Ninety-Four Wins, Same Old Questions: My 2025 Yankees Postmortem

I knew exactly how Game 4 against Toronto was going the second George Springer ripped that leadoff double into the gap and Vlad Jr. yanked an 0–2 cutter down the line for an RBI single. Another rowdy October night at Yankee Stadium, another really good Yankees team suddenly looking ordinary. The Jays ended the season with a 5–2 win, taking the ALDS 3–1 and handing this core yet another early exit.

On paper, the resume is undeniable: 94–68, tied for the best record in the American League, a run differential of +164 (849 runs scored, 685 allowed), and the AL’s top slugging offense at .455 with 274 homers.

This team also just watched Aaron Judge win his third AL MVP in four years after hitting .331 with 53 homers and a 1.145 OPS, grabbing his first batting title in the process.

And yet: second place in the AL East thanks to Toronto’s head to head tiebreaker, a Wild Card Series win over Boston, and a quick boot in the Division Series. That is the follow up act to last year’s World Series loss to the Dodgers.

So was 2025 a success? A missed opportunity? Something in between? As a lifelong Yankees fan who watched just about every inning of this roller coaster, I would say it was all of the above, which is kind of the problem.

Expectations vs Reality: A Superteam With a Hangover

Coming into 2025, the Yankees were supposed to be the fully operational Death Star.

They were the defending American League champions, fresh off losing a chaotic, error stained World Series to the Dodgers. Juan Soto was gone to the Mets, but Brian Cashman responded by throwing money and prospects at the problem: Max Fried on a massive deal to front the rotation, Cody Bellinger via trade to deepen the outfield, and Paul Goldschmidt on a one year pillow contract at first base.

Then Gerrit Cole’s elbow intervened. Tommy John surgery knocked him out for the season, and the “three ace” rotation instantly turned into “hope Fried and Carlos Rodón can carry this thing.”

Given all of that, if you had told me in March that the Yankees would:

Tie for the best record in the AL at 94–68
Lead MLB in slugging (.455) and win the AL’s Silver Slugger Offensive Team of the Year
Finish fourth in MLB in ERA at 3.91 despite no Cole
And do it with Judge putting up a .331/.457/.688 line with 53 homers and another MVP

I probably would have signed for that on the spot and asked where to preorder the parade merch.

But after you live through the full arc, the June nosedive, the August Red Sox misery, the furious September push just to end up in the Wild Card again, and then getting outclassed by a division rival in the ALDS, it does not feel like a triumph. It feels like a great team that still has not solved the riddle of October baseball.

What Actually Went Right

Let me start with some appreciation before I dive into the autopsy.

Aaron Judge, Best Player on Earth (Again)

Judge just put together one of the best seasons a Yankee has ever had, which is a ridiculous sentence to write considering the franchise’s history. He hit .331 with 53 homers, 114 RBI, a .457 OBP and .688 slugging, leading the league in basically everything except homers and RBIs.

He finally grabbed that elusive batting title, led MLB in OPS, and then backed it up with his best October yet, hitting .500 across the Wild Card and ALDS and basically dragging the offense to any runs it could muster.

We talk so much about what this team has not accomplished that sometimes I think we are numb to how absurd Judge has been. This was his third MVP in four years. That is inner circle stuff.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. and the New Dimension

In Year 2 in the Bronx, Jazz Chisholm Jr. became only the third Yankee ever to post a 30–30 season, joining Alfonso Soriano and Bobby Bonds.

He was not perfect. The defensive lapses and high wire baserunning drove me nuts at times. But a lefty bat with 30 plus homers and 30 plus steals in this lineup changes the geometry of how teams pitch the Yankees. You saw his impact all over the postseason: the game saving defense and mad dash baserunning in the Wild Card Series, the go ahead homer in the ALDS Game 3 comeback against Toronto.

For a club that has been too slow and one dimensional for years, Jazz felt like oxygen.

