It’s about that time of year, so here’s our list for 2025.
We’re still a few days away from Santa Claus’ overnight flight to deliver gifts around the world, so that gives us more time to think about who should be receiving them. Traditionally, Santa has a “nice list” on which the good kids who receive a visit from him are, and a “naughty list” where bad kids get lumps of coal instead.
While no one on the Yankees’ roster is a kid, it wouldn’t be fair to leave them out of the Christmas giving. Let’s try and predict who would be on Yankee Santa’s Naughty or Nice List in 2025.
Nice
Aaron Judge
Duh, obviously. The Yankee captain put in another massive season in 2025, taking home the AL MVP for a third time in his career. His biggest detractors have often pointed to his record in the playoffs, but you can’t really say that this time around. Judge OPSed 1.618 in the ALDS defeat to the Blue Jays, as he certainly wasn’t the reason they were eliminated.
Cam Schlittler
It’s been a rapid rise for Schlittler, who ascended from a seventh-round “maybe could be something” draft pick in 2022,to deservedly being the Yankees’ third starter in the 2025 postseason. Not only that, but he absolutely proved why he deserved that too, putting in one of the most remarkable playoff outing by a Yankees’ starter in years in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series against the Red Sox.
Max Fried
The Yankees signed Fried to a seven-year deal last winter, as they looked to retool after losing the Juan Soto sweepstakes. Year one of that deal went quite well (ALDS notwithstanding), as Fried had a good enough season to finish fourth in AL Cy Young Award voting.
Trent Grisham
A throw-in on the Soto trade back two years ago, Grisham came somewhat out of nowhere to put up a 34 home run season this year. However, he might not need as many gifts, considering the qualifying offer contract that he accepted earlier this offseason.
Ben Rice
While he had some notable moments after his 2024 call-up to the big leagues, Rice’s overall numbers last season weren’t particularly great. However, his 2025 was enough to give us hope that the Yankees have found a long term answer at first base.
Naughty List
Bullpen
There are a couple people for whom this doesn’t apply to and who should get some gifts, but on the whole the Yankees’ bullpen was pretty brutal in 2025. It didn’t matter if you were a holdover from last year (Luke Weaver), and offseason acquisition (Devin Williams), or a midseason move (Camilo Doval), there’s a non-zero chance you struggled this season.
The entire left side of the infield
The combo of Rice and Paul Goldschmidt at first along with Jazz Chisholm Jr. at second generally did the job, but the Yankees failed to get a whole lot of good out of the other half of the equation. Anthony Volpe once again didn’t really show any positive improvement at the plate. Meanwhile, third base was a revolving door of nothing. Ryan McMahon at least provided consistently good defense at the hot corner, but he and his predecessors didn’t do much at the plate.
Human Bones
Months later, and I still feel sad thinking about Oswaldo Cabrera’s injury.
The front office (including Aaron Boone)
I don’t expect to agree with every single decision made in roster construction or on the field during in-game management, however, I sure wish they did more things I like. At the very least, I wish Boone, Brian Cashman, Hal Steinbrenner, and anyone else were less annoying when they then talked in public.
The Red Sox
Standard operating procedure.
Category: General Sports
