We all know Aaron Judge has been out of this world. One could even make a case that he belongs here as a pleasant surprise, flirting with the fabled .400 batting average while comfortably on pace for what would be the highest single-season WAR by a hitter since Babe Ruth in 1923. However, he has been so darn good while healthy throughout his career that what he’s doing hardly even registers as surprising anymore.
How about the play of that second tier of Yankees, though?
The guys who needed to step up to replace Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Giancarlo Stanton and Nestor Cortes as critical members of Judge’s supporting cast?
The Yankees wouldn’t be running away with the AL East division title without the likes of Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham, Ben Rice and Carlos Rodón.
Of the bunch, Fried’s success has been the least surprising, but also the most remarkable, presently with the best ERA (1.92) and WHIP (0.97) of his career and one of the top candidates for AL Cy Young.
Rodón is right there with him, though, finally looking like the ace New York thought it was signing three offseasons ago. At 5.3 hits allowed and 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings pitched, Rodón is putting up some “peak Blake Snell” numbers through 13 starts.
Goldschmidt batting .327 in his age-37 season has been quite the renaissance run after a 2024 campaign in St. Louis that looked like it might be his last. His hard-hit percentage is nowhere close to what it was in his heyday, but the likely Hall of Famer has shown that his bat is nowhere near finished yet.
Lastly, Grisham and Rice combining for 25 home runs has been an entirely unexpected development. The former wasn’t initially a regular in the starting lineup, and the latter only entered the year as the primary DH because of Stanton’s injury. Nevertheless, they’ve been two of the four most productive bats. The Yankees may have the envious problem of too much of a good thing when Stanton returns from the IL, likely later this month.
