TAMPA — We are going to find out this year if you could teach old Bombers new tricks.
The Yankees are not exactly abandoning the home run as their best route to scoring in 2025. But they are planning to try to expand their portfolio after leading the majors in homers in 2024 but finishing 24th in steals — and by Fangraphs metric (verified by eyesight), being the majors’ worst baserunning team.
This has as much to do with a change in personnel as anything. This year’s Yankees will be for all or a portion of this season without the players who finished 2-3-4 on the team in homers: Juan Soto (41 homers), Giancarlo Stanton (27) and Gleyber Torres (15). They also represent the three worst baserunners on the team, via Fangraphs, and the next two also are gone: Anthony Rizzo and Alex Verdugo.
Amazingly, Rizzo and Jose Trevino (also gone) actually had slower spring speeds (Baseball Savant) than Stanton, whose legs are so fragile he was barely jogging. Torres was the most inattentive baserunner on the team. DJ LeMahieu, another player with constant leg maladies, will join Stanton on the IL to open the year with no public revelation when (if) they will return.
