Bolstered by the addition of one of the game’s best hitters, the 2024 Yankees set sail for a return to October glory
Can’t happen again.
Just not us.
Unacceptable.
While most teams would view a 31st consecutive winning season as a reason to celebrate, the Yankees’ 82-80 campaign in 2023 was acknowledged by everyone throughout the organization as anything but. A fourth-place finish in the American League East meant no trip to the postseason for the first time in six seasons under manager Aaron Boone, let alone a return to the World Series for the first time since 2009.
There were plenty of reasons for the Yankees’ first 80-loss season in more than three decades, including a 4-9 record against the last-place Red Sox and losing nine of their last 10 rubber games. But the biggest culprit — and perhaps the biggest reason for optimism heading into this season — was health: Nearly every player on the roster was bitten by the injury bug in 2023. Aaron Judge missed two months with a toe sprain after crashing into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium to make a catch. Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes — both of whom were All-Stars in 2022 — combined to make just 26 starts. All season long, it seemed as if players landed on the injured list before others could come off it.
As a result, the 2023 Yankees never got hot, never ripped off more than a five-game winning streak and finished 19 games out of first place. Rather than try to forget about it, though, many players used the disappointment to fuel their internal fire, showing up early to Tampa, Fla., and attacking the offseason with renewed vigor.
“I think a lot of guys were embarrassed,” team captain Aaron Judge said on Feb. 20 at George M. Steinbrenner Field’s media pavilion. “A lot of guys didn’t have the season they wanted. It was kind of a wakeup call. And I think just collectively as a group, we all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘This can’t happen again.’
“Having this group down here, seeing the work that they put in, I think it just shows that this is a dedicated group that wants to go out there and right the ship.”
The players weren’t the only ones who had an intensely focused winter. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman made several key moves to improve the team, signing two-time All-Star right-hander Marcus Stroman, adding two elite defensive outfielders in Alex Verdugo and Trent Grisham and making the most significant move of the entire offseason: acquiring 25-year-old Juan Soto. Pairing the three-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger Award winner with Judge in the Yankees’ lineup figures to cause massive headaches for opposing pitchers in 2024.
“Whenever we’re hot, it’s going to be fun,” Soto said. “We both know the strike zone pretty well; I think it’s going to be two walks or it’s going to be two gappers. … If I’m hitting in front of him, I’m going to try to be as much as I can on the bases so he can do his job and drop the hammer.”
With as potent a 1-2 punch in the batting order as there is in baseball, the Yankees had every reason to be optimistic that 2024 would be a season truly worth celebrating. Here’s what to expect along the six-month voyage back toward October baseball in the Bronx.
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The Yankees kicked off the season deep in the heart of enemy territory, sweeping the Astros in four games at Minute Maid Park. The Bombers rolled into the Lone Star State brandishing an offensive weapon that can help tilt the balance of power in this heated rivalry in their favor: Soto. The new Yankee won AL Player of the Week honors after delivering nine hits, one homer and four RBIs while also making a game-saving throw in the ninth inning on Opening Day to preserve a 5-4 win.
The left-handed Dominican Republic native had put on a show in Houston as a member of the Washington Nationals during the 2019 World Series, batting .438 (7-for-16) with two doubles, two home runs, five RBIs and five runs scored in four road victories there. In the four seasons since, Soto won the 2020 National League batting title, finished second to Bryce Harper in the 2021 NL MVP race, won the 2022 Home Run Derby and has been an All-Star three times
“He’s a generational talent,” Judge said of the Majors’ active leader in on-base percentage. “What he brings to the game in that box, he’s got such a great demeanor — the swagger, the focus. Every single pitch, he’s prepared.
“It’s impressive.”
From Houston, it was on to Arizona to face the defending National League-champion Diamondbacks before flying east for the home opener against division-rival Toronto. The newest member of the Yankees’ starting rotation, Stroman, who spent the first five and a half seasons of his big league career with Toronto, returns to the AL East and is scheduled to face his former team in the home opener on Friday. A ground-ball pitcher who rarely gives up the long ball, Stroman is a key component in the Yankees’ championship plans.
“That’s why we play this game — to win championships and to go deep into October,” Stroman said. “And I think this team is definitely capable.”
In Stroman and Cortes, the Yankees have two All-Star-caliber starting pitchers who, at under 6 feet tall, have shown that height doesn’t measure heart — and that disrupting a hitter’s timing with the occasional funky delivery can be every bit as effective as blowing a 100 mph heater past them. If the Hialeah Kid can get back to being the Nasty Nestor of 2022, when he went 12-4 with a 2.44 ERA in 28 starts, the Yanks could have one of their toughest starting staffs in years.
