TAMPA — When the Yankees officially reported to spring training in 2024, their 2023 failures served as motivation.
The club missed the playoffs in 2023, prompting an influx of early arrivals at Himes, the team’s player development complex that sits across the street from George M. Steinbrenner Field, last winter. That early work, the Yankees said, set the tone for a 2024 team that went on to win the American League East and reach the World Series for the first time since 2009.
“I think a lot of guys took that to heart,” Aaron Judge said after the Yankees beat the Royals in the ALDS last October. “There’s a video out there, quite a few guys just sitting in the dugout just watching the field, just kind of soaking it all in. And I think that’s what fueled a lot of guys to go out there and say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to have this feeling again.’”
While motivated, no championship followed, as the Yankees lost the 2024 World Series to the Dodgers in five games and sloppy fashion. Now, with spring training upon us, Boone’s club is trying to bounce back from a different type of disappointment with a similar drive.
“You can have a great situation, a great culture, a great closeness, a great professionalism about your team,” the manager said Tuesday with pitchers and catchers reporting. “Sometimes the separators where a team that’s good can be great, a team that’s great can be a champion or what have you, is that hunger. That is not a given, even with the best of people and the best of teams. There’s no question in my mind, last year, we had that edge. We had a hunger, maybe in part due to coming off a season in which we didn’t make the postseason.
“What I’m seeing so far across the street, I’m very encouraged by. The level of focus, the level of commitment seems to be there, but we gotta work at that every day. We gotta fight for that every day.”
Boone called this year’s early attendance at Himes “kind of reminiscent” after a large number of players reported to Tampa weeks in advance last offseason. There are quite a few new faces, however, following a tumultuous winter.
Juan Soto’s record-setting departure to the Mets highlighted the Yankees’ losses, but starters and key contributors like Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo, Anthony Rizzo, Jose Trevino, Nestor Cortes, Clay Holmes and Tommy Kahnle are also gone. In are fresh faces such as Max Fried, Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt.
The Yankees believe the newbies can make for a team that’s more well-rounded, athletic and fundamentally sound after poor baserunning and ugly defense hurt the 2024 version of the Bombers, particularly in Game 5 of the World Series.
Of course, replacing Soto’s offense won’t be easy, if even possible. But Boone said he was happy with the Yankees’ pivot after the slugger bolted in free agency. Now the goal is to get back to the Fall Classic and win it all after a few Dodgers players, including Joe Kelly and Miguel Rojas, trash talked the pinstripers over the offseason.
Boone said he and his team “probably” took their jabs personally, but added it wasn’t the Freddie Freemans, Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtanis and Clayton Kershaws of the world “sounding off.”
Nonetheless, the skipper hopes his players get a chance to do things differently in 2025.
“I don’t like hearing that,” Boone said of the barbs, “but the reality is we didn’t play our best in the series and they won. So they have that right to say whatever. Hopefully we’re in that position [this] year and handle things with a little more class.”