This series is interesting.
Yankees to watch during the series
Jazz Chisholm & Anthony Volpe. Take a gander at their bats! This season, each of them hit a home run using a torpedo bat. The Torpedo bat is thicker at the bat’s label, and appears to taper slightly at the end of the bat.
Former Diamondback, Paul Goldschmidt. He won 4 Silver Slugger awards and 3 Gold Glove awards while playing first base for the Diamondbacks (2011 to 2018). He was a fan favorite. He was traded to the Cardinals. He won more awards with the Cardinals.
Former Diamondback, Luke Weaver. Although last season he was exclusively a relief pitcher for 62 games, he started 37 games for the Diamondbacks from 2019 to 2021. In August of 2022, the Diamondbacks traded him to the Royals for Emmanuel Rivera.
Future Hall of Fame player, Aaron Judge. After hitting no homers in last season’s spring training, on 22 March he hit his first home run of this season’s spring training. That’s a positive sign that he is ready for the season to start.
Brett Gardner, who recently lost his son. His son recently died while in Costa Rica. The cause has not been determined. Will his grieving for his loss prevent him from playing at his best?
Two similar stories of reaching the World Series.
The Diamondbacks, who in 2023 lost in the World Series, will play the Yankees, who in 2024 lost in the World Series. After nearly reaching the pinnacle, what changes happened?
The Diamondbacks are clearly better than 2023.
Wins. As measured by my predicted 90.3 regular season wins, I feel confident that the Diamondbacks are better than 2023, when they played in the World Series.
Pitching. This season, my expectation is their pitching will be greatly improved (to league average or better). That is despite the loss of Jordan Montgomery (we will never know for sure whether that loss was addition by subtraction and thereby helped the team).
Batting. This season, their batting will be improved (even with a regression towards the mean from last season’s league leading 886 runs scored.)
The Yankees appear to be worse than last season.
Free Agents. They lost Juan Soto to the Mets. The impact is huge. He is not the only significant player lost to free agency. Their additions failed to tip the scales back to positive.
Spring Injuries. They have suffered a lot of injuries, perhaps more than any other team. On 26 March, spotrac showed they had $94.2 Million of salary on the injured list. Although the Mets and Angels broke $50 Million, no team came close to the Yankees! Perhaps the worst hit was to their rotation, with injuries to Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, JT Brubaker, and Clarke Schmidt. And slugger Giancarlo Stanton (DH) injured both elbows (although he said he played through pain last season). Best case is that his three injections of platelets will aid his healing. Worst case is that he needs surgery.
The teams are comparable in strength.
On 24 March FanGraphs Depth charts projected these teams to finish the season with 86 wins each.
Excluding players on the injured list as of 26 March, let’s compare projections for each team’s top 4 position players, each team’s top 4 starting pitchers, and each team’s top four bullpen pitchers. The comparisons will be based on projections shown on FanGraphs Roster Resource pages on 24 March and this FanGraphs article.
The following table shows Aaron Judge above all the others, with Marte and Carroll as next best.
Data from FanGraphs.
The following table shows Burnes, Gallon, and Fried as the best starting pitchers. With 2 out of 3 top pitchers, the Diamondbacks’ starters have better projections.
Data from FanGraphs.
The following table shows the best bullpen pitchers. Williams has the best projection. However, in general the Diamondbacks have the better bullpen.
Data from FanGraphs.
What to look for each day.
Tuesday.
Corbin Burnes will make his Diamondbacks’ debut. The reason for the delay in his debut appears to be that the need for Burnes to stick to a consistent days-between-starts. In his debut, will his pitching be consistently excellent?
Will Warren will pitch for the Yankees. Last season his ERA was 10.32 in 22.2 innings pitched.
Wednesday.
Zac Gallen will likely pitch better than his first game of the season, when he was not at his best. I tip my hat to Diamondhacks who noted the following:
“In the 2nd inning, Gallen actually chucked thirteen straight pitches out of the strike zone to the bottom of the order. Bellino called pitch #12 a strike, after which Amaya reached out for pitch #13 which was even further below the zone.” — Diamondhacks, 27 March 2025
My view is that Gallen’s less-than-his-usual-stellar results last season were likely caused by a nagging injury. I’m anticipating Gallen will pitch better than last season.
Carlos Rodon will pitch for the Yankees. Last season his ERA was 3.96.
Thursday.
Merrill Kelly will pitch for the Diamondbacks.
Carlos Carrasco will pitch for the Yankees. Although he is a starter, this season he entered a game in the eighth innining with the Yankees ahead by 14 runs. He pitched 2 innings and allowed 3 runs, but the best description of that event is strange but true. Last season, his ERA was 5.64.
Although the Yankees have home field advantage, I like the three matchups. A Diamondbacks series win is possible and it would be an early step towards the playoffs.