Well, we made it. Another long offseason without baseball is finally over and the Yankees return to our lives Wednesday night as they have the honor of playing the first game of the MLB season in a special standalone matchup at 8 p.m. against the Giants in San Francisco on Netflix. Yes, you read that correctly - Netflix. So, here are some questions I have as the regular season gets underway. Lets get to it.

Even though he had a great spring training at the plate, yes, and they really didn’t have a choice from the moment they gave Trent Grisham the qualifying offer last November which guaranteed him an absurd salary of $22 million for 2026. Once that happened, and knowing they were going to do all they could to re-sign free agent Cody Bellinger - which they ultimately accomplished - there was no room for Dominguez.

And the reason there’s no room is simple: He can’t hit left-handed pitching, and he’s a below average defender, so that greatly reduces his value as a bench player. The best thing for Dominguez was to send him down to Triple-A and give him regular playing time and a chance to improve his defense while getting at bats against lefties.

Dominguez’s spot on the roster is taken by Grichuk, and the best thing about signing Grichuk is that while he’s wearing pinstripes he can’t kill the Yankees, something he has been known to do wherever he has played. However, he’s now 34 years old and he hasn’t topped 20 homers in a season since 2021. He’s on the team because he can mash against lefties (he has a career .819 OPS against them), and he can play a passable left field.

It feels like Grichuk (who did nothing in spring training going 3-for-21 with two RBI) is a temporary solution and if he gets off to a slow start, he could be DFA’d at some point, especially if Dominguez or Spencer Jones get off to hot starts at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Another option if Grichuk falters might be Oswaldo Cabrera who will start the year in Triple-A as he continues his return from the broken ankle he suffered last season. If Cabrera gets it rolling, he could be recalled to provide depth everywhere around the diamond, including the outfield. My point here is I don’t think Grichuk’s roster spot is set in stone if he stumbles.

Grisham produced a stunning 2025 season with his career-high 34 homers which doubled his previous best of 17 set in 2022, and he had an OPS of .811. It was one of the most unexpected performances we’ve seen in recent Yankee times.

However, even with his big year, he only pushed his career OPS up to a middling .720, and while the power was shocking, he only hit .235, meaning for his career he’s sitting at .218. It begs the question whether this was a one-year wonder kind of season.

The Yankees believe he unlocked something offensively that will be repeatable, but I always am skeptical about one-year wonders, which is exactly what Grisham was as a hitter last year. While we’re never going to pay attention to spring numbers, just like Grichuk, Grisham was awful as he hit .179 with no homers in 39 plate appearances.

He’s still a good center fielder, but his fielding metrics dipped in 2025. Part of that could be due to the fact that he was dealing with a sore hamstring most of the season, so we’ll see how he looks back at full health.

Anthony Volpe probably isn’t going to be playing for the Yankees until early-to-mid May, so in the meantime it’s going to be Jose Caballaro at short, with no real backup plan. The Yankees gave shortstop reps to third baseman Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario in spring training, but they are far better off staying where they are with the slick fielding/light hitting McMahon getting the bulk of the time and Rosario playing once in a while against left-handers.

Caballaro can handle the job full-time for a month, but once Volpe returns, he’s probably getting his job back and Caballaro will become a valuable member of the bench which is the role that’s best-suited for him.

First base is all his, except for the occasional day off when Paul Goldschmidt will get a start against a lefty. Rice caught all of one inning in a live game in the spring because the Yankees wanted all of his reps to come at first base, and it seems like they’re pleased with how it all went. He still has plenty to learn about the position and he won’t be as good as Goldschmidt was in the field, but his bat has to be in the lineup. Goldschmidt won’t get all the starts against lefties because the Yankees want Rice’s bat in the lineup, but he has a career slash line of .189/.270/.413 against lefties so he needs to be better.

Wells has progressed nicely as a defensive catcher, but his bat - which was believed to be his strength as he was going through the minors - needs to come around. Last season he hit 21 homers and had 71 RBI which is fine, but he also slashed .219/.275/.436 for an OPS of .712. That’s not good enough.

Teams don’t need their catchers to be offensive juggernauts, and that’s especially true of the Yankees who have plenty of other offensive stalwarts in the lineup. But there were too many times last year when Wells killed rallies, or potential rallies.

