by EJ Fagan
February 2025
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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.
Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.
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You know what’s really easy to do as a major league manager? Show up at the ballpark every day and write Soto and Judge at #2/#3. Those guys are pretty good! Maybe you have to rest Judge once or twice a week, but there aren’t a lot of decisions to make. Ditto when you have a bunch of not so great players in the bottom half of the lineup. Who cares if Volpe or Trevino is batting 8/9?
That was largely the story of the 2024 Yankees. Most of the season, the Yankees had Judge and Soto and no real good options. We could quibble about certain lineup decisions (A man has to write about something), but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter all that much. For most of the season, all of the options that Boone had to bat 1st or 4th or whatever were bad. Same for pinch hitting. I’m pretty sure that if a random person reading this blog wrote the lineup every day, things would have been pretty similar for the 2024 Yankees.
That all changes in 2025. The Yankees did a lot of addition by subtraction, but exactly zero of the additions are rock solid like Juan Soto.***
*** I was waiting to write this post until 3rd base is resolved, but I’m increasingly convinced that Oswald(o) + LeMahieu is happening.
Just check out these platoon splits in 2024:
L/R OPS:
Goldschmidt: .839/.675
Bellinger: .753/.746
Chisholm: .705/.787
Dominguez (AAA): .510/.926
Wells: .526/.761
Cabrera: .469/.729
Peraza (AAA): .888/.714
LeMahieu (2023): .761/.707
Huge splits everywhere! The Yankees have a bunch of players who are basically unplayable against the wrong pitcher. Frankly, it’s insane to me that the Yankees haven’t picked up a right-handed bench bat, but I guess they think that LeMahieu is that guy.
Boone can’t just have an A lineup and move Stanton up a spot against lefties or whatever. He can’t privilege the feelings of veterans like Goldschmidt. He needs to manage like a real MLB strategist: radically different lineups based on who is pitching. Later in the game, he needs to use his bench to prevent bullpens from picking the lineup apart. Add in the complexity of rest days and optimizing defense and all of the sudden you have real work to do.
To put it mildly, these kinds of decisions have never been Aaron Boone’s forte. I’m concerned that he is going to slip into a mode where he runs the same lineup out with minimal tweaks every single day, give or take a rest guy or something. Remember when Jahmai Jones batted leadoff because someone had to rest and he didn’t want to move everyone else in the lineup?
I have always hated the idea that someone like Paul Goldschmidt is so fragile that he would fall apart if moved up and down the lineup based on who is pitching. He’s a professional. He’ll adjust to sometimes batting in a slightly different spot. If he complains, he’ll get over it. I don’t exactly have a lot of experience with major league players, so maybe I am wrong.
What should those lineups be? I want to do a little more analysis, but let’s give it a try. A few observations: Cody Bellinger is only an above average hitter, but he’s equally good against lefties and righties. I think he’ll be a fixture around Aaron Judge. Chisholm also has pretty flat splits, but he’s a low OBP guy who really should not bat in front of Judge.
Here’s my best shot against righty starters:
LF Jasson Dominguez
RF Aaron Judge
CF Cody Bellinger
C Austin Wells
DH Giancarlo Stanton
2b Jazz Chisholm
1b Paul Goldschmidt
3b Oswald Cabrera
SS Anthony Volpe
Against lefties (this one is harder):
CF Cody Bellinger
RF Aaron Judge
1b Paul Goldschmidt
2b Jazz Chisholm
DH Giancarlo Stanton
LF Jasson Dominguez
C Austin Wells
3b Oswald Peraza/DJ LeMahieu (Peraza please)
SS Anthony Volpe
I don’t love the lefty lineup. They are going to struggle a lot against lefty starters again. It would help a lot if Stanton or DJ LeMahieu return to being lefty mashers or maybe JC Escarra runs with the backup catcher job. Or Anthony Volpe develops some platoon advantage. A lot of these problems go away if Wells or Dominguez get better against lefties, but for now we shouldn’t assume that is going to happen.