A Lineup That Could Flat Out Bludgeon People

The numbers are what you would expect from watching them all summer:

849 runs, second in the AL and top 3 in MLB
.455 slugging and 274 home runs, best in baseball
Team batting average around .252, which for this era is perfectly respectable, especially when you are walking and slugging like this

Trent Grisham’s breakout, 34 homers and a strong OBP from the leadoff spot, gave the offense a steady table setter who also punished mistakes. Goldschmidt bounced back enough to be a real middle of the order threat. Bellinger was good enough on both sides of the ball that opting out of his deal was a no brainer.

This was not a top heavy, three bat lineup. When they were rolling, it felt like someone different was killing you every night.

A Rotation That Survived Without Cole

I do not think we have fully appreciated what the rotation did without its reigning Cy Young winner.

Max Fried stepped in and pitched like exactly what we were promised: 19–5 with a 2.86 ERA and All Star level command.
Carlos Rodón took another step forward: 18–9, 3.09 ERA, 203 strikeouts, and his first All Star nod as a Yankee before elbow surgery after the season.

Rookie Cam Schlittler went from “who?” to shoving 100 mph heat past the Red Sox in an eight inning, 12 strikeout masterpiece to clinch the Wild Card Series.

Add in Tim Hill’s 70 appearances with a 3.09 ERA and the steady late inning work from David Bednar, and the staff as a whole finished with that 3.91 ERA, fourth best in MLB, while Gerrit Cole rehabbed.

Did it crack in October? Oh yeah. But over six months, the pitching did more than enough to justify the winter spending spree.

What Clearly Held Them Back

So how does a team this good end up watching Toronto celebrate on their mound?

The Six Week Swoon That Cost Them the Division

Hal Steinbrenner mentioned it himself: a six to seven week slump in the middle of the year torpedoed any shot of winning the East outright.

We all lived it. June was the worst of it: the Yankees went through a brutal stretch where they were shut out multiple times, went 30 straight innings without scoring at one point, and dropped six in a row while averaging barely more than a run per game.

There were individual low points, a rain delayed slog against the Angels, the bullpen blowup against Detroit in September where a 6–1 lead turned into a 9 run inning, but the big picture is simple: this team has a gear where the bats collectively vanish.

That slump is why Toronto’s 8–5 head to head edge mattered so much. Both teams finished 94–68, but the Jays took the division and top seed, leaving the Yankees with the Wild Card gauntlet.

The Feast or Famine Offense

The macro numbers say “best offense in baseball.” The micro view says “do you trust them to score three runs when they have to?”

We have seen this movie before: the 2024 World Series, where a lineup that led the AL in runs suddenly went ice cold with runners in scoring position and piled up strikeouts against the Dodgers.

In 2025, it never got that extreme, but the pattern stayed:

Tons of homers, lots of walks, massive slugging
Long stretches where every rally absolutely had to include a home run
Too many strikeouts and pop ups in big spots against elite pitching

Even Yankees ownership has had to answer questions about whether this team is too dependent on the long ball, especially after watching Toronto grind out at bats, move runners, and play cleaner defense in the ALDS.

This is not some “old guy hates analytics” rant from me. I love dingers. I love a 10 run night as much as anyone. But when your identity is “we outslug you,” and you keep running into Octobers where you do not outslug the other team, eventually the identity itself has to be questioned.

Defense and the Volpe Problem

One of the quieter stories of the year was Anthony Volpe’s shoulder. He played through it for much of the second half, slumped to a .212 average with 19 errors, and finally needed arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder labrum after the season.

You could see it: the throws sailing, the range not quite matching last year, the at bats getting more frenetic. He was not alone, the Yankees still had too many “free outs” turn into traffic, but the shortstop spot being compromised trickles down to the entire run prevention unit.

When you stack that on top of aging, limited defenders at DH and the infield churn after DJ LeMahieu was DFA’d in July, you get a team that can pitch and hit but does not always finish plays.

