Alexander Wilson
The New York Yankees are days away from meaningful baseball and still carrying a handful of unresolved questions that could define how the first two months of this season feel. Some of them are bigger than others. None of them are unfixable. But they are real, and anyone telling you this roster is buttoned up is not paying close enough attention.
Here are the three that matter most heading into Opening Day.
Can the Yankees Trust Luis Gil?
This is the one keeping me up at night, and it should be keeping the front office up too.
Before Sunday, Gil looked OK, but the underlying metrics are not good. He had a 2.38 ERA through four spring starts, punching out nearly 12 batters per nine with a 100% left-on-base rate. He looked good enough to hold down the fort while others rehab. Then the Tigers walked into Steinbrenner Field and turned him into a batting practice machine — nine hits, seven earned runs, three homers, three innings. His ERA more than doubled in a single afternoon.
The surface numbers are ugly enough. The underlying data is what concerns me more. Gil’s fastball sat around 96 mph on Sunday, down from the 98-to-100 range he touches when he is truly right. More troubling was the command, or the complete absence of it. The heater leaked to both sides of the plate. The slider was inconsistent. The changeup was either in the dirt or belt-high with nothing on it. When Gil cannot command his fastball, the entire arsenal unravels, because hitters stop having to respect anything else.
The honest answer to “can they trust him” is: sometimes. Gil is one of those pitchers who exists in binary. When the fastball is moving and landing where he wants it, he is as good as anyone in this rotation. When it is not, he is unplayable. The Yankees are going to have to live with that volatility for the first several weeks while they wait for Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon to work their way back. That is not a comfortable position, but it is the one they are in.
“Have to keep working. Gotta keep executing,” Gil said after Sunday’s outing — which tells you everything about his mentality and nothing about whether the command will show up on April 1.
Should Ben Rice Lead Off?
Yes. The answer is yes. It has been yes for a while now, and at some point Aaron Boone has to write it on the lineup card and stop treating it like a debate.
Trent Grisham had a remarkable 2025, and he deserves credit for it. But his spring has been a genuine struggle — a .160/.250/.200 slash line that would concern anyone — and even setting those numbers aside, the case for Rice at the top of the order is not really about Grisham’s form. It is about lineup construction.
Think of it like building a playlist. You do not put your best song fifth. Rice batting leadoff in front of Judge is the Yankees’ best song. In 102 plate appearances from the leadoff spot last season, Rice posted a .911 OPS with seven home runs and a .363 on-base percentage, striking out just 17 times. He ranked in the 92nd percentile or better in barrel rate, exit velocity, and hard-hit percentage. Those are not spring-training flukes. Those are repeatable, underlying skills.
The lineup case builds itself quickly. Rice leads off. Judge bats second. Cody Bellinger bats third. Giancarlo Stanton bats cleanup. Left, right, left, right — a sequence that forces opposing managers into impossible decisions before the game even develops. Pitchers cannot pitch around Judge if Rice just got on base. They cannot nibble at Bellinger if Stanton is waiting behind him. Sequencing matters, and this is the best sequence this roster has available.
Grisham hitting fifth or sixth is not a demotion. It is an upgrade for the lineup. He is a streaky, dangerous hitter who is probably better suited to facing worn-down relievers in the middle of a game than setting the table in the first inning. Moving him down gives him a better matchup and gives the Yanks a better lineup. Everyone wins.
Who Is the Fourth Outfielder?
The answer the organization seems to be landing on is Randal Grichuk, and I understand the reasoning even if it is not the most exciting outcome. Grichuk is a right-handed bat in a lineup that leans heavily left, and his career numbers against left-handed pitching give him a genuine platoon role. He has big league experience, he can cover all three outfield spots, and his career offensive profile shows real power upside against southpaws when he is going well.
The complication is Jasson Dominguez, who has spent this spring making the easy decision difficult. The 23-year-old switch-hitter is slashing .333/.343/.667 with three spring homers, a 148 wRC+, and the kind of defensive versatility that makes him genuinely useful in multiple spots. He has already proven he can handle big league pitching — 429 plate appearances last season say so. Boone has also floated the idea of giving him center field reps, which makes him a more flexible option than Grichuk on paper.
But the Yankees are thinking in platoons and contingency plans, not just raw talent. Grichuk gives them a proven right-handed option for the days when the lineup needs it most. Dominguez, as painful as it is to say, is probably better served by playing every day in Scranton than riding the bench in the Bronx.
Here is the question I keep coming back to, though: if Grisham is struggling at the plate into mid-April and the Bombers need a spark, do they really reach for Grichuk, or does Dominguez force their hand ahead of schedule? My guess is it takes about three weeks of Grisham looking like his old self before New York makes a move. And when they do, it will not be subtle.
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