OT: NY Yankees 2025 Season Thread (Hal is cheap, Brian is dumb)

[knicks94]

I can't get upset because Cole, Schmidt, and Gil got hurt but damn this is bad and Williams pissing his pants on the mound is compounding the issue.

This is not a major league level rotation right now outside of Fried.

I'm done with Rodon. Get him some f*cking Xanax or something I dunno

The problem is that Hal and Cashman never have a Plan B everytime something goes unexpectedly wrong. Soto walks away and the best that they can do is sign a 29 year old injury prone retread whose on his third team in 4 years.

They then go into the season putting all of their chips into a rotataion that consists of 3 guys making between $162 mil and $324 mil and two young pitchers with a history of arm issues. When 3/5 of the rotation catches the injury bug before the regular season Cashman resorts to a guy that is way past his prime, a complete headcase and a quadruple A pitcher who has no business in the majors.

The result is what you see on paper. An team of overpaid and overrated underacheivers who are robbing its fanbase in more ways than one.

Eh...I gotta defend the work they did this offseason. Max Fried was a good one. Rodon is basically AJ Burnett 2.0, which hurts...he is legit like Julius Randle, in that he has no clutch gene or emotional control. Carascco isn't going to be a world beater, but he's competent. Warren is finding his way too. The results he has this year are really different from last year...last year, he was giving up 6 or 7 hits regularly in short stints, with walks. I don't expect us to be the Dodgers with 8 viable starters (although we do have a case that we should be spending more), but I think Warren and Carrasco are fine as end options.

What we are actually paying for right now is the Yankees' frugality last year. We signed Stroman to be cheap - that backfired and I think it's bull**** the Yankees continue to use his contract as an excuse not to spend. We didn't even have a Carascco last year - we were basically forced to pitch Will Warren when he wasn't ready, and those losses might have led to us overtaxing the bullpen, overrelying on certain guys and losing home field advantage against the Dodgers. If we had someone who was merely mediocre, things might have looked different for us in the postseason. Because of that, we also had to rely upon Gil and Schmidt last year when they should have been limited innings-wise.

So yea, this year, we're still paying for last year's mistakes. Stroman was such a dumbass move. Cashman trying to be cheap to fit within Hal's budget and hurting the Yankees. Gil and Schmidt getting pushed hard last year and now they're hurt. It all adds up. And then of course, the Yankees not winning a ring because they couldn't "afford" reinforcements like Snell or Flaherty, which hurts their brand, sales, and their mystique, which allows the Dodgers to sign more players for cheap and have better ticket sales, and now Hal is trying to cry poor, despite the Yankees' sky high valuation.

I would really like to know what their reason was for trading away pitching depth for Juan Soto? It is not like they were a contending team after 2023 and were one major superstar away from being a World Series champion. They were terrible in 2023 by Yankees standards and needed to rebuild from within by developing their young talent. Did Hal underestimate Cohen or did he believe that the pinstripes alone were going to be enough to lure Soto into being a Yankee for the rest of his career? Now the Yankees are without a guy like Michael King who is tearing it up in San Diego and a rotation of journeymen and highly paid veterans.

[BowlRips]

The problem is that Hal and Cashman never have a Plan B everytime something goes unexpectedly wrong. Soto walks away and the best that they can do is sign a 29 year old injury prone retread whose on his third team in 4 years.

They then go into the season putting all of their chips into a rotataion that consists of 3 guys making between $162 mil and $324 mil and two young pitchers with a history of arm issues. When 3/5 of the rotation catches the injury bug before the regular season Cashman resorts to a guy that is way past his prime, a complete headcase and a quadruple A pitcher who has no business in the majors.

The result is what you see on paper. An team of overpaid and overrated underacheivers who are robbing its fanbase in more ways than one.

Eh...I gotta defend the work they did this offseason. Max Fried was a good one. Rodon is basically AJ Burnett 2.0, which hurts...he is legit like Julius Randle, in that he has no clutch gene or emotional control. Carascco isn't going to be a world beater, but he's competent. Warren is finding his way too. The results he has this year are really different from last year...last year, he was giving up 6 or 7 hits regularly in short stints, with walks. I don't expect us to be the Dodgers with 8 viable starters (although we do have a case that we should be spending more), but I think Warren and Carrasco are fine as end options.