That is how you win 94 games and still feel strangely fragile.

Rotation Depth and Wear and Tear

For as good as Fried and Rodón were, the depth behind them was shakier than the overall ERA suggests.

Luis Gil’s inconsistency showed up at the worst possible time in ALDS Game 1, when Toronto dropped a 10–1 hammer on the Yankees to open the series. Fried followed with his own dud in Game 2 as the Jays piled up 23 runs across the first two games.

Rodón, meanwhile, finished the season needing elbow surgery and is likely to miss the start of 2026. Cole is still rehabbing from Tommy John. Volpe is recovering from shoulder surgery. This team staggered to the finish line physically, even if the stat lines still look pretty.

You cannot talk about 2025 without admitting this: the Yankees got 94 wins out of a roster that was not close to full strength by October. That is a credit to them. It is also a warning sign about how precarious this build is.

The Turning Points That Defined 2025

A 162 game season is just a collection of little hinges, but four moments really stick with me.

1. Cole’s Surgery and Fried’s Arrival

Cole’s Tommy John news reset expectations before a pitch was thrown. Suddenly, Fried was not a luxury, he was a necessity. The fact that he delivered like an ace is one of the main reasons we are even talking about a 94 win season instead of a scramble for the last Wild Card.

But it also meant the Yankees were one more arm injury away from disaster all year. That fragility showed up in October.

2. The June Offense Blackout

That mid June stretch where the Yankees went quiet for what felt like a week, including a run of scoreless innings and a six game losing streak, was the first time I thought, “Oh, this is not going to be a 105 win joyride.”

The lineup that was supposed to steamroll the league looked suddenly mortal, and it never fully shook that reputation for streakiness.

3. Red Sox Misery, Part Whatever We Are On

In late August, the Yankees got swept at Fenway and then lost again at home, making it eight straight losses to Boston and fueling a small crisis around Aaron Boone and the team’s psyche.

That skid was part of the larger six week slump Steinbrenner referenced. It also set up the bizarre October arc where the Yankees had to go through the Red Sox in the Wild Card just to earn a shot at Toronto.

4. The Final Push and the Tiebreaker That Was Not

The last week of the season was everything I love about baseball. The Yankees ripped off an eight game winning streak, Max Fried struck out 13 Orioles in a late September shutout, and Judge officially locked up the batting title with a hit in Game 162 as the Yankees edged Baltimore 3–2.

They finished 94–68, the same record as Toronto, but lost the division because the Jays had beaten them eight times in 13 tries. That is how you end up burning high leverage innings and emotional energy just to beat Boston in the Wild Card, while Toronto waits rested at home.

The margins in modern baseball are razor thin. The Yankees found that out the hard way.

October, Again: What the Postseason Exposed

I am not going to rehash every inning, but the postseason told a pretty simple story.

Wild Card vs Boston: The Blueprint

Game 1: a 3–1 loss at home where the Yankees put the tying run on base in the ninth and could not get the big hit.

Game 2: a 4–3 survive or die win fueled by Jazz’s defense and Austin Wells’ go ahead knock.

Game 3: Schlittler’s 12 K gem and a four run fourth inning that leaned on contact, pressure, and taking advantage of Boston’s mistakes.

That Game 3 was the model: dominant starting pitching, cleaner defense, traffic on the bases, and just enough power to break things open.

ALDS vs Toronto: The Reality

Then the Jays reminded everyone that October is a different sport.

Game 1: 10–1 beatdown. Gil knocked around, Toronto’s contact heavy lineup putting the ball in play and making the Yankees look slow and stiff.
Game 2: more of the same. Fried gave up loud contact, Vlad Jr. hit a grand slam, and by the time the series came to the Bronx, the Yanks had given up 23 runs in two games.
Game 3: the high point. Down 6–1, Judge crushed a three run homer, Jazz added a go ahead shot, and the bullpen stacked 6 2/3 scoreless innings in a 9–6 win. It was chaos in the best way.
Game 4: reality again. The Jays used a parade of arms, limited the Yankees to six hits, and scratched out enough offense from Springer and Guerrero to win 5–2 and end the season.

