TAMPA, Fla. — The trade rumors have been hard to miss.
St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado has repeatedly been linked to the New York Yankees, who appear to have a need at the position. The Cardinals have tried to deal Arenado and the three years and $64 million remaining on his contract, but their general manager, John Mozeliak, has said it’s “likely” that he’ll remain with the team. Arenado has a full no-trade clause.
Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, one of Arenado’s closest friends from their time together in St. Louis, said he left Arenado alone this offseason, not wanting to bother him as he deals with an uncertain future.
“He’s awesome,” Goldschmidt said. “He wants to win more than anything. Playing against him, I knew that. Even playing with him. … It doesn’t matter if the team’s winning and he’s got four hits. He wants to get that fifth hit. He’s such a competitor. He makes the people around him better. I’ve seen him being a great leader in St. Louis, trying to help out his team and help out guys. Hitting, defense, all that type of stuff, he’s very willing and open to talk. He expects a lot out of himself and expects a lot about the guys around him.”
Goldschmidt declined to comment on Arenado’s situation, but he added that he thinks the Cardinals and the third baseman “are going to do what’s great” for each other.
Here are more observations from early in Yankees camp:
Good vibes
It’s the beginning of spring training, and it would be stunning for the vibes to be anything other than immaculate. But the Yankees are coming off not only a crushing loss in the World Series, but a defeat that was followed by the Los Angeles Dodgers talking smack about them right after it. It might be understandable if they were still hurting.
Instead, they seemed to have used the loss as a rallying point. Aaron Judge led a sizable crew of Yankees during pre-spring training workouts at the team’s player development complex in Tampa. They began for the most part in mid-January. Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, DJ LeMahieu, Carlos Rodón and a bevy of younger players were there. Even newcomers Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger arrived early to get a feel for their new digs.
For some Yankees, losing in the World Series was worse than when they didn’t make the playoffs in 2023.
As one Yankee who was on both teams put it, “The taste in our mouths from that (losing in the World Series) was just so awful. I’ll never forget what the (clubhouse) was like that night.”
But so far, so good. Even Marcus Stroman’s two-day absence, and the discussion that followed, didn’t seem to cause turbulence. He was immediately embraced by his teammates. — Brendan Kuty
Jazz Chisholm Jr. home run. pic.twitter.com/t71EYbX1Xl
— Brendan Kuty 🧟♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) February 17, 2025
Who will win the 3B battle?
There is one major position battle for the Yankees in camp: third base. LeMahieu, Oswaldo Cabrera, and Oswald Peraza are all competing for the job. Publicly, the Yankees are indicating that LeMahieu has the inside track to start on Opening Day. Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner has $30 million reasons to hope LeMahieu secures the position.
But something feels off. At this point, it’s hard to rely on LeMahieu to stay healthy, let alone return to the form he had three years ago when he was a star. When asked if the plan was for Jazz Chisholm Jr. to remain at second base, manager Aaron Boone’s response was interesting. Chisholm played third base last season for the Yankees and could still be a factor there if Boone chooses.
“You never know how the roster shakes out,” Boone said. “I’ve talked to him about keeping that possibility open. If something declares itself in a certain way, or, depending how the roster shakes out, I do want to keep it open (so) that I could move him over there.”
It sounds like the Yankees’ roster isn’t completely settled yet. It won’t be a surprise if they acquire a starting-caliber second or third baseman before Opening Day. — Chris Kirschner
I have my eye on …
I’m looking forward to seeing more of top shortstop prospect George Lombard Jr. In a brief chat with him earlier in the week, he didn’t seem to be phased at all by the pressure of his first big-league camp.
Consider that he graduated high school in 2023. He won’t turn 20 until June. Now, he’s in a clubhouse with four MVP winners (Stanton, Judge, Goldschmidt, Bellinger). When Lombard faced Cole on Tuesday, the Yankees razzed him by playing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” over the speakers.
