As Yankees pitchers and catchers report, questions about lineup remain

It did not take the Yankees long to swivel after losing Juan Soto to the Mets, who gave the All-Star outfielder the largest contract in the history of professional sports.

“Look, it's not going to stop us from hopefully going to put together another great team,” Aaron Boone said during December’s winter meetings, speaking two days after Soto agreed to a 15-year, $765 million deal to head to Queens (the Yankees had offered $760 million over 16 years). “There's different ways of doing it.”

The Yankees, who qualified for their first World Series since 2009 last season and fizzled out in five games against the Dodgers, acted quickly in traveling the different route Boone referenced.

Already with a solid rotation, the Yankees’ first post-Soto move was to bolster it, signing All-Star lefthander Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract. Not long after, the Yankees added to another strength, their bullpen, using their sudden surplus of starting pitching in sending Nestor Cortes to the Brewers for closer Devin Williams. Later in the winter, the Yankees added righty reliever Fernando Cruz and, just recently, brought back lefthander Tim Hill, an effective addition last season.

“It’s about run prevention and run creation,” general manager Brian Cashman said in December.

The pitching moves should – emphasize the word “should” – aid in run prevention.

But what of run creation?

That is among the central questions facing the Yankees as pitchers and catchers report to Tampa on Tuesday for spring training (position players report five days later).

There is no outright replacing Soto who teamed with Aaron Judge to form the most electric 2-3 batting order punch in the big leagues.

“That dynamic with those two,” one rival AL bench coach said during the winter meetings, “there was nothing like it. You literally sat in the dugout with the thought, ‘When are those two coming up again?’ Sometimes it seemed like they were coming up every freakin’ inning. It felt that way. It was always on your mind. And I guarantee whoever was pitching [on his mind] too.”

With the unicorn that was Soto-Judge  now extinct, questions abound how the offense functions this season. The Yankees prioritized pitching and defense after the loss of Soto but didn’t leave the offense unaddressed.

The club swung a trade for outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger. The long-time target of the Yankees is likely to start in centerfield with Judge switching back to rightfield. They also acquired veteran Paul Goldschmidt to serve as the everyday first baseman.

The 29-year-old Bellinger is a two-time All-Star and former NL MVP, winning the award as a member of the Dodgers in 2019. Four of Bellinger’s last five seasons since winning the MVP haven’t been up to his standards – he hit .266 with a .751 OPS last season – but the far bigger question is Goldschmidt.

By any objective measure, Goldschmidt, a seven-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove winner and the 2022 National League MVP (with the Cardinals), is one of the best first basemen of the last 15 years. But he turns 38 in September and is coming off the worst season of his career, hitting .245 with a .716 OPS in 154 games. Goldschmidt did hit .293 with an .842 OPS in his last 43 games, perhaps an indication he recaptured what appeared to have been lost.

“I think I can still play at a really, really high level,” he said Jan. 2 in a Zoom call after his signing became official.

To use a phrase that gets plenty of traffic this time of year, on paper, the Yankees enter spring training with a better top-to-bottom pitching staff than what they had last season and, even without Soto, the possibility of an overall deeper lineup than in 2024.

The latter, though, won’t be possible without more growth shown by third-year shortstop Anthony Volpe and second-year catcher Austin Wells, not to mention the Yankees finally finding out exactly what they have in hyped prospect Jasson Dominguez, who will be given every opportunity to win the starting job in leftfield.

It was Goldschmidt who perhaps put it best in early January when asked about the potency, on paper, of the lineup he would be joining.

“We’re going to find out,” he said. “It’s not in my genes to make a prediction. We definitely have the talent.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.