Grading the Yankees at every position to start the 2026 MLB season

CORNER INFIELD

Ben Rice entered spring training 2025 with a roster spot far from guaranteed. His best hope for a position was everyday DH duties because Giancarlo Stanton was to start the year on the injured list. Rice, who hit the ball hard from Day 1, left camp as the primary DH and never let up. And he hit the ball so consistently hard throughout 2025 that it allowed him to enter spring training this year knowing he was going to start the season as the everyday first baseman. To keep those everyday reps, the lefthanded-hitting Rice will have to show he can hit lefty pitching better than he did a year ago — he batted .208 with a .752 OPS vs. lefties — and, more important, field the position at an adequate level. Rice, drafted as a catcher, essentially has been learning first base on the fly at the big-league level. Rival scouts have noted how much better he looked at first toward the end of last season compared to the first half. He couldn’t have a better mentor than backup first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, a four-time Gold Glove winner at the position.

Third baseman Ryan McMahon also was a trade-deadline acquisition last season and almost instantly provided a significant defensive upgrade to a position that hadn’t been a team strength in more than a few years. So consistently spectacular was McMahon in the field that it didn’t take long for long-time employees around the club to say he was the best-fielding third baseman the franchise has had since Scott Brosius. At the plate, though, it was a different matter. The lefthanded hitter batted .208 with four homers and a .641 OPS in 54 games with the Yankees, striking out 62 times and walking 21 in 185 plate appearances. Amed Rosario will see some time at third against tough lefty starters and Caballero could be an option as well. But the Yankees hope the offseason of work McMahon put in tweaking his stance and swing pays dividends so he is at third base as often as possible. His glovework is that good.

GRADE: B

MIDDLE INFIELD

There may be no more outwardly confident player in the Yankees' clubhouse than second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr.  He no sooner had become only the third player in franchise history to produce a 30-30 season (30 homers, 30 stolen bases) when, while discussing the achievement, Chisholm began lamenting the month he spent on the IL and how a 40-40 season would have been possible. This year he has talked openly about possibly becoming the second player in MLB history to post a 50-50 season (Shohei Ohtani did it in 2024). Chisholm, super-popular among his teammates, does not see any limitations in his game. Ask him if a 60-60 season along with a Gold Glove is possible, and Chisholm wouldn’t shoot it down.

“It’s hard to put a ceiling on him,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He went 30-30 last year and missed a month and didn’t run for two months. So he’s capable of some special things between the lines.”

Chisholm, among the most dynamic players on the roster,  also is capable of the occasional brain lock, whether it be on the basepaths or in the field. But the positives of his game as a Yankee have far outweighed the negatives.

The Yankees acquired shortstop Jose Caballero at last summer’s trade deadline to upgrade their defense and add further athleticism to their running game. Caballero, capable of playing third, short, second and all three outfield positions, certainly did the former, filling in ably at every position the Yankees put him. He also was as advertised on the bases, leading MLB with 49 stolen bases (he went 15-for-18 in that category with the Yankees). Caballero filled in well at shortstop — both at the plate and in the field — in early September when Anthony Volpe received another cortisone injection in his ailing left shoulder. That shoulder required surgery after the season to repair a torn labrum, the reason Caballero will be the starting shortstop to start 2026. Volpe’s rehab has gone without a hitch and he could be back in play by late April or early May, at which point the Yankees could have a decision to make regarding everyday reps at short, depending on how things are going for Caballero.

GRADE: B

CATCHER

Austin Wells has always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Drafted as an offense-first catcher in 2020 (taken 28th overall), from the first days of his professional career, Wells set about proving all the talent evaluators who said he would never catch in the big leagues wrong. And by the end of last season, Wells’ first full big-league season as the Yankees’ starting catcher, more than a few of those scouts were declaring how wrong they had been when it came to his defense. But while Wells turned himself into an average and at times above-average backstop defensively, he never clicked offensively with any degree of consistency in 2025. Wells did hit 21 homers — a total that pretty much every team, in a vacuum, would happily sign up for from their starting catcher — but still didn’t fulfill his or the Yankees’ expectations on that side of the ball, hitting .219 with a .712 OPS. Many around the club are predicting a breakout season offensively for Wells. Even if he simply duplicated his 21-homer season from a year ago, he would be a valuable bat. If he does have that breakout year, look out.

