Health placed a pause on Clarke Schmidt’s regular season, but he came back strong in September and in the postseason. The good news with a lat injury is that there is little concern about any carry-over impact. Schmidt also closed out the season strong so we can look towards 2025 with ease. What?! Your fantasy […]
Health placed a pause on Clarke Schmidt’s regular season, but he came back strong in September and in the postseason. The good news with a lat injury is that there is little concern about any carry-over impact. Schmidt also closed out the season strong so we can look towards 2025 with ease.
3 Fantasy Baseball Thoughts for the 2025 New York Yankees
Jazz Chisholm Will be a Weapon
It was actually the best season of Chisholm’s career in part because he managed to stay healthy. We got 147 games out of Chisholm and he didn’t disappoint in stealing 40 bases. That also came with 24 home runs, 73 RBI, and 74 runs scored.The power though, is what we are really after. Wells had an average launch angle of 17.1 degrees in 2024 with a 9.1% barrel rate. Seeing a disparity between Wells’ .439 xSLG and .395 SLG also offers up some optimism for the coming season.It often takes young catchers some time for the offense to find a groove at the big league level, so Wells should only get better from here. We do need to keep an on Wells from a platoon perspective though. All 13 of his home runs came against right-handed pitching along with 39 of his 42 RBI. We also have a solid batting average disparity (.236 to .197) but Wells was limited to 66 plate appearances against southpaws.Last year, he had just 85.1 regular season innings so he’ll also be well rested. Schmidt’s strikeouts jumped to 9.81 per nine innings while his ERA fell to 2.85. A FIP of 3.58 might be more reasonable, but that’s also nothing to discount. Opposing hitters had trouble against Schmidt as he allowed just a 5.6% barrel rate against.
Austin Wells is a Catcher Worth Waiting For
Playing in New York is like an entirely different planet when compared to playing in Miami. The Yankees acquired Jazz Chisholm midway through last season and he was thrust into a completely unknown situation. Learning how to play a new position is never easy, and doing it in the middle of a pennant race only enhances the difficulty.Schmidt saw an increase from 10.2% to 12.2% in his swinging strike rate and that led to his success as well. It’s something I’d expect to see Schmidt carry forward.Austin Wells is known for his power, and we should see that continue to grow and develop. In 115 games last year, Wells had 13 home runs with 55 RBI over 414 plate appearances. Batting average will always be an issue, but at .229 it isn’t completely out of place when it comes to catchers. An xBA of .244 does at least provide a little upside here as well.
Clarke Schmidt is Just Getting Started
Strikeouts are always going to be an issue, at least 25% of the time, but Chisholm hit a solid .256 while walking 8.5% of the time.I am doing a series where I offer up three fantasy baseball thoughts for every MLB team. I look at under-the-radar stats, playing time projections, projected roles, and off-season news to try and highlight the nuggets that might help you in your 2025 fantasy baseball drafts. We’ll do this thing in alphabetical order, and this time around I’ll consider three thoughts for the 2025 New York Yankees.Entering the 2025 season, things should go smoother for Chisholm. Not only will he have a true off-season with the Yankees, but he’s already used to playing in New York. Whatever position he plays won’t be new to him either. The expectation is that Chisholm will be hitting atop the Yankees’ order and in good position to do damage on the base paths. All we really need is for his 9.7% barrel rate to jump up to the 12.2% it was in 2023.