What we are actually paying for right now is the Yankees' frugality last year. We signed Stroman to be cheap - that backfired and I think it's bull**** the Yankees continue to use his contract as an excuse not to spend. We didn't even have a Carascco last year - we were basically forced to pitch Will Warren when he wasn't ready, and those losses might have led to us overtaxing the bullpen, overrelying on certain guys and losing home field advantage against the Dodgers. If we had someone who was merely mediocre, things might have looked different for us in the postseason. Because of that, we also had to rely upon Gil and Schmidt last year when they should have been limited innings-wise.

So yea, this year, we're still paying for last year's mistakes. Stroman was such a dumbass move. Cashman trying to be cheap to fit within Hal's budget and hurting the Yankees. Gil and Schmidt getting pushed hard last year and now they're hurt. It all adds up. And then of course, the Yankees not winning a ring because they couldn't "afford" reinforcements like Snell or Flaherty, which hurts their brand, sales, and their mystique, which allows the Dodgers to sign more players for cheap and have better ticket sales, and now Hal is trying to cry poor, despite the Yankees' sky high valuation.

I would really like to know what their reason was for trading away pitching debt for Juan Soto? It is not like they were a contending team after 2023 and were one major superstar away from being a World Series champion. They were terrible in 2023 by Yankees standards and needed to rebuild from within by developing their young talent. Did Hal underestimate Cohen or did he believe that the pinstripes alone were going to be enough to lure Soto into being a Yankee for the rest of his career? Now the Yankees are without a guy like Michael King who is tearing it up in San Diego and a rotation of journeymen and highly paid veterans.

lol what? they made the WS last year.
As for this years rotation.. Only the reigning CY Young, Reigning Rookie of the Year on the DL. Totally foreseeable.
AND I AM FAR from a Cashman apologist

[knicks94]

Eh...I gotta defend the work they did this offseason. Max Fried was a good one. Rodon is basically AJ Burnett 2.0, which hurts...he is legit like Julius Randle, in that he has no clutch gene or emotional control. Carascco isn't going to be a world beater, but he's competent. Warren is finding his way too. The results he has this year are really different from last year...last year, he was giving up 6 or 7 hits regularly in short stints, with walks. I don't expect us to be the Dodgers with 8 viable starters (although we do have a case that we should be spending more), but I think Warren and Carrasco are fine as end options.

What we are actually paying for right now is the Yankees' frugality last year. We signed Stroman to be cheap - that backfired and I think it's bull**** the Yankees continue to use his contract as an excuse not to spend. We didn't even have a Carascco last year - we were basically forced to pitch Will Warren when he wasn't ready, and those losses might have led to us overtaxing the bullpen, overrelying on certain guys and losing home field advantage against the Dodgers. If we had someone who was merely mediocre, things might have looked different for us in the postseason. Because of that, we also had to rely upon Gil and Schmidt last year when they should have been limited innings-wise.

So yea, this year, we're still paying for last year's mistakes. Stroman was such a dumbass move. Cashman trying to be cheap to fit within Hal's budget and hurting the Yankees. Gil and Schmidt getting pushed hard last year and now they're hurt. It all adds up. And then of course, the Yankees not winning a ring because they couldn't "afford" reinforcements like Snell or Flaherty, which hurts their brand, sales, and their mystique, which allows the Dodgers to sign more players for cheap and have better ticket sales, and now Hal is trying to cry poor, despite the Yankees' sky high valuation.

I would really like to know what their reason was for trading away pitching debt for Juan Soto? It is not like they were a contending team after 2023 and were one major superstar away from being a World Series champion. They were terrible in 2023 by Yankees standards and needed to rebuild from within by developing their young talent. Did Hal underestimate Cohen or did he believe that the pinstripes alone were going to be enough to lure Soto into being a Yankee for the rest of his career? Now the Yankees are without a guy like Michael King who is tearing it up in San Diego and a rotation of journeymen and highly paid veterans.

lol what? they made the WS last year.
As for this years rotation.. Only the reigning CY Young, Reigning Rookie of the Year on the DL. Totally foreseeable.
AND I AM FAR from a Cashman apologist

I’m so sick of hearing the argument that the reason why the Yankees went from an 82 win team in 2023 to winning a pennant in 2024 was because of the Juan Soto trade. That is such a monolithic and simplistic way of explaining their jump in success.

