Tampa, Fla. – They finally finished their 15-year absence from the World Series, but scattering for the winter without the commissioner trophy provided the New York Yankees with a cruel reminder: boulder on the hill If you push it up further, it just rolls down, even more difficult.
Kansas City and Cleveland’s 94 victory and the conquest of the American League division and Championship Series were not particularly as they didn’t look like they would do after a five-game World Series defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
While reuniting, one generation of superstars reunited, the reloaded Yankees are now tasked with turning Game 5’s collapse nightmare into a propellant.
“You’ll compete with your (exp remark) all year round,” Ace Gerrit Cole told USA Today Sports. “You are competing through DS, through CS (exp remark) and in the World Series (exp remark); but you finish second. You lose.
“I think there’s not only a sense of accomplishment, but a sense that we didn’t finish. And we didn’t finish the way we wanted. We didn’t finish more. We wanted to play well, and we didn’t.
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“The guys grabbed fuel from both ends of the spectrum. We pushed this farther than we pushed. And yet, our goal wasn’t achieved.”
Marked with key mistakes from franchise player Aaron Judge (dropped the fly ball), shortstop Anthony Volpe (slow), and Cole (late cover of the mound), Descartes’ decisive game is offseason It should be aggravated by heartbreak.
After all, one season in the Bronx, which formed the judge, one of the great 1-2 punches in baseball history, Juan Soto crossed town with the Mets on a $765 million contract. The one-year trial with Soto almost produced the World Series Championship and mostly the long-term union.
Instead, the Yankees didn’t get either.
However, the reassembled group in Steinbrenner’s field is partly galvanized by lessons from October, especially what it learned by Yankees’ quick towitch reaction after Soto’s exile.
Left-handed Max Fried: A day after the Mets framed the Yankees with tape for Soto’s services, he signed a $218 million contract.
Closer Devin Williams: Acquired trade from Milwaukee Brewers on December 13th.
Center Fielder Cordy Bellinger: Buying from the Chicago Cubs through trade on December 17th.
One base hand Paul Goldschmidt: Signed a one-year contract on December 21st.
Less than two weeks later, the Yankees lost their Soto Shuffle, but in 2025, the pitcher who won the World Series, a pair of former MVPs, and baseball’s best reliever 1 person has been added.
And while Goldschmidt, 37, won’t revisit the 2022 NL MVP form, the Yankees have added the best pitcher of the game at Freed since 2020, and the former Bellinger MVP who won’t be 30 until July. did.
Fast strikes were most appreciated during the winter as roars of the roster returned the Yankees who didn’t want to be held hostage.
“I don’t want to sit on the phone all day. I wait for some credited sources to announce the actual information. “Every time you go there, you’ll have the same team every year You will realize you will not have it, especially when you have such a large free agent. Especially the biggest free agent.
“I thought they did an amazing job. They strengthened the pen. They enhanced the spinning. And the bats we added. They did a really, really good job.”
The rescue was evident in both the Yankees’ return and the incoming call.
“The atmosphere is incredible”
Bellinger hit 47 home runs that won the 2019 MVP, leading the Dodgers to the title of the shortened season 2020 World Series, but forearm bash celebrating the Kiké Hernán dez NLCS home run took his career.
A shoulder surgery, and a 2021 hairline fracture of his left fibre, took him both the top and bottom half of his, taking two seasons, hitting .193 with a total of .193 at 0.611 OPS.
The past two seasons have been spent reestablishing value at Wrigley Field. This was a 4.4 war player in 2023, signing two opt-outs and a $80 million contract, and was kicked out to the 2.2 war last year.
Bellinger was ready when the strangely penis cubs signaled their intention to exchange him. And when it was the destination, New York is a player who can play what-if games and instead counts his blessings.
“I knew it was going to be traded, so I was like, ‘I hope it’s in a good place,'” Bellinger says. “The Cubs are a great organization. The Dodgers are a great organization. I wanted to go to a cool place.
“It’s great. When I got the phone, I was really excited and I’m excited to be here.”
Emotions are mutual. Bellinger remains an elite defender at center field, allowing a judge who turned 33 in April to return to the right field. He can also spell Goldschmidt in one base.
Meanwhile, the Bellinger-Yankees Alliance is truly mutually beneficial when left-handed sluggers make good use of their short right field pouch. Soto didn’t become Babe Ruth in the Bronx, but he set a career-high with a 41 Homer and 178 coordinated OPS and a .989 OPS.
Suddenly, batting practice takes on a different meaning for Bellinger, who can opt out of contracts again after this season and test free agents.
“We have to stay in baseball,” he says. “I have to stay within my swing.
“Good things happen and should happen.”
That feeling is heading towards the clubhouse. There, Bellinger reports that “the atmosphere is incredible.”
The new, highly skilled blood injections are also highly regarded among returnees.
“They’re a major big addition,” says Volpe. He posted a .815 OPS with five stolen bases on the Yankees’ postseason run. “Not just the lineup, team, field, clubhouse, but also clubhouse. It will probably be the most important thing going forward.”
Not even more yet
The Yankees’ agile winter response was just as important. Ah, it doesn’t qualify as a splurge like the Dodgers: Soto’s $31 million salary was mostly washed away with Freed’s signature bonus and 2025 salary, and Yankee salaries once again in the $310 million range It’s going to land.
But they remain a favorite of Al East’s consensus, lacking a true giant, unless they count the 5 deep, but Yankees.
“It all happened pretty quickly,” says Volpe of Winter Operation. “It feels good to know you’re on the team.
“Besides the judge, Soto is the best player and I’ve played before. Losing him, you can’t replace something like that. But the organization you invest in It feels good to feel like you’re in, and it makes you want to get out there and win.”
Cole said: “There were a lot of decisions. There were coordinated contingency plans. And I’m sure they’ll spend a lot of time and focus on Juan, but they’ll improve. The area targeted for it seemed a lot of critical thinking was happening before Juan did what he decided to do.”
At Freed, the Yankees will get the best era of the game (2.81) among the starting pitchers since 2020. His seven-pitch mix will be a significant changeup from Cole, Carlos Rodon, Schmidt and the Rookie of the Year Power Arms. I’ll kick you out the rest of the time.
Cole and Schmidt, as Cole says, call Fried, “Articulate,” “Curious,” “Team-Centric,” and most importantly, “Elite at Run Prevention.”
He also has a 2021 World Series ring and has no memory of the Yankees’ Cartes performance in the latest Fall Classic.
But those who return may be the best attributes of the team in the season when they learn from the past and move quickly from there.
“Some of those feelings, you’re not necessarily overcoming,” says Volpe. “But I think our team, our clubhouse, have done a pretty good job of using those things and those feelings to push us to new heights and new things.
“The best part is that we don’t think we’ll get through it. That team and its bond knows we’ve come close to it. But that’s a good thing, and it’s See it from the perspective that it helps us.”
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