On Friday afternoon, the Yankees and Paul Goldschmidt agreed to a one-year deal worth $4 million, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported. Friday in the early evening, I began contemplating how I’d like my career to end. These are related incidents.
Three years ago, Goldschmidt stood at the pinnacle of the game. He’d just won NL MVP on the back of a spectacular all-around offensive season, carrying the Cardinals to the playoffs in a rousing capper to his long, decorated career. It was his eighth straight season receiving MVP votes, and brought his career WAR total to 52. Have you ever considered retiring at the top of your game? With two years left on his contract, Goldschmidt must have given the idea some thought. Finish those two out well, get a bit more hardware, and ride off into the sunset toward Cooperstown.
The next two years didn’t cooperate, however. In 2023, Goldschmidt managed 3.4 WAR, a gentle decline, but the Cards collapsed, finishing last in the NL Central for the first time in 33 years. The following season was even worse; Goldschmidt hit .245/.302/.414, for a 100 wRC+, easily the worst mark of his career. The Cardinals missed the playoffs again and tilted toward a rebuild. Goldschmidt didn’t fit in St. Louis anymore. But he couldn’t go out like this, with an outlier down season, the worst of his career, closing out his time in the majors. And so he departed for New York in free agency on a one-year, $12.5 million contract. Read the rest of this entry »
Last summer, an article titled Mark Gubicza Tackles a Challenging Career Quiz ran here at FanGraphs. In it, the Los Angeles Angels broadcaster did his best to answer matchup-specific questions from his playing days —- he pitched in the big leagues from 1984-1996 — such as which batter he allowed the most hits to, and who took him deep the most times. Along with taking a stab at the answers, Gubicza shared entertaining anecdotes about some of the hitters that were mentioned.
He isn’t the only pitcher-turned-broadcaster I challenged with (a version of) the quiz. Later in the season, I sat down with David Cone who, much like his 1980s-1990s contemporary, had fun stories to share.
I first asked the New York Yankees broadcast analyst which batter he faced the most times. Cone failed to come up with the correct answer, first guessing Will Clark (76 plate appearances), and then Juan Gonzalez (57), to who he recalled surrendering several gophers.
The answer is Roberto Alomar, against whom he matched up 93 times. What does he remember about facing the Hall of Fame second baseman?
“The thing that stands out — and he was a teammate of mine, too — is that Robbie was one of the best at picking up tipped pitches,” Cone told me. “Maybe a pitcher was doing something with his glove, and you kind of knew that Robbie would see that. But a lot of times he was using it as a bluff. Alex Cora does it to this day. You want the pitcher to think you have something on him, which gets into his head. It’s psychological warfare, and Robbie was the best at that.”
Department: Baseball Systems Reports To: Director, Baseball Systems Job Status: Full-Time, Non-Exempt
Overview:
Building upon our storied legacy, the New York Yankees look to attract the best possible talent not just on the field, but in the front office as well. It is our shared responsibility to maintain the first-class reputation associated with the franchise in all aspects of our business.
The New York Yankees organization is accepting applications for an experienced Full-Stack Software Engineer in their Baseball Operations department. Candidate should have 5+ years of full-stack development experience building front-end data-driven web applications using REST services and JavaScript MV frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.js. Candidates should possess not only the technical skill, but the design sensibilities needed to create a compelling and efficient user experience.
Primary Responsibilities:
Assist in the design and implementation of web-based tools and applications utilizing data, video, and visualizations for baseball operational personnel, including front office staff, scouts, coaches and ultimately players.
Write clean, concise, testable code in a variety of languages (primarily JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML, C#, SQL) utilizing best practices in software engineering.
Perform code reviews and collaborate with other developers (both junior and senior) as well as Data Engineers to deliver best-in-class software solutions.
Utilize AI and code-assistance tooling where advantageous but recognize where these tools are detrimental and that all code submitted is your work product.
Interface with all departments within Baseball Operations (scouting, player development, coaching, analytics) to build tools and reporting capabilities to meet their needs.
Work with major and minor league pitching, hitting and player tracking datasets, college and other amateur data, international baseball data, and many other baseball data sources.
Qualifications and Experience:
Bachelor’s degree (B.S.) in Computer Science or related field.
MUST have 5+ years of experience with data-driven web application development using all the following:
JavaScript MV frameworks (React/Angular/Vue.js/etc.), with React preferred.
Consuming and writing REST API services in platforms like Node.JS, .NET, Flask, etc.
ORM data access frameworks, like Hibernate, Entity Framework, SQLAlchemy, etc.
Relational databases, particularly Microsoft SQL Server
Demonstrated ability to develop clean and concise UI/UX web applications with attention to detail and a compelling data visualization experience.
Proficient in SQL data structures, query writing, CRUD operations, and various database design principles.
Familiarity with various IDEs (Visual Studio, VS Code, Cursor, etc) and how to leverage them to develop code efficiently.
Thorough understanding of Git operations, as well as general CI/CD best practices and DevOps tooling.
Knowledge of Cloud Platform services (in particular AWS and Azure), with a general understanding of how to leverage these services.
