by Paul Semendinger
March 26, 2025
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Ok, let's have some fun.
Last year, the Yankees won 94 games and went to the World Series.
The starting 9 position players combined for 29.4 WAR.
The following are the position players as the 2025 season dawns along with their best WAR, worst WAR, and average WAR over the past three seasons.
Paul Goldschmidt (1b): 7.7, 3.3, 1.3 (Avg = 4.1)
Jazz Chisholm (2b): 2.7, 2.4. 1.0 (Avg = 2.03)
Anthony Volpe (ss): (2 seasons) 3.4, 3.3 (Avg = 3.35)
Oswaldo Cabrera (3b): 1.7, 1.5, -1.5 (Avg = .56)
Jasson Dominguez (lf): Rookie
Cody Bellinger (cf): 4.8, 2.2, 1.3 (Avg = 2.76)
Aaron Judge (rf):10.8, 10.8, 4.6 (avg = 8.73)
Ben Rice (dh): Rookie
Austin Wells (c): (1 season) 2.5
***
If we take the best seasons of the veterans who have established numbers (from at least two seasons), those players would combine for 31.1 WAR.
That would mean that the 2025 Yankees offense, minus the left fielder, catcher, and designated hitter would accumulate more WAR than all last year's position hitters.
If we take the average seasons of those same players, that would total 21.53 WAR. That would put the 2025 squad 7.87 WAR short... again without three positions. To match last year's offense (from the starting nine), Jasson Dominguez, Ben Rice, and Austin Wells would each have to average 2.62 WAR to equal last year's squad which seems highly possile.
Granted, these are very rough and very generalized stats, but they do leave a lot of room for optimism.
I did a similar, back-of-the-envelope approximation in the comments a few days ago focused only on the departed Yankees vs. their replacements. I came up about 1 WAR down from 2024 for the group, but it really depends on how well the rookies do, whether Wells takes the big leap forward I expect, whether Goldy's 2nd half is the real deal, and what Bellinger has left in the tank.