No one connected with the 2023 New York Yankees could find any kind of positive takeaway on a season that could accurately be described as disappointing and filled with inconsistency, injuries and unfulfilled team goals and expectations.
How bad was 2023 for the Yankees, who finished fourth among five teams in the brutally competitive AL East with a record of 82-80?

Infielder DJ LeMahieu was in such a hurry to turn the page on last season that he immediately dove into his 2024 spring training preparation – just days after the 2023 season concluded.

“I was ready to turn the page on last year,” LeMahieu said earlier this week. “Last year was tough on everybody. I wanted to give myself every chance to be myself in all areas.”

LeMahieu’s moving on approach was shared by several of his teammates including designated hitter/outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, who showed up to George M. Steinbrenner Field noticeably thinner than he was a year ago and told reporters that he had “flushed 2023 down the toilet.”
The early spring training mindset of both LeMahieu, Stanton and others dovetailed nicely into the optimistic and positive comments made by Yankee captain and undisputed team leader Aaron Judge earlier this week.

Judge, coming off a devastating toe injury that he says will need to be managed for the remainder of his professional career, said he is encouraged and optimistic about the visible changes the Yankees have made to the roster as well as several behind the scenes organizational philosophy shifts that are designed to make the team better.

After last season’s disappointment, Yankees fans were demanding the club do something dynamic to upgrade the roster.
So, on December 6, New York completed a gigantic offseason move when they acquired Juan Soto and Trent Grisham via trade from the San Diego Padres in exchange for Michael King, Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez, Drew Thorpe and Kyle Higashiosaka.
Soto and the Yankees avoided salary arbitration, agreeing on a one-year contract worth $31 million dollars.
Soto, 25, who is viewed by baseball experts as a generational talent and one of the top five players in the game, has created quite the buzz in the early days of his inaugural Yankees spring training with his bat, his overall talent, his swag and his signature “Soto Shuffle”.

He is a career .284 hitter who has mashed 160 home runs and driven in 483 runs. The three-time All-Star earned a World Series championship ring as a member of the Washington Nationals in 2019 and was the National League’s batting champion in 2020, hitting a blistering .351.
Adding Soto to a lineup that includes LeMahieu, Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo, Stanton, Anthony Volpe and Jose Trevino has at least one Yankee veteran fired up about the 2024 season.

“We’re going to be a good team this year,” Trevino said. “Bringing in talent like the guys we brought in…gamers, guys that love to play the game hard-nosed, it’s going to be good.”

Judge, a five-time All-Star and American League MVP in 2022, is a big part of the Zen-like positive vibe permeating out of Yankees camp.
Vowing that there would be changes shortly after the 2023 season ended, Judge, like Trevino, thinks the Bronx Bombers have a chance to show their detractors that last year was simply an off year now that the right people (coaches and players) are in place.

“This team has incredible potential,” Judge said. “We can start with Juan (Soto)…he’s a guy who is going to get on base, he’s going to drive the ball all over the ballpark, he is a left-handed bat right in the middle which we have needed for a while now. Then you add Grisham (Trent), another left-handed bat, great outfielder, puts the ball in play and then you have Verdugo (Alex), who has done quite a bit of damage against us over the years and now we get a chance to have him on our side. This lineup is just going to give us different options that we did not have over the past couple of years.”

And much to the chagrin of Yankee haters across the country, Brian Cashman, New York’s general manager, is still trying to improve the roster which could mean reigning 2023 National League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell could be joining the team in the coming days.
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner, who spoke with reporters on Thursday, said that despite the team’s current payroll, he is willing to consider making any move brought to him by Cashman and his team.

“I think we have a championship-caliber team right now, but we haven’t stopped looking to improve and we never will,” Steinbrenner said. “We are not done trying to improve this team.”