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Still just 27 years old, Gleyber Torres hopes that the upward trajectory he has been on in recent years continues in this, his seventh season. In 2023, the Venezuelan second baseman set career highs in hits (163) and games played (158), while his 25 homers and team-leading 90 runs scored were his most since 2019, when he clubbed 38 homers and made his second straight All-Star team. Torres typically hits well in May — his .290 average is higher than in any other month — and especially so in Baltimore, where the Yankees begin the month. Eight of his 14 career multihomer games have come against the O’s, and he has mashed more dingers at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (eight) than in any other ballpark outside of Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees embark on their longest road trip of the season in May, a jaunt up the California coast beginning in San Diego on May 24. The three-game series at Petco Park will serve as a reunion of sorts for some of the players involved in the December trade that brought Soto and Grisham to New York. Grisham ought to receive a warm welcome in San Diego, where he won two NL Gold Glove Awards in center field in four seasons.
While Soto headlined a busy offseason for the Yankees’ front office, Cashman also restocked the bullpen with trades for left-handers Clayton Andrews (from Milwaukee), Caleb Ferguson (who appeared in 68 games for the Dodgers in 2023) and Victor González (who was acquired from the Dodgers along with infielder Jorbit Vivas in December). Newly acquired right-handers Cody Morris (from Cleveland) and Cody Poteet (a free agent who last pitched in the big leagues for Miami in 2022) were also vying for bullpen roles, but with the return of talented relievers Ian Hamilton, Tommy Kahnle, Jonathan Loáisiga and Ron Marinaccio, active roster spots were at a premium to start the season.
Waiting in the wings as potential starters should the need arise were several promising right-handers, including Clayton Beeter, Luis Gil, Yoendrys Gómez and Luke Weaver.
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When the calendar flips to June, the Bronx Bombers will find themselves at the other end of I-80, in San Francisco to take on the Giants. It will be the first trip back for Rodón, who signed a six-year deal with the Yankees after an All-Star season with the Giants in 2022. The left-hander’s first season in pinstripes didn’t go as planned, but a return to the form he displayed in ’22 — when his 12.0 K/9 rate led the Majors — would go a long way toward putting ’23 in the rearview mirror. Rodón was electric at Oracle Park two years ago, going 8-2 with a 1.93 ERA in 15 home starts, the type of elite production that both he and the Yankees are hoping for in ’24.
Verdugo will face both of his former teams within a one-week span in June, as the Yankees host the Shohei Ohtani-led Dodgers for a three-game set June 7-9, then visit Boston’s Fenway Park the following weekend. The left-handed-hitting outfielder batted .288 in 248 career games at Fenway, blasting 21 of his 57 career homers there before the December 2023 trade that sent him to the Yankees. Known for playing with passion, especially against the Yankees — he’s “done quite a bit of damage against us over the years, and now we get a chance to have him on our side,” said Judge — Verdugo was thrilled to be crossing enemy lines in the historic rivalry.
“I’m very excited to bring that same energy toward the Red Sox now,” he said. “The mindset in New York, how people talk, they’re a little bit more aggressive and straight to the point. I like that. And I think when they see me play every day and they see me bust my butt and work hard, I think they’ll like what they see.”
Yankees fans had their fingers crossed that June would mark a return to action for outfielder Jasson Domínguez, who dazzled in his big league debut last September before an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery sent him to the injured list. While the present Yankees’ outfield is undoubtedly formidable, the future looks bright with Domínguez and fellow top prospect Spencer Jones expected to become major contributors soon.
Gerrit Cole gave a memorable performance in the 2023 MLB All-Star Game — his sixth career All-Star nod and his first start in the Midsummer Classic — bisecting his Cy Young Award-winning season with an eventful 1-2-3 first inning at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park. An elbow injury this spring delayed the start of his 2024 season, making an invitation to Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on July 16 seem like a long shot, but once the 33-year-old ace returns to form, his next All-Star selection will mark another significant step on the road to Cooperstown. Of the 30 starting pitchers in baseball history who were named to at least seven All-Star teams, all but three (Roger Clemens, Billy Pierce and Dave Stieb) are either in the Hall of Fame or still active.
All-Star Week will also see the 2024 MLB Draft take place at Fort Worth’s historic Stockyards entertainment district beginning on July 14. At No. 26, the Yankees would be thrilled to find another Clarke Schmidt, taken 16th overall out of the University of South Carolina in 2017. The right-hander looks to build upon a breakout 2023 campaign in which he made 32 starts — 26 of which saw him allow three runs or fewer. Schmidt won all four of his starts last July, posting a 20:3 K/BB ratio while holding the opposition to a .212 average.
