2026 Team Previews: New York Yankees
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 New York Yankees
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Intro
The Yankees choked away the division last year, finishing with the same record as the Blue Jays. It was an entertaining division race, and it figures to be again this year with four pretty good-looking teams in there.
I try to be clever and entertaining in these intros, but some days you don’t have. And you have to know better than to force something. We are going to go right into it for this bad boy.
Hitters
Aaron Judge
Age: 33
Pos: OF
He’s the clear #2 after Ohtani, and in leagues where you’re separating Ohtani’s hitting from his pitching, I think there’s a case for Judge as the #1 overall. What he’s done in these four years is remarkable.
He has the three highest qualified OPS seasons of the last 15 seasons:
He’s up there in age, but it’s tough to worry about that even in a little bit when he just went for a 1.144 OPS with 53 bombs as a 33-year-old.
There’s pretty much nobody like Judge. He’s an easy Hall of Famer, and I really think he’s a top ten hitter in MLB history. Although I haven’t done the proper research to make that claim. But most of the people who would have a big issue with that are dead, so I think I’ll get away with it.
Projection
Ranking
I’m putting Judge as #1. Maybe that is just to draw some attention to my rankings! Ohtani is going at #1 almost every time, but those are all drafts where you could flip him over to be used as a pitcher in a given week when you need it. And that makes a difference.
But if we’re comparing hitter to hitter, I view Judge as safer. I don’t think there will be a huge gap in steals between the two with Ohtani pitching all year, and there’s added injury risk from Ohtani as he tries to make 25 starts on the bump next year.
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Age: 28
Pos: 2B/3B
New York has been quite good to Jazz Chisholm. In his 722 PAs:
→ .251/.330/.487, 42 HR, 49 SB
He’s a HR+SB stud, and the batting average hasn’t been bad as a Yankee, either.
But that is a bit of a worry. He strikes out a lot (28% last year). And that hurts the batting average. In 2025, he hit .242 with a .235 xBA.
You probably didn’t really notice that if you had him, because he was rocking a 31-31 season while he was at it. And for all of his strikeouts and stuff, the lowest batting average of his career is .242. He’s more likely a .250 guy if we just look to the past to advise us.
He doesn’t have elite raw power, but it’s good enough to play, and Yankees Stadium helps a lot.
105.3 EV90
112.1 MAX EV
14.7% Brl%
19.7% Air Pull%
The dude is good. And the plate discipline has improved as time has gone on. He swings at a league-average rate, and that’s maintained pretty steady through his career, but last year, his walk rate reached a career high at 10.9%. Maybe pitchers were just working around him a bit. He was hitting behind Judge last year, which I suppose will stay true in 2026, so that gave pitchers an opportunity to work around him. You can’t do that if Judge is behind you.
So his .332 OBP was the best of his career, and that helped him get to the second-highest steals total of his career. His attempt rate has been above 30% in each of the last four years, so it’s a safe bet that he’ll be a strong source of speed and power.
But what if the batting average drops to .235? That could certainly happen, and that’s what keeps him out of the first round in drafts. He has the HR + SB + R + RBI upside of the elite guys, but the batting average could truly be a killer. And the high K% is also a risk that he just goes on extended cold streaks, and who knows what that could do to his head as he plays for this hopeful big contract next offseason.
If we really wanted to get into the weeds, we could investigate how guys do in their contact years. I found a study here about it, and it seems that yes, they do tend to perform better, but only slightly. And that’s what I would guess. I don’t think they can suddenly turn it on and add 50 points to their OPS overnight just because they’re trying to (because why wouldn’t they have done that earlier on in their career?), but obviously, there’s some stat hacking going on. Players know the numbers they’re evaluated on, so putting in direct effort to improve in certain categories they lack can make a difference.
We saw it with Judge, as his best steals season was in his walk year. And there are other examples like that all over the place. Some stats rea really just about will and effort, so you could see Jazz stealing a few more bags or striking out a bit less just because he’s trying to put up a slightly better stat line ahead of his big payday.
Projection
None of the projection systems are at a .250 batting average. And they go as low as .233 (The Bat X). So build some average around him if he’s your first or second hitter selection.
MLB DW: 610 PA, 75 R, 28 HR, 79 RBI, 28 SB, .237/.316/.445
Ranking
Cody Bellinger
Age: 30
Pos: OF
The Yankees brought Cody back, giving him a big old five-year contract worth $162 million. So we won’t see Bellinger changing teams again for a while.
And why not? He had a very strong season with the Yankees. He hit 29 homers, the most since that ridiculous 2019 season he had. I’m still not sure what happened in 2019. The balls were juiced, we know that, but man, he really took advantage and hasn’t been that kind of player again ever since.
Here go the last five seasons:
He had a real rough go of it in 2021-2022, but over the last three years, he’s hit .281/.338/.477 with 73 homers and 42 steals.
The hesitation with him is a bit of the inconsistent power. Just 18 homers in 30 games in 2024, but that was in Wrigley. Yankees Stadium is great for him, and we saw that immediately show up in 2025.
But still, he’s more of a contact hitter than a power one at this point.
→ 20th percentile bat speed
→ 7.5% Brl%
→ 102.6 EV90
He’ll pile up some “cheap” homers with air pull (20.5%) and just by hitting a bunch of fly balls generally (33% GB%). He’s great at getting the ball into the air at a high rate, and that goes for FB/PA as well since he so rarely strikes out.
The power floor is fine, but the ceiling really isn’t all that special. He’s not a 35-homer threat, I don’t think.
And there’s a risk that the steals go away. With a five-year contract, that extra motivation isn’t there to pile on the stats like we just talked about with Jazz, and his speed is at the 72nd percentile now, while he’s at the age where you’d expect a descent to begin pretty soon.
Projection
So 20-2025 homers with about ten steals and a .250-.260 batting average. That’s somewhat replaceable, but Bellinger is a safe bet in a good lineup. He’s a building blocks type of pick, and I’m down for it.
Ranking
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