Nobody predicted that they would make the WS last year entering the season. From what I remember most Yankee fans had them finishing between 85-90 wins with an ALCS appearance at best even with the addition of Soto.

One of the main reasons why they even won their division was because they feasted on the AL Central and Baltimore wasn't the same team that they were in 2023.

They dodged the Astros and every AL East opponent in the postseason and had one of the easiest two rounds that I could remember. Once they made it to the WS they were greatly exposed by a true contender in the Dodgers.

Had they kept their pitching depth that they packaged in the Soto deal they would not even be in the position that they're in today having to depend on two guys with arm issues to return due to a lack of talent.

Ask yourself who would you rather see in our rotation at the moment: Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco or Michael King and Randy Vasquez?

[Davis18]

Why is Boone keep subbing out Dominguez?
Just let him play.

[MrDollarBills]

Why is Boone keep subbing out Dominguez?
Just let him play.

I think he had an issue with his contact lenses

[Papi_swav]

I remember I was talking about Ben Rice on here when he was in the minors before he even saw big league time, he's making me look good lol would be great if he can be our future 1st basemen and have him under contract for cheap for several years. Dominguez doing well, volpe too. We need one of our young guys to step up at 3rd base, whether it's Peraza or Cabrera, at least be average.

We need to give our new closer some time, we can't rule him out just yet in the 1st month of the season, remember this is a long long season so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I've said it several times last offseason that we NEEDED to get rid of Rodon, we had to get rid of that contract because it was never going to age well and he actually pitched decent last year. Somebody would of took him on with the way these pitchers was getting paid, we might of had to eat a little money but it would of helped us sign Flaherty or somebody else because he's not it. Hope he can have an average season at least under a 4.0 ERA .

Shmidt looked solid in his 1st outing, I'm surprised he came back this fast but glad he's here because we need him and we need him to pitch like he did last year. We should get Gil back soon enough as well so that'll help tremendously. stroman is toast and Carrasco is giving it all he has left in the tank so I can't be mad at him, the most we'll probably get from him is 125 innings pitched at max. I have faith in Warren, he's just young and it's going to take a little time for him to get settled but I think he can be a #3 or 4 type starter eventually. We are in dire need of an effective starter either way, we need at least 6 starters in todays league.

[KnicksGadfly]

We gotta give some props to Judge again. There's a reason Soto is whining about his protection in Queens.

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[knicks94]

We gotta give some props to Judge again. There's a reason Soto is whining about his protection in Queens.

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Soto is being paid generational talent money and his numbers after 3 weeks into the season are worse than Trent Grisham's. The guy should take a good hard look in the mirror and realize that he isn't as good as he believed himself to be.

[KnicksGadfly]

We gotta give some props to Judge again. There's a reason Soto is whining about his protection in Queens.

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Soto is being paid generational talent money and his numbers after 3 weeks into the season are worse than Trent Grisham's. The guy should take a good hard look in the mirror and realize that he isn't as good as he believed himself to be.

Might also be that crappy Mets ballpark too. It might allow them to use scrub pitchers but also hurts their offense?

[knicks94]

We gotta give some props to Judge again. There's a reason Soto is whining about his protection in Queens.

Read on Twitter

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Soto is being paid generational talent money and his numbers after 3 weeks into the season are worse than Trent Grisham's. The guy should take a good hard look in the mirror and realize that he isn't as good as he believed himself to be.

Might also be that crappy Mets ballpark too. It might allow them to use scrub pitchers but also hurts their offense?

Oh I have no doubt that Cohen will move the right field fences in at Citi Field if Soto has an underwhelming season.

[knicks94]

Imagine being paid millions of dollars a year salary and the best you can do as a GM is Carlos Carasco and Will Warren as your starters.

What a joke.

[Starksfor3yes]

Even if the season goes into the toilet, watching Dominguez and Rice develop will be worth it. Rice 4 for 4 tonight.

