2025 New York Yankees

2025 New York Yankees / Franchise: New York Yankees / BR Team Page

Record: 94-68, Finished 1st (t) in AL Eastern Division (2025 AL) Wild Card

Managed by Aaron Boone

Coaches: Brad Ausmus, Matt Blake, Travis Chapman, Preston Claiborne, Casey Dykes, Mike Harkey, Pat Roessler, Luis Rojas, James Rowson and Tanner Swanson

Ballpark: New Yankee Stadium

History, Comments, Contributions

The 2025 New York Yankees headed into the season as the defending American League champions, something that could not have been said since their last World Series win, back in 2009. And of course, for the Yankees, the only thing that matters is winning the World Series, so the fan base was growing impatient, even if getting to the Fall Classic after an outstanding season in 2024 had been an achievement. The off-season had been anything but quiet, though, as there were numerous personnel changes from that pennant-winning team. The biggest change was the departure of RF Juan Soto, who had teamed up with MVP Aaron Judge to form the heart of the Yankees' offense, but when he became a free agent after the season, the Yankees came up short, seeing him leave to join their crosstown rivals, the New York Mets. Also leaving was long-time second baseman Gleyber Torres and closer Clay Holmes, both also as free agents, while P Nestor Cortes was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in order to acquire Holmes's replacement, Devin Williams. Other additions were P Max Fried, signed as a free agent, OF Cody Bellinger, acquired in a trade with the Chicago Cubs, and 1B Paul Goldschmidt, signed as a free agent. The other major change was that the Yankees finally dropped their long-standing policy banning facial hair on players - they were the last team in the majors to have such a policy.

The Yankees ran into injury trouble in spring training as they lost four key players in a short span of time: DH Giancarlo Stanton and utility player DJ LeMahieu both had to start the season on the injured list, and two starting pitchers were also shut down for a prolonged period, as Rookie of the Year Luis Gil was sidelined for a period of months, and ace Gerrit Cole had to undergo Tommy John surgery, ending his season before it had started. Heading into camp, the Yankees had a wealth of starting pitchers, and it even caused an issue as Marcus Stroman, who looked like he would be the odd man out, expressed his displeasure at being considered for a bullpen slot. However, with the injuries, Stroman was again a starting pitcher, and GM Brian Cashman admitted to reporters that the Yankees now needed more pitching but that "very little [was] available." There was more bad news on March 16th when Clarke Schmidt had a scheduled Grapefruit League start pushed back for a day, then cancelled the next day due to shoulder soreness. The hope was that rest would allow him to make his first regular season start, scheduled for April 3rd, but he was out until mid-April.

The Yankees started the season on the right note as Austin Wells, the first catcher to bat lead-off on Opening Day for the franchise, connected for a homer off Freddy Peralta of the Milwaukee Brewers sending them on their way to a 4-2 win on March 27th. In their second game two days later, they did some thing unprecedented in major league annals to mark Cortes' return to New Yankee Stadium: Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge homered on his first three pitches of the game - which was also the first time the Yankees had opened a game with three consecutive homers, then Wells hit another long ball later in the inning for their first-ever four-homer inning. If that wasn't enough, Judge added two more homers, including a grand slam, and the Yankees hit a total of nine homers, setting a new team record, in a 20-9 win. They were just the third team to hit that many dingers in a single game. Also, for both Wells and Goldschmidt, it was the first time in their career that they had batted in the leadoff spot. With 11 home runs in their first two games, the Yankees had hit two more than any other team before them, and then added four more long balls the next day in completing a sweep of Milwaukee. That power outburst attracted attention to the fact that a number of their players were using an odd-shaped bat called a "Torpedo bat" with a thicker barrel and a tapered end to compensate for the extra weight in the middle. But lest conspiracy theories take over, Judge had hit all four of his homers in the series with a regular bat. In any case, the 15 long balls tied them with the 2006 Detroit Tigers for most in a team's first three games, and the 13 over the final two games were the most in any two-game span in Yankees history, and one short of the all-time record set by the 1999 Cincinnati Reds. They continued to be homer-happy in their next game, when they hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 1st, when Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and Ben Rice all went deep to make it 18 homers in four games, a new record. However, they then got a taste of their own medicine when Eugenio Suarez, himself on a home run tear, hit a grand slam off Mark Leiter Jr. in the 8th with closer Devin Williams unavailable, for a 7-5 Arizona win and the Yankees' first loss of the season. The Yankees were the first team to have nine different players go yard in its first four games, and to have three players (Judge, Chisholm and Volpe) with three or more homers in that span. By the time they completed their season-opening home stand with a 9-7 win over Arizona on April 3rd, they had hit 22 homers, shattering the previous major league mark of 17 through a team's first six games set by the 2019 Los Angeles Dodgers, and Judge had hit the 500th extra-base hit of his career. The trio of Judge, Chisholm and Volpe now all had at least four homers, which was also unprecedented at such an early stage of the season.

