Reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge is currently expected to move back to his longtime position of right field for the 2025 season, according to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. Judge has appeared in right field during more than 75% of his career games in the outfield but played center field almost exclusively in 2024 in order to accommodate the addition of Juan Soto to the club’s lineup. Now that Soto has departed for Queens on a record-breaking deal, however, Judge will be able to return to his old stomping grounds.
“We’re not afraid to run [Judge] out in center like we’ve done, but I think it makes sense to have him over in right,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said Monday, as relayed by Hoch. He went on to suggest that sliding Judge back to his natural position offers top outfield prospect Jasson Dominguez a “clear lane” to capture the starting center field job entering Spring Training, though Hoch notes that Cashman added he isn’t currently ready to anoint the 21-year-old as the club’s starter for next season.
Even if the club ultimately opts to send Dominguez back to Triple-A (where he’s hit well but has just 53 total games under his belt) to open the 2025 campaign, the club figures to have number of options they could consider that would keep Judge in right. Perhaps the most obvious internal solution for center outside of Dominguez is Trent Grisham, who the club avoided arbitration with last month by agreeing to a $5MM contract despite the fact that Grisham was strictly used as a bench player by the club after being acquired from the Padres alongside Soto last winter. The 28-year-old appeared in 76 games last year as a late-inning defensive replacement or to fill in for Judge in center field when the slugger had the day off or was DH’ing for the day, but received just 209 plate appearances total despite being an everyday player in San Diego in each of the previous four seasons.
Grisham’s .190/.290/.385 slash line was good for a decent 91 wRC+, and a .217 BABIP that was well below his career norms may suggest room for positive regression going forward. That decent bat combined with an elite glove at a premium position makes Grisham a plausible candidate for a starting role, and Hoch suggests the club could look for a right-handed center fielder to pair with Grisham at the position this winter. Grisham and Dominguez aren’t the only internal options the club has in center, as Jazz Chisholm Jr. has two seasons’ worth of experience at the position from his time in Miami. With that said, Hoch did not mention Chisholm as even a theoretical candidate for the position headed into 2025, and all signs point to the Yankees planning to use the 26-year-old sparkplug at either second or third base next year.
Turning back to Grisham, the extremely thin market for center fielders this winter could pose an obstacle to any plans of platooning him in center as the Yankees would likely be limited to light-hitting bench players with impressive defense like Harrison Bader, Michael A. Taylor, and Cristian Pache. One other potential addition the Yankees could make to their outfield mix who is capable of playing center would be Cubs outfielder Cody Bellinger. The Yankees are known to have at least checked in on the 2019 NL MVP this winter, and Hoch reiterates that the club is “intrigued” by 29-year-old. Bellinger is coming off a down season in Chicago where he hit a solid but unspectacular .266/.325/.426 (109 wRC+) in 130 games. While Bellinger’s 7.9% walk rate was solid and his 15.6% strikeout rate was genuinely impressive, he mustered only 18 home runs with the Cubs this year after clubbing 26 the year prior.
That’s still solid production, but a combination of Bellinger’s hefty $27.5MM salary for 2025 and the Cubs’ deep mix of outfield options has led the club to shop him quite aggressively this winter. According to Hoch, the Yankees’ interest in Bellinger stems at least in part from his positional versatility. Bellinger is a roughly average defensive center fielder at this stage of his career, offering less upside with the glove than a player like Grisham or even Dominguez but more than capable of handling the position on a regular basis if needed. That defense goes from average to well above average when Bellinger is parked in either outfield corner, and he’s also capable of handling first base with nearly 2500 career innings in the majors at the position. Judge stands as the only player locked into everyday reps in the club’s outfield mix next year with Soto now out of the picture, and given the club’s hole at first base it’s easy to see how acquiring a player like Bellinger could offer them plenty of flexibility as they look to retool their roster with a number of possible targets for both the infield and outfield on the table.
One game too late.
Let Jasson play or trade him!
Give the kid a shot. Baseball fans want to see what he can do.
Absolutely
The Yankees need to let ALL the kids play or trade them! Cashman is so stupid by coddling these guys until they’re injured or their confidence is shattered by the constant shuffle from the majors to the minors. Cashman has a long list of prospects that he destroyed by trading for washed up players and sending prospects down to accommodate high priced trash he trades for every year especially pitchers.
@baseball
I asked you in another post. Are you a Yankee fan?
Yanks just graduated Volpe, Gil, Wells, Schmidt, Holmes, Cabrera, Peraza, Cortez, Montgomery in the last 5 or 6 years. They didn’t hesitate to aggressively promote Ben Rice when Rizzo went down. They are considering giving Durbin a shot at 2b this spring. What prospects did they hold on too long until they were washed? What prospects did they block with aging veterans that were simply better? What rookies did we trade that have given us regrets? He aggressively pushed up Hughes, IPK, Joba, Montero, and they simply struggled to varying degrees, but U don’t think you can blame Cashman for their failures. He may have had a short leash with IPK but I don’t think he would’ve flourished in the AL East/NY.
You act as if the farm hasn’t paid off in talent they kept or used in trades to acquire Chapman, Jazz, Torres, Soto, Rizzo, etc.
