Here's What My Ideal Yankees Batting Order Would Look Like

Hey everyone, we have baseball - sort of. Spring training is underway for the Yankees down in Tampa and already, the Yankees have injuries. Shocking, right? Here are some of my thoughts on a few topics that are making news. Let’s get to it.

Before I get going here, I wanted to let you know how I see this season’s Pinstripe People shaping up, especially for the new subscribers who have joined in the past week.

As in the past, I will send out the newsletter the morning after each series is completed, so that will generally mean every Monday, and then the mid-week edition will usually be a Thursday or Friday depending on the schedule.

Those will include the usual game-by-game recaps where I rant and rave about what happened, with clickable links to the box scores and game highlights if you wish to watch. I’ll also have the On Deck look ahead to the next opponent.

In case you’re wondering about This Day in Yankee history, as you’ve already seen every Wednesday, I have created a new offering entitled Pinstripe Past and that will continue. Each one will be either a story about memorable moments, or a player feature tied into his birthday. I hope you’ve been enjoying those since I started that back in December.

And Saturday will be home to my new season-long project which is entitled “2009 Yankees: The Last Championship.” This will be similar to last year’s Hardball Hyperbole which I know many of you enjoyed. This will be a weekly remembrance of the Yankees journey to what sadly remains their last World Series title. Each “chapter” if you will, focuses on either a noteworthy game, a player performance, or a news event that will help tell the story of that season. Watch for that starting on March 16.

If I Was Aaron Boone, This is my Batting Order

One of the hot topics that has been dominating conversation ever since the Yankees acquired Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo is the batting order. I offer my take knowing that Boone changes the lineup almost every day based on matchups but even more so because guys are always hurt. But if the Yankees can somehow stay healthy and send their best nine players onto the field for the first game and hopefully well beyond, here’s what I think is the most functional and dangerous order.

1. DJ LeMahieu 3B

2. Juan Soto LF

3. Aaron Judge CF

4. Anthony Rizzo 1B

5. Gleyber Torres 2B

6. Giancarlo Stanton DH

7. Alex Verdugo RF

8. Austin Wells/Jose Trevino C

9. Anthony Volpe SS

LeMahieu is so important in this scenario and he really has to get back to the type of hitter he’s been in the past, a guy who can get on base and set the table, though I certainly have my doubts about that.

He has been in steady decline since the short 2020 Covid season when he led the AL in average (.364), on-base (.421) and OPS (1.011). To that point in his career - 10 years in, two with New York after eight in hitter-friendly Colorado - his slash line was .305 average/.357 on-base/.430 slug for a .787 OPS. In the three years since, it has plummeted to .258/.345/.375 for a .720 OPS.

However, he finished 2023 well and that at least provides some hope for 2024. At the All-Star break, LeMahieu was a disaster as he was hitting .220 with a .643 OPS. Then Sean Casey replaced Dillon Lawson as hitting coach and over his final 60 games LeMahieu hit .279 with an .809 OPS. That’s what the Yankees need.

“If we can solve that leadoff spot … look, I want it to be DJ and hopefully it is,” Boone said last week. “If that leadoff spot gets settled, then we have a chance to be a really special offense.”

For me, Soto is No. 2 for two reasons: He’s an on-base machine who can also drive in runs, and he’s a lefty in between LeMahieu and Judge. Judge is a better power hitter than Soto so No. 3 in the lineup is the perfect spot, especially if LeMahieu and Soto are on base in front of him. Here’s what Judge had to say about that:

“I may be old school in that fact, but all the great hitters when I was growing up watching, you want to be a three-hitter,” Judge said. “You want to be that guy coming up third, the big heavy hitter in the back. We have so much depth now. There’s not an easy part of our lineup now. I’d love to hit third, especially with how much Soto gets on. Plus the power, he’s going to give you 30-plus homers every year. But when he’s walking over 100 times and driving in 100, that’s who you want to hit behind. I might be fighting him (for third). I want to hit behind him.”

And then you come back with lefty Rizzo in the cleanup spot and righty Torres so that will prevent opposing managers from finding a suitable lane for a reliever who can work on either a string or righties or lefties.

Torres is a better hitter than Stanton which is why he’s fifth, plain and simple. In fact, I would consider bumping Stanton down to No. 7 because Verdugo is another lefty who could continue the righty-lefty switching. As for the catchers, there’s nowhere else to put them. Trevino is a mediocrity as a hitter and I’m not sure what Wells is going to be. And then with Volpe, if he can stop swinging for the fences and start putting the ball in play, he could become the perfect guy who turns the lineup over for the big guys at the top.