Knowledge of the software development lifecycle (requirements definition, design, development, testing, implementation, verification), Agile, and industry best practices.
Excellent communication and problem-solving skills – must be able to break down a complex task and put together an execution strategy with minimal guidance.
Familiarity with typical baseball data, basic and advanced metrics, tracking system (Trackman, Hawkeye, Statcast, etc.) data structures a plus.
The salary range for the position is $125,000-$145,000. This includes a comprehensive benefits package.
This description is intended to describe the type of work being performed by a person assigned to this position. It is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities required of the employee. The New York Yankees are an Equal Opportunity Employer. The Company is committed to the principles of equal employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment.
Our long national nightmare is over. After weeks of back and forth between Cody Bellinger and the New York Yankees, it’s official: He’s staying in the Bronx. The two sides have agreed to a five-year, $162.5 million deal with opt outs after the second and third seasons, a $20 million signing bonus, and a full no-trade clause, as first reported by Jeff Passan.
This fit was so obvious that it almost had to happen. The Yankees need offense, and they’d prefer it to come in the form of a left-handed outfielder who can cover center field in a pinch. They’re already familiar with Bellinger, who just put up a 5-WAR season in pinstripes. No other teams needed this exact type of player as much, at this current moment, as they did. Likewise, Bellinger was probably going to have to sign with the Yankees to get the deal he wanted. Now that that foregone conclusion has been reached, let’s unpack how this all fits together.
This contract is the culmination of a long, decorated career that was conspicuously lacking in free agency appeal. Bellinger burst onto the scene in 2017 with 39 homers for the Dodgers, taking Rookie of the Year honors in the process. He then went fully supersonic in the homer-happy 2019 season, with the rocket ball propelling him to 47 homers, a 161 wRC+, and NL MVP honors. Disaster struck in the 2020 World Series, however. Bellinger dislocated his shoulder celebrating a home run, and his performance fell off a cliff immediately after. Read the rest of this entry »
Frankly, it’s impressive that Yankees general manager Brian Cashman can get anything done while locked in a staring contest with agent Scott Boras over the terms necessary to re-sign outfielder Cody Bellinger. As for Miami’s side, I deeply respect the Marlins pro scouting department for looking at all the work they did scouring New York’s farm system for potential targets during the Cabrera talks and refusing to let all that effort go to waste.
Weathers, like Cabrera, still has three seasons of team control remaining before he hits free agency. This is not a rebuilding team trading contracts set to expire before its next window of contention opens. Rather, the Marlins, who are in the early stages of transitioning from rebuilding to contending, have such a surplus of starting pitching that they feel comfortable trading not one, but two established starters in favor of stockpiling additional position player talent in the minors. When Michael Baumann wrote up the Cabrera trade, he speculated that we might see debuts this coming season from Thomas White and Robby Snelling, two of Miami’s top pitching prospects who both graduated to Triple-A last year. By trading Weathers in addition to Cabrera, the Marlins are all but committing to giving one or both of them meaningful innings in the majors in 2026. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
2026 BBWAA Candidate: Gio Gonzalez
Pitcher
Career WAR
Peak WAR Adj.
S-JAWS
W-L
SO
ERA
ERA+
Gio Gonzalez
28.3
26.2
27.2
131-101
1,860
3.70
111
Source: Baseball-Reference
The baseball industry loves its pitching prospects — and sometimes seems to love dreaming on them by using them as trade chips almost as much as it does actually letting them pitch. Considered to have one of the best curveballs in the game from the outset of his professional career, Gio Gonzalez was traded three times before he’d thrown a major league pitch, and five times during a career that ended just after he turned 35. Along the way, the undersized southpaw made two All-Star teams, received Cy Young votes twice, and helped his teams reach the playoffs five times. While he wasn’t always easy to watch given his high walk rates, his ability to miss bats was a testament to the quality of his stuff.
…
Giovany Aramis Gonzalez was born on September 19, 1985 in Hialeah, Florida, a city in Miami-Dade County where roughly three-quarters of the population is of Cuban ancestry. He’s the oldest of six children of Max and Yolanda (Yoly) Gonzalez. Max, a first-generation Cuban-American, installed billboards and owned a scooter shop, while Yoly, an immigrant from Cuba, worked at various jobs to help the family make ends meet.
Gio was just four years old when his parents introduced him to baseball. Growing up, he played sandlot baseball with neighborhood kids in a narrow, rocky strip of land behind the family’s townhouse. “We broke so many windows that I found a guy who would replace them for 15 bucks apiece,” Yoly recalled in 2011.
“Max grew up tough, never got to play as much ball as he wanted and, when it rained on too-rare Sundays when he had a game as a child, he broke down in frustration and cried. But he never stopped studying the sport,” wrote the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell in 2012. When his eldest son showed an aptitude for the game, Max taught him the curveball that would become his signature. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Though he was athletic enough to be drafted as a shortstop, Edwin Encarnación never found much success in the field. Through his first seven seasons with the Reds and Blue Jays, his defensive miscues offset generally solid offense, so much so that he earned the derisive nickname “E5” (as in error, third base). But as with his late-blooming teammate in Toronto, José Bautista, when adjustments to Encarnación’s swing unlocked his in-game power, he became a force to be reckoned with.