The Yankees continued to rake when Judge hit his major league-leading 6th homer on April 4th and Trent Grisham went deep twice the next day, with the Yankees winning the first two games of their first road series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park. By then their record start had resulted in 25 homers in their first 8 games. However, on April 6th, the Bucs became the first team to hold them within the park for an entire game and won 5-4 in 11 innings, a loss which was followed by another homerless performance, this one in a loss to Casey Mize and the Detroit Tigers on April 7th. Their 2 runs that day was their lowest total of the season. On April 29th, they almost repeated their record-setting performance from exactly a month earlier, as Grisham, Judge and Rice opened a game against the Baltimore Orioles by all homering off Kyle Gibson. Bellinger then matched the four-homer 1st inning from that game by going deep later in the inning, and the only difference was that the first three batters had needed more than three pitches to do their damage. They won that game 15-3 to consolidate their hold on first place, although the Boston Red Sox were keeping pace with them, and after 30 games, they had already hit 51 homers, leading the majors. On May 6th, they had their biggest inning since 2015 when they scored 10 runs in the 7th inning of a 12-3 win over the San Diego Padres. This time, the big blow came from Wells, who hit a grand slam.

Everything seemed to be going the Yankees' way until they hit a big road bump at the end of June and early July, going 6-14 over a 20-game stretch capped by being swept over four games by the Toronto Blue Jays. As the day started on July 4th, they had been bumped out of first place by the Jays, and also caught by the Tampa Bay Rays. They had been expected to cruise to an easy division win given their strong start, and while they were still well in possession of a wild card spot even after the rough stretch, there was reason for concern. An apparently inconsequential event - the loss on May 12th of 3B Oswaldo Cabrera to a season-ending ankle injury - had set off a series of consequences: forcing Chisholm to play out of position at 3B and inserting an aging LeMahieu into the everyday line-up as second base. Both of these moves had greatly weakened the team's defense. With SS Volpe also playing below his normal standards and 1B Goldschmidt showing his age on defense, this had become a serious weak spot, with consequences on the team's pitching as well. Of particular concern were the fourth and fifth spots of the starting rotation, in which Will Warren and Carlos Carrasco were both posting ERAs over 5.00, while Stroman had himself gone on the injured list after posting an ERA of 8.10 over his first four starts. The Yankees still had a devastating offense, led by Judge who was having an MVP-type season again, but they were asking it to do a lot to compensate for their weaknesses. And if fans thought the news couldn't get any worse, they were sadly mistaken, as on July 5th, news came out that Clarke Schmidt, one of their three effective starters, would need to undergo Tommy John surgery like Gerrit Cole, creating another difficult-to-fill hole.

On July 9th, the Yankees decided to cut bait on LeMahieu, having him designated for assignment even though he had $22 million left on his contract. He had been hitting better of late, although not with any power, but his lack of a defensive position made it impossible to fit him into the line-up; only a couple of days earlier, manager Aaron Boone had announced that Chisholm would be going back to playing second base. That same day, rookie pitcher Cam Schlittler made his major league debut starting in place of Schmidt, and that became a rare positive story of late as he pitched into the 6th inning and was credited with his team's 9-6 win over the Seattle Mariners. Having fallen 6 1/2 games back of the Blue Jays on July 26th, there was a sense of panic beginning to fall, especially when Judge had to go on the injured list with an elbow strain around the same time. The Yankees were very active before the trading deadline that fell on July 31st in trying to address two areas of concern, infield defense and relief pitching. For the former, they traded for Colorado Rockies 3B Ryan McMahon, who was immediately installed as the starter, and for veterans Amed Rosario and José Caballero. The bullpen issue was addressed by the acquisition of David Bednar, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird in three separate deals. The question was how all of these newcomers would jell, and what to do when Judge returned but was unlikely to be able to play the outfield at first. One of the first moves the Yankees made after the deadline passed was to release Marcus Stroman, who had never managed to get himself going (his ERA was 6.23 in 9 starts).