“It’s really exciting, getting to be around these guys every day for the next couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s something that I’m going to be able to take a lot from and learn a lot from.”
Lombard said he enjoyed taking ground balls with Volpe in pre-spring training workouts.
“The way his feet work — his footwork is as good as anybody in the game,” Lombard said. “So he’s fun to watch.”
Lombard added that he grew up idolizing Corey Seager. Lombard’s father, George Sr., was the Dodgers’ first base coach from 2016 to 2020. Lombard was able to watch and work out with Seager, who left for the Texas Rangers in 2021. Lombard also loved watching Francisco Lindor. — Kuty
Gerrit Cole faces George Lombard Jr. in live BP
(via @GJoyce9) pic.twitter.com/badhYjRlB2
— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) February 18, 2025
Cashman, Boone split on Yanks’ bad defense
The Yankees humiliated themselves in the World Series with sloppy defense.
Public defensive metrics like Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average show that the Yankees were above average defensively in 2024, contrary to the narrative that the club was abysmal all year.
Boone believes that the criticism of the Yankees’ defense has been blown out of proportion, which mostly stems from their catastrophic fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series. While there’s no denying the Yankees weren’t defensively flawed in 2024, the issues in that particular inning should be viewed separately, especially because the players were exactly the ones the organization would want involved in the action: the sure-handed Judge, Volpe, Cole and Anthony Rizzo.
A key part of the Yankees’ strategy after losing Juan Soto was to strengthen their overall defense — an area general manager Brian Cashman identified as a problem in 2024, even if Boone didn’t see it that way.
“I thought we were bad defensively,” Cashman said. “We tried to deal with it, but on a year-in and year-out basis, certain aspects of your club are stronger than other aspects. And then as the season plays out, you try to certainly improve upon it if you can. Our work product was able to get us into the World Series, but not win the World Series.” — Kirschner
Judge dismissive of Soto?
After signing with the New York Mets, Soto said he thought the club offered him the best chance at winning. That remains to be seen, but it’s an opinion that reverberated inside the Yankees’ organization.
“I definitely disagree with him,” Judge said on Monday. “I wasn’t too surprised by it. I think that’s where he wanted to be.”
Judge said he tried reaching out to Soto over the offseason but the latter had changed his phone number and texts weren’t going through. They eventually connected, but Judge made it clear in November that he was going to give Soto space to handle his free agency on his own.
It appears Judge knew that Soto might have just been brought in as a mercenary. Soto didn’t have the same affinity for the Yankees as Judge, and now the two will battle for supremacy of the city. — Kirschner
A look around the Yankees clubhouse pic.twitter.com/wKmB3qIOlc
— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) February 13, 2025
Locker assignments
At Yankees camp, locker assignments typically follow the same format every year.
Left wall: Established pitchers
Right wall: Established infielders and outfielders
Back wall: Catchers
Near wall: A mix of players vying for spots
Floating lockers in the middle of the clubhouse: Prospects and minor leaguers
But every year there are also intentional assignments. Often, youngsters are placed near veterans. It allows prospects to pick the brains of guys who have had success while also watching their habits.
The Yankees put Jasson Domínguez between Judge and Bellinger because they both have won Rookie of the Year awards, and Domínguez has the ability to do the same. The tall, powerful prospect Spencer Jones is near Giancarlo Stanton, who overcame strikeout issues to have an impressive career.
Elsewhere, Ben Rice is across from Austin Wells, but also diagonal from Judge and near Bellinger. Goldschmidt is next to Stanton as he acclimates to the Yankees’ clubhouse and likely looks forward to a leadership role. Cabrera is between the infielders and the outfielders because he does both. Pitching prospects Chase Hampton and Will Warren aren’t far from Cole, Rodón and Max Fried. Some of the biggest stars are also closest to the exits, likely so that they can slip in and out mostly undetected by reporters (Judge, Stanton, Devin Williams). — Kuty
(Top photo: Thomas A. Ferrara / Newsday RM via Getty Images)
