a couple of months into the season, or even into the summer, the Yankees could certainly win the AL Pennant. The AL East figures to be a juggernaut this season, but among the top-3 favorites, the Yankees are sure to be the safest pick to be the last team standing from the division once again. Toronto has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons twice in my nearly 35 years on this planet. The Baltimore Orioles might need to have a 20-win jump from last season to this season to win the division. The Yankees may not have done enough to be the overwhelming favorite in the AL, but they have done enough to be one of the favorites once again, something fans should never take for granted.