[KnicksGadfly]

Man Will Warren really hurt himself today. I feel like we got away with one. Hope he bounces back.

Ben Rice is making us forget Stanton. Stanton needs to get ready for the bench, or they're gonna have to find a way to get Rice some extra time as backup C and 1B when Stanton returns. Devin Williams with a nice 1-2-3 inning. Bullpen did its job.

[thebuzzardman]

Even if the season goes into the toilet, watching Dominguez and Rice develop will be worth it. Rice 4 for 4 tonight.

If Stanton was healthy, Rice wouldn't even be playing. Boone and Cashman suck.

[knicks94]

Even if the season goes into the toilet, watching Dominguez and Rice develop will be worth it. Rice 4 for 4 tonight.

If Stanton was healthy, Rice wouldn't even be playing. Boone and Cashman suck.

If Thibs was managing the Yankees and Stanton was injured he'd leave Rice on the bench in favor of Pablo Reyes.

[KnicksGadfly]

This is a cool Ben Rice article. Hope he keeps it up...teams are going to be scouting him hard now.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6285782/2025/04/17/new-york-yankees-ben-rice-scouting/

There was no exit velocity. There were no high-tech cameras focused on the field. There weren’t even uniforms. When Dartmouth slugger Ben Rice and his Ivy League friends organized pickup games against players from nearby UMass at a complex an hour outside Boston, there were a few scouts scattered along the metal bleachers. It was the fall of 2020, but in terms of modern baseball analytics, it might as well have been the Paleolithic Era.

“We had no data,” said Matt Hyde, the New York Yankees’ Northeast area scout.

But they had eyes and ears. And in the Yankees’ case, they had Damon Oppenheimer, a longtime amateur scouting director who, like Hyde, had learned to assess talent with his gut before the computers took over baseball.

So, the pair watched. They made calls. They talked to Rice, then a junior psychology major and left-handed-hitting catcher. He first popped on Hyde’s radar a few months before. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the Ivy League season in 2020, Rice played in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League and won its MVP award, blasting 11 homers in 35 games. Hyde remembered an interesting wrinkle with the league: Instead of extra innings, tied games were decided via home run derby.

“Ben’s team would always send him up for it,” Hyde said. “Always.”

Hyde followed Rice just about everywhere. Since the Ivy League also canceled its 2021 season due to the pandemic, Rice was forced to play anywhere he could. His dad would throw batting practice to him on local fields. He played about three weeks in the Cape Cod League. He even played in a men’s league filled with men mostly in their 30s and 40s.

But it was in the pickup games that the Yankees felt they learned the most about Rice. With hardly anyone watching, Rice showed improved defense. He raked. The players didn’t have a name for what they were doing, but the Yankees did.

“We called it The Ben Rice League,” Oppenheimer said.

Now, everyone has data on Rice. And it explodes off the page.

Rice, who had the night off in the Yankees’ 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday, enters the team’s four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays hitting .273 with five home runs, seven RBIs and a 1.003 OPS. His OPS+ of 186 means that he is performing 86 percent better than the average hitter.

His advanced statistics are perhaps even better. His barrel (25 percent) and hard-hit (62.5 percent) rates are within the top 99 percentile of all hitters. His 95 mph average exit velocity is within the 96th percentile.

“He’s playing a huge role for us right now,” manager Aaron Boone said.

Ben Rice got the day off today but here's another update just because. pic.twitter.com/Uv0clRoJcU

— Brendan Kuty (@BrendanKutyNJ) April 17, 2025

Rice has been a revelation for the Yankees, who now lead the Toronto Blue Jays by a half game atop the American League East.

With postseason hero Giancarlo Stanton (tennis elbows) missing all of spring training and the start of the season, Rice has taken over at designated hitter. He’s also been reliable at the top of the lineup against right-handed pitchers.

“He’s been playing great,” first baseman Paul Goldschmidt said. “He had a great spring, and he’s got tremendous power. He hits the ball hard. Great at-bats — lefty on lefty, as well. … Just really good at-bats, and he’s doing great for us.”

The performance came after an uneven 2024 debut for Rice, who was called up in June when Anthony Rizzo went on the injured list. He started hot, even clubbing three home runs in one game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. But he cooled off and didn’t get any at-bats in the playoffs as the Yankees reached the World Series.