Not going to argue that Cashman plays 0 top prospects, but he did hamper the development of guys like Frazier, Andujar, Florial, etc by actively getting pieces that block their path and then sending them back and forth between AAA and MLB a million times. Then they’ll get a few ABs a week with 0 consistency and everyone wonders why they arent panning out
Last year theres almost 0 reason to have Jasson shelved in favor of Verdugo and Grisham yet he was anyways. Im sure this year hes got the job tho
You have no clue what you are talking about.
In reality, he didn’t have a choice, but it’s telling that he was willing to embrace CF to accommodate keeping Soto at his natural position. I think that’s the difference between a guy who came up thru the organization and had pride in staying with his team vs. a guy who’s been here 1 year. And I don’t want to assume ANYTHING about Soto and his upbringing, but if you grew up in the Dominican, the Yankee lure and the ghosts of Ruth, Gehrig, etc may not resonate as much for a 26 yo growing up outside the US, and coming from two other organizations.
lol thinking the Dominican Republic might be less educated in baseball than an American kid is quite the interesting take. That country eats, sleeps, and breathes baseball.
@Bry
of course they know the sport but they may not know about legends from 75 years ago. There some casuals in America who don’t know who Mickey Mantle
Players can’t walk off the Island – They have to Hit their way off.
Produced many good SS and more.
Opportunity Path for Great Improvement of Standard of Living
It was never a good idea to keep Judge in CF long term. It’s one of the hardest CF positions to play in the league at Yankee Stadium. Long term it could have affected his lower body which is crucial to hitting.
I’m all for letting the kids play, but you need to protect them a bit too. Dominguez won’t last 162 in the bigs at first. Yanks will need a Veteran off the bench to spell him. You can see how Volpe regressed as an example. Not saying you need a big contract like Belli, but an insurance policy if the kid needs more time in the minors isn’t a bad thing. He’s only played a handful of games at the AAA level… let him have a chance to learn his routes in center at least guys.
Moving Judge back to right is the obvious move. I’m still waiting for Cashman to make a move. What’s plan B C D, etc, after losing out on Soto. IMO, they needed to trade for Bellinger before Soto. Now, Chicago will demand more because now, like always, Yankees acting out of desperation.
Since the Cubs supposedly want to just dump Bellinger’s contract…Yanks should offer Grisham and Cortes for him. They can sign a mid level free agent SP to replace Nestor in the rotation. Then let Dominguez win CF in spring training. If he fails, keep him in AAA for a couple months and play Belly out there. They’ll still need to address the need at both corner IF spots, though.
Cubs don’t need another OF, especially Grisham!
Let Cashman do his job. My feeling is they are serious about trading for Kyle Tucker and moving him to LF. They can platoon the two center fielders to begin with and hopefully Domínguez seizes the opportunity. Tucker is a machine, still young and would be better in left than Soto was in right.
Grisham is a valuable defensive OF (run prevention), Hits LH chance for some NYY stadium cheap HRS, relatively inexpensive (6M) Potential for some SB’s
Save some wear and tear on Judge, help ease in the Martian.
It would be encouraging if he could get his BA up to .230 but nobody’s perfect
Obviously. As good as Soto was for them he didn’t really fit on the team considering judge best position is RF.
Biggest free agent signing and MLBTR rumors still have not put an article out.
Ah derffffff.
No friggin duh!!!
Almost like putting a 7 footer as your CF could lead to bad outcomes!
Can we get some GD adults to run the GD Yankees again?!?!?!?
Not while Boone and Cashman keep running the baseball ops as they have been…
@Yanks
So you really think the Yanks moved Judge to CF because they were enthusiastic about the idea? Grow up. Obviously they moved him to CF to accommodate Soto in RF, his natural position. They were almost handing the CF job to Dominguez before he got injured lady year. That’s why they moved Dominguez to LF instead of Judge or Soto. They were accommodating Soto. These GD adult put a team worthy of making it to the WS and in my opinion, it’s the players fault they lost.
Bruh where the heck have you been under a rock?!?!? They started this nonsense with Judge in CF 3 years ago!!! They have chose to completely ignore it bc they are on a budget and can only spend so much!
Take your pills…..
File this under “duh.”
Well a great way to improve mediocre defense is grabbing a glove for CF.
It sucks to see Judge waste his career on a team like this.
Read my mind…
Sucks? C’mon man, stop that….
Just DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!
Losing Soto really sucks, but honestly having Judge, Soto, and Stanton on one team is just bad. Stanton still has 3 years left and is DH only. Clearly, Stanton is a monster in postseason and needs to stay. Judge can’t be in CF for 3 more years and LF is not an option since Yankee Stadium LF is huge.
Put Stanton in center. Watching him and Judge go after a fly ball will be like a choreograph of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’.
Well I am not going to argue with the writers here but Boone just said on MLB they are not moving him back this season. Maybe that is just a false flag but he said Judge has been injured more in right than center. Not sure who will win in the end but will be interesting to see how it goes.
The right call for sure. With soto gone it is even more important to spare judge the injury risk and wear and tear of playing cf on the reg. Give the martian a chance to play to his full potential with insurance for that hopefully TBA. If they find sufficient offensive upgrades in other roles this offseason its not the worst thing in the world to take a defense, platoon forward approach with center in the short term