Each season, we award to players’ rankings according to outstanding performances during the season. Using this system, here’s how the Batters and Pitchers of the New York Yankees placed:

(Last season’s position in brackets, uniform number after hyphen)

Batters

1 (2) Aaron Judge – 99

2 (NP) Juan Soto – 22

3 (6) Anthony Volpe – 11

4 (Rookie) Austin Wells – 28

5 (NP) