For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the penultimate team is New York Yankees.

Batters

If I’ve learned anything from two decades of projection work (and people getting mad at that projection work), it’s that fans are way too optimistic about teams when everything goes great and way too pessimistic after things have gone awry.
The 2022 Yankees were a good example of this. After a first half in which they went 58-23, good for a .716 winning percentage and a Pythagorean win percentage that nearly matched, ZiPS only projected the team to go 45-36 the rest of the way. “Knave!” they shouted at me on Twitter. “Vagabond! Miscreant!” OK, maybe they didn’t use those words exactly, but there was bewilderment and more than a touch of anger that I would disrespect the Bronx Bombers so. In the end, the Yankees actually were four wins worse than that projection in the second half.

And just like things are never as amazing as they seem when everything goes your way, the reverse is true, with the Yankees again being a good example. They had their worst season since 1992 in 2023, and based on how they’ve been talked about over the last six months or so, you’d think they were a glorified Triple-A team. But the Yankees weren’t that bad — they went 82-80 in a division without a true doormat team to beat up on. That record was all of seven wins below their preseason projection, a miss that barely merits raising an eyebrow, and certainly doesn’t justify floating Brian Cashman out to sea (or bunting more).

There were more humdrum reasons for the Yankees’ failures than an overabundance of analytics. Their most valuable player missed a third of the season. Their big pitching signing missed more than half the season and was awful when he was healthy. The dude who led the rotation in ERA in 2022 missed most of the year. A couple guys in the decline phase of their careers took big steps back. Those misfortunes can happen to any team, and they happened to to the Yankees in 2023.

There are some serious long-term concerns and they could have done more, but they’ve done an admirable job patching things up for 2024. Bounce-back seasons from Anthony Rizzo and especially Giancarlo Stanton aren’t exactly a given, so the Yankees rented the best hitter anyone can reasonably obtain in Juan Soto. Given the trajectories of Nestor Cortes and Carlos Rodón, they went after Yoshinobu Yamamoto (and failed), but were able to sign Marcus Stroman. Harrison Bader didn’t work out in 2023, so the team’s trying again with Alex Verdugo.

As it stands now, first base and designated hitter are the weakest positions on the depth chart, meaning the Yankees have fulfilled one of their unstated goals: protecting against the potential toastitude of Rizzo and Stanton by making sure the success of the lineup isn’t reliant on them returning to form. I’m bearish on their futures, but their production now matters a good deal less to the 2024 Yankees than it did to the Yankees of the last few years. Soto is a beast, as is Aaron Judge when he’s healthy, and while Gleyber Torres isn’t quite the player he looked like he’d be after his first couple of seasons, he’s still solidly above-average overall and isn’t being depended on to play a position (shortstop) where he’s overmatched.

There are still a few other question marks in the lineup. Verdugo’s projection takes a hit compared to where it was in the Red Sox rundown by virtue of ZiPS thinking his medium-power, line-drive bat was more ideally suited to Fenway, but he’s still a legitimate starter in left. Catcher only projects as average because of the uncertainty surrounding Austin Wells‘ defense; if he plays better defense or Jose Trevino gets more playing time than our depth chart currently anticipate, there’s a lot of room for the projected WAR to go up.

Depth at the power positions is an issue and so is the fact that a lot of the team’s offense is tied up in two players, making the Yankees susceptible to injury. But there’s at least depth in the infield with Oswald Peraza and Oswaldo Cabrera hanging around.

Pitchers

Gerrit Cole always goes into the season as a Cy Young contender and there’s no reason to feel differently this year, other than the slight fear you should have with any pitcher. ZiPS projects a better year from Rodón, but given his injury history, I’m more inclined to believe the 114 innings ZiPS is projecting than the more bountiful number in our depth chart. Stroman is solid, but the raw numbers may not be as exciting without Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner behind him. ZiPS remains hopeful about Cortes, and while the computer isn’t super into Clarke Schmidt, that’s a perfectly serviceable projection for a fourth or fifth starter.

Who the Yankees turn to if injuries hit is a concern. Clayton Beeter is next on our depth chart and ZiPS is not at all enthused by the possibility of him being the de facto sixth starter. It likes Chase Hampton a lot, but I doubt the team will be that aggressive promoting him in 2024, and the computer only likes Will Warren incrementally more than Beeter. If ZiPS is correct, the Yankees better pray that they don’t end up with that many innings from Luke Weaver. While they have missed out on some of the starters they’ve gone after, they could certainly make another low-key addition or two. When running sims for 2024, everything blew up pretty quickly in the ones where the projected starters got a lot fewer innings than expected, giving the rotation a fairly low floor for a team with a good overall projection.

The bullpen pales in comparison to many of the team’s bullpens over the last decade, when New York regularly ranked at or near the top of the league. And getting Soto involved giving up a couple live arms who might have fattened up the ‘pen. ZiPS likes the front five guys (Holmes, Loáisiga, Kahnle, Hamilton, Effross), but its mathematical faith dissipates when you get to the third-tier relievers. Perhaps Luis Gil can help here (or in the rotation), but you don’t want to put too many eggs in the basket of a pitcher with 33 innings in the majors who is coming off Tommy John surgery.

If you add up the numbers on the Yankees’ depth chart — ignoring the fact that you explicitly waive any rights to restitution should you be karate-chopped upon doing so — you’ll get a win total in the low 90s. However, the simulations are coming up a bit short of that largely because, outside of the infield, ZiPS believes that New York’s depth is thinner than most of the other good teams. Right now, ZiPS is banking between 86-90 wins, which wouldn’t be that bad considering the challenges the team has had to fix on the fly this winter. However, that would probably be a huge disappointment to Yankees fans and might speed up the calls for the post-Cashman era to start.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time.

Here are how the ZiPS percentiles worked out in 2023 for pitchers and hitters in in 2023. Percentiles are based on the projected PA or TBF.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.

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