“I think the takeaway was, this guy has a chance to really hit,” Boone said. “I think he’s gotten a lot better for a lot of different reasons from last year to this year.”

Of course, it wasn’t the first time Rice had opened eyes.

Dartmouth manager Bob Whelan was straight with Rice when he arrived for his freshman year in the fall of 2018. He needed to improve his ankle and hip mobility if he wanted to become a better catcher. Immediately, Rice signed up for yoga classes.

Whelan loved it.

“This kid checked so many boxes for me,” he said. “I’m asking myself, ‘Am I missing something here?’”

Rice won the starting job behind the plate immediately and recorded a .750 OPS in 22 games. He played just seven games in 2020 before the season was shut down.


That’s when he got to work. And that’s when the Yankees started showing up. Rice remembered meeting Hyde. He didn’t know the other guy next to him.

“I didn’t know how important (Oppenheimer) was until the draft got closer, and I realized he was the head of our amateur scouting department,” Rice said.

But Hyde wasn’t just scouting Rice. He was scouting the competition, too. He knew there weren’t as many teams as high on Rice as the Yankees were. Oppenheimer remembered wanting to select Rice in the sixth round of the 2021 draft. Hyde advised him to wait. He knew other teams were scared off from Rice because they didn’t have enough data on him.

But the Yankees didn’t need it. They knew Rice.

“And he is still exactly the same human being,” Hyde said. “I think what makes me proud is the joy he shows of the game in the major-league level. He embraces the opportunity and the challenge to play at the highest level, which to me is very inspiring, along with bringing a lot of pride.”

Hyde laughed when he remembered the last line of his final scouting report on him: “This guy is a Yankee.”

“I really felt it,” Hyde said. “He had that combination of left-handed power (and) the makeup. He’s such a winning person. It just fit the Yankee Way, the Yankee tradition.”

“It’s all Ben,” Oppenheimer said. “Just going all the way back, he’s the one that wanted it. He’s the one who had the best performance and the work ethic and the drive. He came into camp again this year even in better shape. That’s the thing. Players are eventually the ones who do it, and he’s doing it. It’s all him. It’s all credit to him.”

The Yankees picked Rice in the 12th round and gave him a $125,000 signing bonus. Oppenheimer pointed out that Hyde’s shrewdness allowed the Yankees to pick three players (Richard Fitts, Will Warren, Jack Neely) between the 6th and 11th rounds who have since reached the majors. The Yankees traded Fitts to acquire outfielder Alex Verdugo from the Red Sox in December 2023. Warren is in their big-league rotation. They sent Neely to the Chicago Cubs when they acquired reliever Mark Leiter Jr. at the trade deadline last season.

The Yankees’ traditional scouting experience “really helped us out” discovering Rice, Oppenheimer said.

“The power — you left there going, this is real,” he said.

Even without the data?

“You could hear it,” he said. “You could see it.”

[MrDollarBills]

We gotta give some props to Judge again. There's a reason Soto is whining about his protection in Queens.

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He should be. Judge is the best player in the sport

[MrDollarBills]

Jazz needs to stop arguing balls and strikes. Getting kicked out hurts the team. That's the 2nd time now where I feel like he lost his cool.

Let Boone cuss the umps out. We need Jazz in the line up and at 2nd more than Boone needs to be in the dugout.

He's gotta be patient, next season you'll be able to challenge calls at the plate (i think?) and this stuff will be irrelevant

[knicks94]

I don't see why we cannot use Stanton the same way that the Yankees used guys like Darryl Strawberry and Chili Davis back in the day. Does he really need to be in the lineup everyday while stunting the development of guys like Rice and Dominguez?

[WaltFrazier]

Jazz needs to stop arguing balls and strikes. Getting kicked out hurts the team. That's the 2nd time now where I feel like he lost his cool.

Let Boone cuss the umps out. We need Jazz in the line up and at 2nd more than Boone needs to be in the dugout.

He's gotta be patient, next season you'll be able to challenge calls at the plate (i think?) and this stuff will be irrelevant

And this

https://www.tmz.com/2025/04/18/yankees-jazz-chisholm-jr-suspended/