Surrendering his third baseman’s mitt and splitting time between first base and designated hitter definitely helped. From 2012–19, Encarnación hit a major league-high 297 homers, with at least 32 in every season, and a high of 42, set in ’12 and matched in ’16. He never led the league, but placed among the AL’s top five four times, and within the top 10 in three other seasons. Among players with at least 2,500 plate appearances in that span, his 138 OPS+ ranks 10th.
The one-two punch of Bautista and Encarnación kept the Blue Jays entertaining through some lean years, and with the arrivals of third baseman Josh Donaldson and catcher Russell Martin in 2015, the team reached the playoffs for the first time since winning back-to-back World Series in 1992–93. Toronto did it again the next year, punctuated by Encarnación’s three-run walk-off homer off the Orioles’ Ubaldo Jiménez to win the 2016 AL Wild Card Game. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
For the past several election cycles, as a means of completing my coverage of the major candidates before the December 31 voting deadline, I’ve grouped together some candidates into a single overview, inviting readers wishing to (re)familiarize themselves with the specifics of their cases to check out older profiles that don’t require a full re-working because very little has changed, even with regards to their voting shares. This year, I’m adding Bobby Abreu — a candidate for whom I’ve voted five times thus far and intend to include again — to a pair I’ve yet to include on my ballots.
Before Joe Mauer began starring for the Twins, there was Torii Hunter. Before Chase Utley began starring for the Phillies, they had Abreu and Jimmy Rollins. Hunter, a rangy, acrobatic center fielder who eventually won nine Gold Gloves and made five All-Star teams, debuted with Minnesota in 1997 and emerged as a star in 2001, the same year the Twins chose Mauer with the number one pick of the draft. The pair would play together from 2004 to ’07, making the playoffs twice before Hunter departed in free agency. Abreu, a five-tool player with dazzling speed, a sweet left-handed stroke, power, and outstanding plate discipline, quickly blossomed upon being traded to the Phillies in November 1997. But even while hitting at least 20 homers, stealing at least 20 bases, and batting above .300, recognition largely eluded him until he made All-Star teams in 2004 and ’05. Rollins, a compact shortstop who carried himself with a swagger, debuted in 2001 and made two All-Star teams before he and Utley began an 11-year run (2004–14) as the Phillies’ regular double play combination. By the time the pair of middle infielders helped Philadelphia to five NL East titles, two pennants, and a championship — with Rollins winning NL MVP honors in 2007 and taking home four Gold Gloves — Abreu was gone, traded to the Yankees in mid-2006.
All three players enjoyed lengthy and impressive careers, racking up over 2,400 hits apiece with substantial home run and stolen base totals. From a Hall of Fame perspective, Rollins and Hunter have credentials that appeal more to traditionally minded voters than to statheads — particularly their Gold Gloves — while Abreu, despite half a dozen .300 seasons and eight with at least 100 RBI, was a stathead favorite. Regardless, they’ve all spent years languishing on the ballot. Hunter debuted with 9.5% in 2021 but has yet to match that since, scraping by in 2025 with just 5.1%; one fewer vote and he’d have been bumped off the ballot. Rollins debuted with 9.4% in 2022 and has gained roughly two or three points in each cycle since, with 18% in ’25. Abreu barely made the cut with just 5.5% in his 2020 debut, and since then has alternated small gains and losses; he received 19.5% in 2025. Read the rest of this entry »
For the 22nd consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the New York Yankees.
Batters
The Yankees aren’t the flashy spenders they used to be, but they still put very good teams on the field year after year, and the memory of their rather down 2023 is now another season further back in the rear view mirror. Most fanbases would be happy with a 94-68 season, but with New York no longer the big dogs when it comes to payroll, there’s an odd portion of the faithful who have come to believe that the team is fundamentally broken and needs to bunt a lot more and stop using analytics, which is a bit like wanting to fix your constantly running toilet by converting your toolshed into an outhouse. In reality, the Yankees are just a normal really good franchise these days.
The offense, of course, starts, ends, and runs through Aaron Judge. I don’t think I need to spend too much time cataloguing his merits, other than to note that he’s already passed the bus test for me — as in, if he got hit by a bus tomorrow, he’s already done enough in his career to be Cooperstown bound as far as I’m concerned. It is a little odd, though, that when we talk about players who have established their Hall of Fame credentials, we always seem to have them meet their demise via some mishap with mass transit. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
For the past several election cycles, as a means of completing my coverage of the major candidates before the December 31 voting deadline, I’ve grouped together some candidates into a single overview, inviting readers wishing to (re)familiarize themselves with the specifics of their cases to check out older profiles that don’t require a full re-working because very little has changed, even with regards to their voting shares. Today, I offer the first such batch for this cycle, a pair of elite hitters who would already be enshrined if not for their links to performance-enhancing drugs: Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez. Read the rest of this entry »