Behind Wells, the Yankees are going with JC Escarra, also a left-handed batter which of course makes no sense. Why the Yankees didn’t acquire a right-hand hitting backup catchup for the second year in a row is puzzling to say the least. Escarra is a great story, and he’s a good receiver and game caller, but he can’t hit a lick.

Like the sun rising every day, we all know Stanton is going to miss time at some point, and the question will become, for how long, and how do they patch the lineup in his absence? In his half 2025 season he produced a .944 OPS which was his best as a Yankee, and he hit 24 homers with a slash line of .273/.350/.594. Can he still mash at the age of 36? Well, if the spring was any indication, Stanton was hitting rockets and he finished with a .990 OPS in 27 plate appearances, obviously a small sample size, but encouraging nonetheless.

When he gets hurt, the Yankees will be able to cover the DH spot through a rotation of Aaron Judge, Goldschmidt and Rice, and that will probably give Dominguez an opportunity to come up and get in that mix as well while also getting left field starts on days when Judge is the DH and Bellinger moves to right field.

Sure, it’s possible, but my guess is that Schlitter is going to be really good this year and if he can stay healthy, he might even get into the Cy Young conversation at season’s end. Yes, that’s a lot to ask of a guy who has made just 16 MLB starts counting the postseason, but he looked tremendous in three spring starts (0.93 ERA, 0.828 WHIP), and his velocity peaked near 100 mph.

With Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt all starting on the injured list, there’s some pressure on Schlittler to settle in as the No. 2 starter behind Max Fried and continue his ascent.

Cole delivered an impressive 10-pitch inning in his first spring appearance last week, and Tuesday he went 1.2 innings in Arizona against the Cubs and gave up a solo homer to Alex Bregman while striking out three across 26 pitches.

If he can build off that as he continues his rehab from Tommy John surgery, we’ll probably see him in pinstripes by late May or early June. However, what version will we get? Can he just pick up where he left off in the 2024 World Series, or is it going to take time to get his bearings? He has said everything is on track, he’s had no setbacks, and Aaron Boone remarked that he actually is ahead of schedule.

Still, if he takes a little time to get back in the groove, the rest of the rotation needs to pick him up. I expect Fried and Schlittler to be fine, but what about Will Warren, Ryan Weathers and Luis Gil?

Warren was quietly very good last season, he was the best Yankee starter this spring, and I think he has reached a point where he can be trusted to deliver solid outings, but there are definitely questions about Weathers and Gil. Weathers did not pitch well in the spring as his ERA was an ugly 8.83, and until Gil’s encouraging last start, he was also in a bad rut.

Because of several off days in the first two weeks, the Yankees won’t need a fifth starter until April 11 so Gil will begin the year at Triple-A and they’ll carry an extra reliever. His command issues have to get cleaned up, and he needs to get back to using his fastball more consistently if he hopes to return to the form he showed in the first half of 2024.

The thing about Bednar is that he’s a true bulldog, and you love that quality in a closer. But man, it seems like every time he comes into a game he gets himself into a jam and makes it uncomfortable before finding a way through the chaos. He even did that in the WBC for Team USA. He had 27 combined saves with the Pirates and Yankees last season and in 22 appearances for New York he pitched to a 2.19 ERA and 0.932 WHIP.

There’s going to be some volatility in the ninth inning with Bednar, and we have to hope that he blows fewer games than Devin Williams did in 2025, losses that really proved pivotal by season’s end.

Here’s what they have - a whole bunch of questions. The guys who will get the bulk of the key setup innings will be Tim Hill, Camilo Doval and Fernando Cruz. Hill always surprises me with his ability to get the job done, but his ERA did tick up a full run from 2024 to 2025. And both Doval and Cruz have been know to have command issues.

Last year, Cruz was a boom or bust guy - one night he was untouchable, the next he was un-pitchable - so the Yankees need him to find consistency with that brilliant but sometimes baffling forkball. When Doval came over at the trade deadline he was a mess and Boone booted him from his circle of trust, but he did start to figure things out late and then in the postseason.

There’s a chance a Doval-Cruz-Bednar trio in the late innings can be really good, but there’s some worrisome traits with all three, so I would expect the late innings are going to give us all agita.

In the middle of the bullpen, Boone knows he can rely on Hill in just about any spot, but he needs to figure out what he has in Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and Cade Winquest who all made the 26-man roster. As for long relief, Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarbrough will be able to eat innings.

Right now, the bullpen is the biggest area of concern on the roster, but there are definitely some intriguing options who could turn it into a strength as the season goes on.