The Yankees are back to recent Yankee problems aren’t they?

Let’s go through the checklist, Gerrit Cole gone for the season, check. Luis Gil out for at least August and let’s be real, likely the season, check. We don’t have a Bonafide third basemen at the late stages of spring training, check. Our designated hitter is one bad sneeze away from tearing his elbows off his body, check. We have a very questionable 3-5 part of the order, check. Our bullpen, which has not been talked about might be a very big question mark, check. You have dwindling hope for the Yankees this year, CHECK.

If the Yankees have any chance, they will need whatever pieces/cogs they currently have to either play up to expectation or to dramatically exceed them. Brain Cashman, whether truthful or not, claims that there are no good options to improve the starting rotation and that the rotation will likely be improved internally. Not very comforting, especially when you think of the options available. Marcus Stroman, who was being pushed out of the team is now a god send and will likely be a number 4 starter. Will Warren, who struggle mightily and that is putting it very generously, will be vying for the fifth starter spot along with Carlos Carrasco who has bounced around teams, not promising at number 5. We don’t have any depth in ur bench to speak of, Trent Grisham, Oswald Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera, Dominic Smith? The Yankees are going to struggle to generate runs this year, losing Soto will leave a big void and the replacement, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt are marquee names, albeit from two years ago. Both players are coming off down years and their former teams did not find it necessary to add them to their 2025 plans at all. The point is, we have a very fragile, boom or bust lineup. We will either have a very efficient and fun, maybe even complete lineup compared to last year but if you go devil’s advocate and look at the down side, it can go very wrong. There are some bright spots to maybe look forward to at some point this year, provided that Brian Cashman finally starts using young talent and evaluate where our minor is. Names like Spencer Jones, George Lombard and Roderick Arias, who is a shortstop by trade but has a very strong arm and can play third base.

Time will tell but this Yankee team will either impress, impress happiness or anger that is.