GRADE: B

OUTFIELD

Much of the Yankees' offseason drama revolved around the outfield. There was the question of whether centerfielder Trent Grisham, fresh off hitting a career-best 34 homers, would accept the qualifying offer, which this year was $22.03 million. Grisham, to the surprise of more than a few in the organization, did accept it, and when leftfielder Cody Bellinger re-signed in January, their starting outfield was set for 2026 (those two along with three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge in right). The return of Bellinger and Grisham effectively took two of the club’s top young outfield prospects out of the mix for everyday playing time, at least to start the season: Jasson Dominguez (no longer really considered a prospect as he debuted in 2023 and played in 123 games last season) and Spencer Jones. Both Dominguez and Jones, who has yet to make his big-league debut, will sit waiting with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to see when and/or if everyday opportunities present themselves at the big-league level. In some ways, the Yankees hope that isn’t the case because that would mean the trio of Bellinger, Grisham and Judge were turning in seasons similar to the ones they had last year.

GRADE: A

DH/BENCH

Giancarlo Stanton made it through spring training healthy — at least when compared with his recent past. That includes last year, when tendon tears in both elbows — he and the Yankees have called it tennis elbow — caused him to miss all of spring training and the first 2 ½ months of the regular season. Stanton, 36, has had at least one  stint on the injured list  each of the last seven seasons, but he broke camp as healthy as he’s been in some time. The Yankees couldn’t do much better than having Paul Goldschmidt serve as Rice’s backup/mentor at first base, and Amed Rosario can play multiple positions adequately in addition to crushing lefthanded pitching. J.C. Escarra, though not offering much with the bat,  nonetheless is an ideal backup catcher as he’s well above average with the glove. The Yankees finally, after several years of trying, secured righthanded-hitting reserve outfielder Randal Grichuk. If nothing else, the acquisition of Grichuk saves the Yankees from having to face him; he  routinely did plenty of damage against their pitching.

GRADE: A-

ROTATION

The Yankees will begin the season with three starters — Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt — on the injured list, but it’s been some time since they’ve gone into a season feeling as good about their starting pitching depth as they do in 2026. Part of that has to do with the fact that all three pitchers’ rehabs, Cole’s and Rodon’s especially, have gone smoothly. Rodon could be back by late April, Cole by early May. Schmidt, who underwent Tommy John surgery last July, has a trickier timetable, though early signs point to the righthander perhaps making it back by mid-to-late August. Meanwhile, the Yankees are more than comfortable breaking camp with a starting five of Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, Ryan Weathers and Luis Gil. The spring training performances of Schlittler and Warren in particular had the Yankees enthusiastic. Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough head to the bullpen as long men but were stretched out as starters, so they provide additional rotation depth in the early going if need be. In reserve at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are two of the club’s top pitching prospects, both of whom earned rave reviews throughout spring training and are believed to be, to varying degrees, big league-ready: Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange.

GRADE: A-

BULLPEN

The most questions surrounding the Yankees as they start the season revolve around their bullpen, which the club acknowledges. But there also is a quiet confidence that this group could be an overwhelming strength in a way it wasn’t last season, especially in the season’s second half, when manager Aaron Boone was down to about two relievers in his circle of trust come October. Those pitchers were righty closer David Bednar and soft-throwing lefty Tim Hill (and, to a lesser extent, Devin Williams, who pitched well down the stretch). Bednar and Hill are back, as are Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval, Blackburn and Yarbrough. In the case of Doval, a disappointment after his acquisition at last year’s trade deadline, the Yankees see big bounce-back possibilities from the hard-throwing righty. The Yankees have been high on lefthander Brent Headrick for well over a year and believe Jake Bird, another disappointment from last year’s trade deadline, can be a contributor of significance. Bednar enters the year as the closer; the order in which the Yankees deploy the other arms is likely to be trial-and-error to start the year (Cruz and Doval are likely to get lengthy looks as the primary setup men). There will be additional intrigue later in the season when Rodon and Cole return to the rotation; pitchers such as Weathers or Gil or Warren presumably will be bullpen candidates. Depending on how the bullpen settles in and what needs arise, Lagrange and his 103-mph fastball could be a call-up option later in the season.

GRADE: B+

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.