Across the four games, Toronto outscored the Yankees 34–19 and looked like the more complete, October optimized club: shorter swings with two strikes, better team defense, more ways to beat you than “hope someone hits one 430 feet.”

For all the talk about payroll and star power, the difference between these teams in October came down to approach, health, and execution, not just talent.

The Big Offseason Questions

So where does that leave us heading into what is already shaping up to be a loud winter?

1. Is This Offensive Identity Enough?

The Yankees just led MLB in slugging, scored a ton of runs, and won the AL’s team Silver Slugger. And yet, when they ran into a pitching staff that did not give up as many mistakes, they looked one dimensional again.

I do not think you blow up what works. Judge, Jazz, Grisham, and whatever version of Bellinger or a potential Kyle Tucker pursuit you can pull off is a terrifying core. But I do think the front office has to deliberately target more contact, athleticism, and defensive reliability, even if it means sacrificing a little pure slug.

2. What Will Hal Actually Spend?

Steinbrenner has already floated the idea of nudging payroll down from this year’s roughly $319 million, even as rumors swirl about re signing Bellinger, chasing Kyle Tucker, and courting Japanese righty Tatsuya Imai.

You do not need to outspend the Dodgers to win a title, but if you are going to double down on this core, half measures are not going to cut it. Another winter of “almost” on big upgrades would send a pretty clear message about priorities.

3. How Do You Fix the Infield?

Volpe’s shoulder surgery clouds his 2026 start. LeMahieu is gone. Goldschmidt is a free agent. Jazz’s long term role, second, third, outfield hybrid, or trade chip, is being openly debated.

The Yankees need to decide what the infield of the next three years actually looks like, not just patch it year to year with short term deals and stopgaps. That is roster construction 101, and they have been hand waving it for too long.

4. Can This Rotation Stay Healthy Long Enough to Matter?

On paper, a 2026 staff of Cole, Fried, Rodón, Schlittler, and some combination of depth arms is nasty. In reality, Cole is coming off Tommy John, Rodón is rehabbing elbow surgery, and there is already public chatter about whether the Yankees should go big game hunting again.

You cannot assume thirty something arms will give you 200 innings forever. Depth is not a luxury for this team. It is the only way the “super rotation” concept actually survives contact with the schedule.

5. Is Aaron Boone Still the Right Messenger?

Hal has already answered the “will they fire him?” question. Boone is back and extended through 2027, and Steinbrenner went out of his way to say the ALDS loss was on the players, not the manager.

As a fan, my question is different: can Boone be the guy who helps this group finally play sharper, more adaptable baseball in October? The tactical stuff is debatable, as always, but the broader pattern of sloppy defense, streaky offense, and midseason funks predates this one year.

So… What Was 2025, Really?

When I zoom out, here is where I land:

Relative to the circumstances (losing Soto, losing Cole, dealing with Volpe and Rodón’s injuries), a 94 win season and another trip to October is legitimately impressive.
Relative to the standard the Yankees themselves preach, and the level Judge is playing at, falling in the ALDS to a division rival feels like a disappointment.

This season proved that the Yankees’ current blueprint almost guarantees contention. With this payroll, this core, and this infrastructure, 90 plus wins is the expectation. That is not nothing. Plenty of franchises would kill for this floor.

But 2025 also screamed that the ceiling has not changed. The same themes that haunted 2022 through 2024, streaky offense, defensive lapses, thin pitching depth behind the stars, are still here, just with different names on the jerseys.

As a 32 year old who has watched this team my whole life, I am not going anywhere. I will talk myself into Fried Cole Rodón revenge tours and Jazz aiming for 40–40 by the time pitchers and catchers report. That is part of the deal.

But I also do not want to spend the rest of Judge’s prime writing postmortems that sound like this one.