The spring training games are underway, though I have to admit I don’t really pay attention, much the way I don’t pay attention to NFL preseason games. None of the results matter, and I never get a sense - good or bad - about the Yankees based off what happens in spring training. They could go 0-30 in these exhibitions and I wouldn’t blink. The only thing that matters is staying healthy. Here are a few thoughts I have now that the whole squad has reported to Tampa. Lets get to it.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the season regards Cole and what version of him will return from Tommy John surgery. This is not some young 23-year-old kid bouncing back from that procedure, this is a 35-year-old with more than 2,100 innings of wear and tear on his talented right arm counting the postseason.

I guess it was a good sign that Cole delivered a sharp outing Friday while facing live hitters for the first time since he originally left the Yankees on March 11, 2025 to have his elbow checked. He threw 20 pitches to Trent Grisham, Jasson Domínguez and Aaron Judge, every one a fastball, and they were all clocked between 94 and 97 mph, prompting Judge to say, “His stuff is still electric.”

Max Fried, who is now considered the ace of the staff, watched the whole thing and he told reporters, “The ball was jumping out of his hand and I don’t think he missed a spot the whole time. That is so Gerrit Cole.”

So, that was good. Now, you hope that he bounces back from that session, continues to build up and doesn’t suffer a setback. Even if it’s smooth sailing - though, when is it ever with the Yankees? - no one should expect to see Cole pitching in a real game until the end of May or early June, but I’ll admit this was an encouraging start.

“Everything felt good. I had a good bit of fun,” Cole said. “It was the first day where I was unregulated. The mindset was performance. It’s nice when you get to that point and your objective is to go execute and not think about anything else. It was rewarding and refreshing.”

This happened the other day and for some reason, fans were kinda going a little nuts about it. My question is, why? This made perfect sense to me. McMahon is an elite fielder at third, so that skill might be transferable to short, and I think it’s smart of the Yankees to see if he can play the position since they won’t have Anthony Volpe for at least the first month of the season and probably a little more.

Right now, Jose Caballero and Oswaldo Cabrera don’t present the rosiest picture at the position because both players are far more valuable to the Yankees as depth options rather than everyday players, especially Cabrera. If McMahon could handle some shortstop, that’s nice insurance in case of further injuries, but it’s also possibly a way to get both he and righty-swinging Amed Rosario into the lineup at the same time.

In a straight platoon with Rosario at third, the Yankees would lose McMahon’s glove, a glove that is probably better at short than both Caballero and Cabrera. “Buddy Black (his former manager in Colorado) threw me over there a couple of times, but it’s not something I’ve done a bunch of,” McMahon said. “But I’m a ballplayer. I think I can go out there and catch the ball. We’ll see how it looks.”

First and foremost, though, McMahon needs to get his shit together with the bat. After coming over in the trade from the Rockies, McMahon hit just .208/.308/.333 with a .641 OPS in 185 plate appearances for New York and he struck out 33.5% of his at bats. Not ideal and he knows it.

The other day he talked about his offseason work with the Yankees’ hitting coaches and one of the things he’s changing is the width of his stance which previously was among the widest in all of MLB. By narrowing it, the Yankees believe he can into a better position to the drive the ball.

“Just things I’ve done in the past and things I kind of got away from, they pointed them out and we worked on them,” he said. “Trying to find a way to give myself basically the best chance every single time and be really consistent with it. When I’m going bad, I’m just missing good pitches to hit. When I’m going good, I don’t miss it. Just find a way to be in that spot where I don’t miss it.”

As a reporter, I love guys like Jazz Chisholm. Unlike so many athletes who say absolutely nothing in interviews beyond a bunch of well-rehearsed cliches, Jazz shoots from the hip, or in his case, the lip. The dude is always yapping and he fills a lot of column inches.

But the other day, he was saying he could be the second player in MLB history to have a 50-50 season, meaning 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases. The only guy who has ever done that was Shohei Ohtani in 2024. In Yankees history, no player has ever gone even 40-40, and last year Chisholm became just the Yankee to go 30-30 (Bobby Bonds once, Alfonso Soriano twice).

“I’m not going to say nothing that I don’t think I can do,” Chisholm said. “I’m always going to speak positive into the atmosphere. I’m never going to tell myself or tell anybody that, ‘Oh, I’m just going to have a year where I hit 10 home runs and hit .250.’ Who does that sound like? A loser. That’s a loser. I’m going to go shoot for the stars and if I miss, I’m going to end up on the moon.”

Great quote, but the Yankees don’t need him focusing on 50-50. Homers and stolen bases are great, but how about another 30-30 season and many more than 15 doubles while improving on his .332 on-base. Do that and he’ll be just as valuable to the Yankees.

One relief pitcher to keep an eye on is Bird, who came over from the Rockies along with McMahon at the trade deadline last season and was an unmitigated disaster.

Bird made three appearances after the trade and in two disastrous innings he gave up six earned runs on four hits and two walks for a cool 27.00 ERA and 3.000 WHIP. He got demoted to Triple-A and struggled there, too, pitching to an ugly 6.32 ERA across 15.2 innings.

It’s a fresh start in 2026 for the 30-year-old righty, and the Yankees need Bird to find whatever was working across the first three months of 2025 with the Rockies. Through mid-June he had a 1.41 ERA and was looking like a dominant late-inning setup man before it started go sideways before the trade, and then went off the cliff after.

Getting Bird back into that early 2025 groove would be huge for a Yankees team that lost two of its best late-inning options, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver.

“It was very frustrating, especially you get traded over and now I’m in the playoff picture, I’m excited and this is what I’ve been waiting to do my whole career,” Bird said. “Just kind of caught me on a rough streak and I couldn’t flip it right after the trade. But it’s really frustrating.”

Aaron Boone said what makes Bird enticing is that when he’s throwing strikes, he can get hitters out from both sides of the plate. “Really want to get that command in a good spot because the stuff is nasty and he’s tough to hit and has the ability to get both-handed out,” Boone said.

The first two spring games Friday and Saturday were started by perhaps the two most intriguing pitching prospects in the system - Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange - and things went much better for Rodriguez.

He started Friday against the Orioles and against their frontline lineup he threw three scoreless innings allowing three singles while striking out one. He threw 42 pitches, 30 for strikes.

Rodriguez came from the Red Sox in the trade that sent Carlos Narvaez to Boston last year. Narvaez became Boston’s No. 1 catcher last season, but when it’s all said and done, scouts believe the Yankees are going to end up winning this trade. The 22-year-old Rodriguez has pitched to a 2.59 ERA across all levels of the minors (75 games, 70 starts) throwing in the mid-90s. As a nod to how good he could be, he’s going to pitch for Puerto Rico in the upcoming World Baseball Classic.

“He’s got a chance to have a long career,” Boone said. “Really like his future. His ball does a lot of different things. He’s very much under control and running up against a very real lineup there. The poise we continue to see, that first time in a big league spring training, he handled it well.”

Lagrange started Saturday and while he threw the ball well and showed some of the electricity in his arm, his results weren’t great. He threw 2.2 innings and allowed two runs (one earned which came on a solo homer off a bad changeup) on three hits and two walks with two strikeouts. Among his 53 pitches were just 32 strikes.

Lagrange is a flamethrower with huge upside as his fastball has topped out at around 102 mph and he has averaged 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings in 56 career minor league games (52 starts) while compiling a not-great 4.05 ERA. There’s been a lot of excitement about his future because his underlying metrics are so good, but he still hasn’t thrown a pitch in Triple-A so I wouldn’t expect we’ll see Lagrange in New York until perhaps late in the season, if at all in 2026.