I think one of the most fascinating sports debates going on with the Yankees is about their 2025 lineup and whether bringing back its lineup core for one more season would be a viable strategy.
The Yankees finished first in Runs Scored and OPS last season, but come October, the group saw their OPS decrease from nearly 100 points in the postseason.
MLB’s average playoff OPS (.692) matched the Yankees’ (.693) and that left fans with a sour taste in their mouth, one that makes running it back seem like a bad idea.
An early look at FanGraphs’ Steamer Projections has led me to ask an important question about the offense; would the Yankees be making a mistake by running back their 2025 group?
I decided to experiment with this by taking this literally, as we look to see what the Yankees’ postseason roster projects to do offensively in 2026.
READ MORE: Yankees discussing reunion with polarizing bullpen arm
Do Projections Forecast Gloom or Glory for the 2026 Yankees?
As mentioned earlier, we are taking the expression ‘Running It Back’ as literally as we can; the same 14 guys whom the Blue Jays beat the tar out of in the American League Division Series will form this projected roster.
Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario, and Cody Bellinger are the only additions to this group that are currently not on the active roster heading into 2026, so there is a ton of continuity already.
Steamer would project this 14-man unit to finish with a 112 wRC+ combined, which would have matched the Blue Jays regular season mark in 2025.
This is a pretty loose experiment, the Yankees had 20 position players record an at-bat for the team in 2025, so let’s get crazy and do this number for the guys who were made up that league-leading 119 wRC+.
With a 110 wRC+, Steamer forecasts a decrease in offensive output from the 20 hitters who played for the 2025 Yankees, but that’s still a roster that’s 10% better than league-average offensively.
As things stand right now, the top 20 Blue Jays in terms of projected PAs project for a 110 wRC+ projection, and if you subtract their 20th guy for Kyle Tucker, it’s at 112.
Tests of the roster’s frontend strength indicate that they’d still be a good offense, and in comparison to another top American League offense, they’d have a chance to lead the AL in Runs Scored for 2026.
Should We Look at Projections Differently For the Yankees?
The most common argument you’ll hear following the first part of this breakdown is that the Yankees not having won a World Series since 2009 should make analysts take the under.
Let’s be frank; there is almost never a reason to say an entire team is projections-proof, while they aren’t perfect, they get it right more than most.
For the 2025 Yankees specifically, their seven-game postseason run is among chiefs reasons that fans believe running it back would be terrible.
“It’s every single year”
This is a thought that’s rung in my head at times during the postseason, but how much are previous playoff exits clouding our perceptions of players not involved?
Of the 13 Yankees who took an at-bat in the postseason, eight players were going to October for the first time with the franchise.
Over half of the roster was playing for the Yankees in the postseason, what do they have to do with their defeats in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, or 2024?
If you look at players on the roster who played in more than 2 postseasons as a Yankee, you have just Aaron Jugde and Giancarlo Stanton.
The 2024 Yankees were a standalone team full of first-year players in the postseason, and the 2025 Yankees are similarly a team with plenty of turnover.
Using evidence of players who are no longer on the team doesn’t track logically, and there isn’t evidence to suggest that New York has a tendecy to acquire players that underperform their projections.
To argue that the issue could be an unquantifiable case of choking has infected the franchise, akin to the Red Sox and Cubs’ infamous curses, would that not be a little bit premature at Year 16?
What’s The Conclusion on Running It Back?
The Yankees projected for a lower wRC+ entering the 2025 season than they would entering the 2026 season, with the highest projected wRC+ for a team entering the season at 112 (LAD).
Running it back for the Yankees means having an increased chance of having the no. 1 offense in the league in terms of wRC+ compared to where it was entering last year.
If the Yankees can invest in their pitching staff heavily enough, this could be a team projected to finish inside the top five in both run scoring and run prevention.
Translation? The Yankees could be really good in 2026 if they brought back their exact roster from last season and adding some pitching.
People are down on the Yankees’ offense because they’re weighing a seven-game sample size more than a 162-game sample size, which is just silly.
The Yankees were an elite offense last season with a lot of players who will project to be good hitters again in 2026, and while they will probably take a stepback last season, it isn’t expected to be crippling.
Right now the Yankees project to have the most position player WAR on FanGraphs but are 11th in pitching WAR, and that’s why I’d urge the team to remain active on the pitching market.
To clarify, I am not advocating for the Yankees to run back their 20 position players from last year, but this notion that the group who went to October has repeatedly failed in New York isn’t exactly true.
What is true is that running it back as literally as they possibly can would result in a strong projection for this offense entering 2026.