2024 Team Previews: New York Yankees
Going through all 30 teams, looking back at 2023 and ahead to the 2024 season through a fantasy baseball lens.
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Yankees Intro
Saint Paul wrote to the church in Corinth
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.
When I was a child, I hated the Yankees. As a Pirate fan, I naturally hated the team that would spend all of the money to get the big free agents that I foolishly thought would somehow maybe end in Pittsburgh. And when you’re 15 years old and like pro sports, they become entirely too important to you. So you start getting emotional about stuff, and you end up wearing a shirt like this one to high school:
That’s me and Producer Lee circa 2006 or so. He was a front-running Yankees fan, which is significantly lamer than wearing a Yankees Suck! t-shirt to school, although both are admittedly quite lame.
One time when I wore the shirt some kid told on me because saying “suck” was inappropriate. It was my homeroom teacher too, so she’d seen me wear this shirt multiple times I’m sure - but since the one kid brought it up she didn’t have much of a choice. So she told me to turn it inside out, and that’s how I had to spend that day. Actually my buddy Greg had a spare hoodie so I just put that over it and saved me some embarrassment. So Greg, if you’re out there - thanks man.
And now that I am a man and have come to realize the realities of the world, I can say that I am no longer a Yankees hater. You can’t really hate a sports team if you don’t care, and I am proud to announce that for several years now, I have not really cared about who wins and who loses, all I want is to beat Producer Lee and friends in our fantasy baseball home league.
The Yankees have obviously been a disappointment in recent years, but they come into 2024 with a strong roster once again. The Juan Soto trade was massive for them, and they’ve recently strengthened the rotation a bit - which was a big problem for them in 2023. If they can get a heathy year from the top of their lineup and some steps forward from the young guys, this is certain to be a very competitive team. So we have plenty to talk about, let’s have at it!
Hitters
Aaron Judge
Age: 31
Pos: OF
Judge is still the guy here, and it’s really been amazing what he’s done over these last two seasons. Since 2022:
1,150 PA, .293/.417/.657, 99 HR, 212 R, 206 RBI, 19 SB
Only Shohei Ohtani matches his raw power projections, and with Soto next to him in the lineup there should be a ton of counting stat opportunities.
As we kind of expected before last year, the 2022 steals count looks to have been an outlier. He had 16 steals and a 9% SB Attempt% in 2022, but followed that up with just three steals and a very low 3% attempt rate in 2023 - so steals aren’t going to be a part of his game. That could have just been some kind of contract year ploy there for him back then.
But Judge is an absolute four-category stud, and he’s a first-round bat in my book. It wasn’t great to see him have some injury issues last year, but I don’t want to go overboard reacting to that.
Judge is a plot-stretcher, and that really raises his floor to me - there’s just no scenario where this guy stays healthy and doesn’t mash a ton of homers.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Yordan Alvarez, Mookie Betts, Kyle Tucker
My projection system uses StatCast data, so that means Barrel%, and I think that’s the right way to go. But it pushes Judge’s home run projection way up. My projection is probably a best-case scenario rather than a median outcome, so I’ll show you the more reasonable Steamer projection as well.
JA Projection: 679 PA, 121 R, 52 HR, 111 RBI, 6 SB, .292/.422/.632, 1.054 OPS
Steamer: 679 PA, 117 R, 46 HR, 110 RBI, 8 SB, .270/.386/.563, .949 OPS
Juan Soto
Age: 25
Pos: OF
One of the biggest moves of the off-season was the Yankees acquiring Soto, and now he finds himself in arguably the best hitting environment of his career.
Soto is an interesting case. Clearly he’s one of the top hitters in the league, but it hasn’t always translated into elite fantasy seasons. Here are the last three:
2021: 654 PA, 111 R, 95 RBI, 29 HR, .313/.465/.534, 9 SB
2022: 663 PA, 93 R, 62 RBI, 27 HR, .242/.401/.452, 6 SB
2023: 708 PA, 97 R, 109 RBI, 35 HR, .275/.410/.519, 12 SB
So 2021 and 2023 were great seasons, no doubt - but 2022 was pretty mediocre and the lack of steals will probably always keep him out of the top five. I don’t find it likely that we’ll see another 2022-like season from Soto, but it’s just notable that he’s a tier below the Acuna’s or the world.
I think Soto has walked a little bit too much for our liking in roto fantasy baseball. A walk doesn’t help your fantasy team very much, and he’ll be at the top of the walks leaderboard every year he has a pulse.
The reason to draft Soto in the late first or early second round is the rock-solid floor. He’s just so good and he’s been so durable, that you’re not going to have a year where you’re really kicking yourself for taking him. The reason for some slight hesitation is that he doesn’t really have that 30-30 upside that a lot of the other guys do, and he hasn’t shown the ability to be a 50-homer guy like Judge.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Aaron Judge
JA Projection: 666 PA, 105 R, 34 HR, 105 RBI, 13 SB, .271/.416/.518, .935 OPS
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