Unquestionably, the biggest criticism voiced by some fans regarding the offseason completed by New York Yankees
senior vice president and general manager Brian Cashman is that he didn’t do enough to improve the team and instead is mostly “running it back” with the same squad that failed to advance to the American League Championship Series last fall.
For at least one night, Cashman could take a victory lap regarding such takes.
Cody Bellinger is high on the 2026 Yankees lineup
On Wednesday night, the Yankees opened their season with a dominant 7-0 win at the San Francisco Giants. Following that victory, Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger sent a warning to the rest of the league about what the Bronx Bombers could achieve throughout the summer.
“Our lineup is lethal,” Bellinger said about the Yankees, per Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media. “It really is. We have a really deep team with depth. You know, I’ve been on a lot of really good teams. I’ve been very blessed with that, and depth is the biggest thing of all. That’s how you survive the marathon of the season. We have guys that could come off the bench and just absolutely bang.”
ESPN stats show that Cashman had good reason to believe his roster from a season ago could do plenty of damage this year, as the Yankees finished the 2025 regular season with a league-best 849 runs scored. The Yankees also won 94 regular-season games and only failed
to claim the division title because of tiebreaker rules.
Perhaps most encouraging about Wednesday’s victory for the Yankees is the fact that superstar captain and three-time American League Most Valuable Player Award winner Aaron Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. One would think it will be only a matter of time before Judge heats up.
Why Cody Bellinger is “super excited” about what Brian Cashman didn’t do
“At the end of the [2025 season], we really loved who we were, and the guys that we had, and for the most part, most of us are back,” Bellinger added during his comments. “Even in spring training, we were all super excited to be back together, and I think we understand what we can do.”
As of Thursday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had the Yankees second among the betting favorites at +1000 odds to win this year’s World Series. New York is off Thursday before the AL East club will resume its series in San Francisco on Friday.