The initial returns on the trades were a mixed bag. On the bullpen side, Bednar pitched well, but Doval and Bird struggled, the latter so badly that he was quickly sent down to the minors. In the infield, Rosario was injured after appearing in just four games, while McMahon and Caballero were good on the defensive side without contributing a lot of offense. And the Yankees were still losing ground, winning just 5 of their first 13 games in August to fall behind the Red Sox and into third place. While GM Brian Cashman told the media on August 15th that the objective for the season was still to win the division, that looked like an increasingly distant goal, as they were in danger of being caught by both the Cleveland Guardians and Texas Rangers for the final wild card spot. On August 19th, they matched the feat they had accomplished in the second game of the season by blasting nine homers in a 13-3 win over the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field, their spring training home. That matched the franchise record, and they also become the first team to ever hit that many long balls twice in a season. After a two-hour rain delay, they started the game with a bang, with Judge, Bellinger and Stanton hitting consecutive homers off Shane Baz in the 1st inning. Bellinger and Stanton ended up with two long balls, as did Caballero in his first game against his former team, doubling his season's homer total in the process. For Judge it was home run #40 and it placed him in élite company in franchise history, as only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle had had four such seasons in pinstripes before him. The Yankees then hit five more homers the next day, including two in the 10th inning, to tie the major league record of 14 in two games. Stanton hit a pinch homer in that game, giving him five long balls in six games. After losing the first three games of a four-game series against Boston on August 21-23, the Yankees reeled off 7 straight wins to get back to within two games of Toronto, before ending August with a loss to the Chicago White Sox.

By September 1st, the Yankees had established a clear pattern to their season: they had all sorts of trouble when facing Toronto or Boston, but were beating up on sub .500 teams like it was nobody's business. They would have to reverse that in the first half of September, as their first four opponents were Boston and Toronto, in addition to front-runners Detroit and the Houston Astros. They won two of three against Houston and had a chance to catch the Blue Jays if they swept the three-game series between the two teams at home, but in the opening game on September 5th that saw Judge playing the outfield for the first time since his injury, Toronto demonstrated that it still had the Yankees' number, defeating them, 7-1. But New York bounced back to win the next two games, meaning that they had cut their deficit to just two games. The Tigers gave them a handful by winning the first two games of a three-game series at New Yankee Stadium by a combined score of 23-3. However, the Yankees bounced back on September 11th with President Trump present in commemoration of the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as Judge homered twice more in a 9-3 win. Ten days after breaking into the franchise top five for homers, the two blasts now tied Judge with DiMaggio for fourth place on the exclusive list. With two series left to play, the Yankees were still two games back of Toronto, but they cut that to one game by defeating the Chicago White Sox, 3-2, on September 23rd with Toronto, now in a complete tailspin, losing to Boston. That clinched a spot in the postseason, but first place was now theirs for the taking, which they did the next day when they won again while the Blue Jays lost. In that game, Judge reached 50 homers for the fourth time and also hit his 51st, become just the fourth player with four or more seasons of 50 dingers. Technically, the Jays were still first because they held the tiebreaker, but the Bronx Bombers had four more games to win the thing outright. They won all four of those games - in fact they won 11 of their least 12 games - but the Blue Jays also managed to fix their sinking ship, winning their last four. The two teams finished tied with the best record in the American League, but the Jays were the division title winners thanks to their head-to-head record against New York, while the Yankees would have to host the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series.

Awards and Honors

• All-Stars: Jazz Chisholm, Max Fried, Aaron Judge and Carlos Rodon
• AL MVP Award: Aaron Judge
• AL Gold Glove: Max Fried (P)
• AL Silver Slugger Award: Jazz Chisholm (2B) and Aaron Judge (OF)

Further Reading

• Bryan Hoch: "Here are the storylines to watch as the Yanks open camp", mlb.com, February 10, 2025. [1]
• Bryan Hoch: "Cashman: Yanks need pitching, but 'very little is available'", mlb.com, March 11, 2025. [2]
• Bryan Hoch: "Judge hits slam among 3 blasts as Yanks break franchise HR mark", mlb.com, March 29, 2025. [3]
• Bryan Hoch: "Yanks' historic first: B2B2B HRs to begin game for 2nd time in '25", mlb.com, April 29, 2025. [4]
• Bryan Hoch: "Yanks overhaul 'pen with Bednar, Doval and Bird trades", mlb.com, July 31, 2025. [5]
• Bryan Hoch: "Yanks crush their way into history with 9-homer barrage: Bombers tie franchise record, stand alone after prodigious power display", mlb.com, August 20, 2025. [6]
• Bryan Hoch: "Yankees commemorate 9/11 with pregame ceremony, Presidential visit", mlb.com, September 11, 2025. [7]
• Bryan Hoch: "Yankees walk off and into playoffs for 8th trip in past 9 seasons", mlb.com, September 24, 2025. [8]
• Jeff Jones: "Cashman hasn't lost belief in Yanks' chances to win AL East", mlb.com, August 16, 2025. [9]
• Jackson Roberts (The Sporting News): "Aaron Boone's message after Yankees' latest catastrophe will enrage New York fans", Yahoo! Sports, July 4, 2025. [10]
• Steve Rushin: "Goodbye to Baseball’s Most Anachronistic Rule: I miss it already.", The Atlantic, February 25, 2025. [11]

2025 MLB season by team