It’s just a projection, and of course, projections can be wrong. They don’t account for on-the-fly changes, or the trade deadline, or surprise bounce-back contributions or all the things that make baseball unpredictable. At the same time, a projection can confirm your own fears and concerns, and for the Yankees heading into this MLB season, that’s the trouble.
The Yankees finished with 94 wins last season, tied with the Blue Jays (who held the tiebreaker advantage) atop the AL East. With the pitching staff walloped by injuries and uncertainty in the bullpen, the team did precious little to improve the upcoming roster, and the worry is that the Yankees’ plan to simply “run it back” with the 2025 team is not going to be good enough this year.
And according to the ZiPS projections done each year by FanGraphs, the future is murky for the Yankees, who are seen as a team that should be fighting just to earn a wild-card spot in 2026. ZiPS sees the Yankees dropping to 87-75, fourth in the division behind the Blue Jays, the Red Sox (both with 90 wins) and the Orioles (88).
Projection Sees a 4th-Place Finish
That should certainly be one of the fears about the Yankees’ situation coming into the season. They’ve pretty much brought back the same group, while the rest of the division has improved. The Blue Jays and Red Sox got much deeper and better in their pitching staffs. The Orioles added Pete Alonso.
The Yankees added .. Ryan Weathers and Angel Chivilli?
FanGraphs bases its projections on the median of a million simulations of the season, so obviously, there is much variability within those projections. But here’s how it sees the East:
“ZiPS doesn’t see the AL East all that differently from how it did last preseason, though it does anticipate a slightly larger separation at the top of the division, with the Jays and Red Sox tied for first, and the Orioles and Yankees falling a couple of games back. There is a difference in the projection profiles of the Red Sox and Jays, however. Despite the same median win projection, ZiPS sees the Red Sox with a very slightly better downside due to their depth and flexibility, while the Blue Jays have more high-end uncertainty.”
Yankees GM: ‘I Disagree’ on Running it Back
This week, when Yankees general manager Brian Cashman met with reporters, the question was raised about the wisdom of simply “running it back” with the 2025 roster. Cashman clapped back against the idea that the Yankees are running it back, but evidence suggests otherwise and he was not very convincing.
“First, we have really good players, a collection of really talented players. It’s not the same roster,” Cashman said, via the Daily News. “I would differ there. We have some players, at some point, returning from the IL that are important players, Gerrit Cole being one of them. But we had some additions from the second half that got their feet wet with the Yankees, some with failures or success. But they’ll now be in a position to join us with their feet on the ground and getting their sea legs under them – with a manager, too, learning how to utilize these guys, where they slot, and everything else.”
“So I disagree it’s the same team running it back,” Cashman continued. “It’s going to be some differences, and the competition is going to be different, too. In some cases, some teams got better. In other cases, some teams, you could argue, maybe got a little worse. Our division is the best in baseball. But long story short, one [playoff] series, make or break, is not going to define what we think our capabilities are.”
Yankees Get Terrible News on ‘Running it Back’ With 2026 Roster