The Yanks appear to have hit the jackpot again in the 2020 Draft when they selected University of Arizona catcher Austin Wells with the 28th overall pick. Wells was impressive after getting called up last September, homering in four out of his final eight games. The Las Vegas product turns 25 in July and hopes that it’s the first of many birthdays he’ll celebrate while playing in the big leagues.
Wells’ development would surely benefit from a full season with Jose Trevino, whose 2023 campaign ended in July due to a wrist injury. An All-Star and Platinum Glove Award winner in 2022, Trevino has caught nearly 2,500 innings in the big leagues, and while a return to the Midsummer Classic would be special for the Texas native who came up with the Rangers before they traded him to New York on April 2, 2022, Trevino has bigger goals in mind.
“I just want to win a World Series,” the 31-year-old said. “If I’m in the All-Star Game, that means our team’s doing well, I’m doing well — that’s great. But I think the most important games are at the end of the year. You want to be able to play in that last game of the season and win it. That’s the goal.”
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It has been 36 years since a Yankees player swiped 50 bases in a season — the longest drought of any AL team. And while Anthony Volpe might not possess quite the same speed as Rickey Henderson, whose 93 steals in 1988 remain the franchise single-season record, the speedy young shortstop could conceivably flirt with the half-century mark in 2024. He stole 50 bases as a Minor Leaguer in 2022 and was off to the races at the start of his Gold Glove-winning 2023 rookie year, becoming the first player in franchise history to swipe a base in each of the season’s first three games. While his 162-steal pace on the basepaths inevitably slowed down — he finished with 24 and became the first rookie in Yankees history to top 20 homers and 20 steals — Volpe’s bat picked up in August, when he led the team with 21 RBIs.
With 17 games scheduled at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees will get to enjoy plenty of home cooking in August. For DJ LeMahieu, who makes his offseason home in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham, Mich., the mid-month series with the Tigers offers an additional opportunity for familiar fare — at least for the first two games. After the Aug. 17 contest at Comerica Park, the Yankees and Tigers will travel to Historic Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pa., for the seventh annual MLB Little League Classic. It will be the first appearance in Williamsport for either team, and if LeMahieu performs as well there as he did when the Yankees traveled to Iowa for the Field of Dreams Game in 2021 (1-for-3 with two walks) or to England for the two-game London Series in 2019 (7-for-12 with seven RBIs), there will surely be a few Little Leaguers who start to model their game after “LeMachine.”
Of course, no kid could be faulted for wanting to be like slugger Giancarlo Stanton. With the retirements of Miguel Cabrera and Nelson Cruz after the 2023 season, Stanton took over the reins as baseball’s active leader in career home runs. The 34-year-old has circled the bases more than 400 times throughout his five-time All-Star career, and with 81 of those roundtrippers having come in August — contributing to a .952 OPS, his highest of any month — this is often the time of year when Stanton is at his most dangerous.
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Two years ago, all eyes were on Judge during the season’s final stretch, as the Yankees slugger put the finishing touches on a record-breaking 62–home run campaign. With baseball’s OBP leader, Soto, batting near him in the lineup, could 2024 be even better for Judge?
“I think my best season will be when we’re holding up that trophy,” the 2022 AL MVP said.
Judge will return to the site of home run No. 62 — Texas’ Globe Life Field — in early September, followed by a trip to Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where Anthony Rizzo plied his trade for 9 1/2 seasons. During Spring Training, Rizzo appeared to have put the post-concussion troubles that torpedoed his 2023 season behind him, looking like the fearsome slugger that topped 30 home runs five times in his career. The four-time Gold Glove-winning first baseman hasn’t played a full September since 2021, when he came to New York from Chicago at the Trade Deadline. Having a fully healthy Rizzo — who entered 2024 within eyeshot of his 300th career homer and his 1,000th RBI — would give the Yanks a massive boost down the stretch.
Any team with championship aspirations needs to have a dependable closer to lock down the ninth inning, and the Yankees have one of the best in the business in Clay Holmes. The 31-year-old right-hander had never recorded a save in the big leagues until the Pirates dealt him to New York in July 2021. Since then, the 6-foot-5 Alabama native has been a steady force at the back end of the bullpen, recording 20 saves and 24 saves in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Holmes was a monster down the stretch in ’23, earning AL Reliever of the Month honors for September as he saved eight games in 12 appearances — all Yankees victories. Although the Yanks fell short of the postseason, it was a good test run for what Holmes and his teammates hope will be a much longer stretch of meaningful games to close out 2024.
“Helping the New York Yankees win and win a championship,” Holmes said, “is kind of what I’ve always dreamed of.”
Last year “was a little longer offseason,” Trevino said. “I’m hoping this year it’s short, that we’re playing at the end of October going into November, and we’re having to stay in New York a little bit longer for the parade and all that stuff.”