It Didn’t Take Long For the First Injuries

Boone met with reporters for the first time on Valentine’s Day which happened to be the reporting date for pitchers and catchers. And to the surprise of no one, the Yankees already have guys who are hurt.

Trevino strained a calf muscle a couple weeks ago, so he’s going to be sidelined for the early portion of camp, though the Yankees believe he’ll be good to go by Opening Day. I’ll believe it when I see him squatting behind the plate to receive Gerrit Cole’s first pitch on March 28 in Houston.

Relief pitcher Scott Effross’ situation is a little more serious. Effross fit right in with this injury-challenged team after he was acquired at the 2022 trade deadline from the Cubs. He pitched in 13 games before blowing out his shoulder and missed all of 2023 because of Tommy John surgery.

The expectation is that he would be back and ready to contribute to the bullpen from the outset in 2024, but instead, thanks to a back injury that flared up last fall, he had to have surgery in December so he’s out for at least the first half of the season.

You just shake your head with this team. Even before the first official workout, we’re immediately into talking about injuries.

Carlos Rodon is making a nice impression

Something we’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, ever since Rodon showed up early in Tampa and began working out, is how locked in he has looked, how his pitches seem to have more life, and how his physical conditioning is superior to any point last season.

Many of you know that I cover the Bills in my day job, and one of the most annoying things I hear when training camp opens in July is how good a particular player’s offseason was. I generally just roll my eyes because I don’t really care how a guy was performing in his personal workouts, or how he looked playing touch football during the OTA and mini-camp portion of the NFL calendar.

When the games start, and dudes are actually hitting and tackling, that’s when I start making my judgements on how a player looks. The same thing holds true for baseball spring training. You can hit off a tee or a pitching machine all you want, but until you get into that box in a game and the bullets are live, I don’t want to hear about anything else.

Same for pitchers. You can fire missiles all you want with no one standing there trying to hit it and look great doing it, but what happens when you’re facing someone like Judge or Soto, or any number of MLB superstars? So before I get all excited about the new and improved Rodon, let’s see what he does in spring games, and lets see if he can stay healthy which has never been a real strong suit of his.

Rodon has spoken to several reporters about last year and I do appreciate his candor when speaking about his disastrous first season with the Yankees.

“I know I can be better,” Rodón said. “I wanted to perform better. All of us want these things. Sometimes they just don’t happen, so now it’s about how we analyze that and how do we reflect on that? Last year was last year. It’s one of those things that I do want to put behind me, and I will still reflect on it. Like what happened? Why did it go this way? Hopefully we found answers.

“There’s definitely motivation. They’re not wrong (fans and media questioning him). The proof is in the pudding. It’s kind of right there where we can all see it. You can go look back at seasons and see how many innings I’ve thrown. It tells you, yeah, he’s pretty good when he’s on the mound, but how often is he on the mound? I’d like to change that rep, but it’s just baby steps, man. It’s one step at a time.”

This is a big spring for Austin Wells

The Trevino injury will give Wells a golden opportunity to make the team. The issue the Yankees have at the position is they really like Ben Rortvedt, and so does Cole. Seven of the last eight games Rortvedt started last season came with Cole on the mound because the pitcher found a comfort zone with him.

However, there are two things working against Rortvedt, at least if Wells plays well in the spring and makes the team. First, he’s a lousy hitter. I mean flat out terrible. In 71 career games with the Twins and Yankees, his slash line is .146/.234/.255 for an OPS of .489. There are utility infielders in MLB who look like Hall of Famers next to him. You can live with a light-hitting, defense-first backup catcher, but he can’t be a near automatic out like Rortvedt is.

Second, Rortvedt is out of minor league options, so the Yankees can’t just sent him to Triple-A. He has to pass through waivers and again, teams sometimes covet defense-first catchers, thinking that maybe they can squeeze some extra life out of the bat. If he gets waived, the Yankees could lose him.

Wells has options and can be sent down, but if he starts to live up to us status as the team’s 2020 first-round pick, the chances are they’ll keep him and take their chances on Rortvedt. But Wells has to do it.

He became a first-round pick because of his bat and in the latest prospect evaluations, Wells was still considered nothing more than a decent receiver and slightly below average thrower. As for the bat, when he was called up in September he started poorly, but across his final 11 games he hit .317 and had four homers and 10 RBI.

As for his defense, it has always been questionable, but Boone said he likes how Wells has progressed.

“He’s continuing to make really good strides this winter to put himself in a position to compete for that,” Boone said. “And on top of that, over time, he’s really going to hit, too. So, we’ll see how it plays out.”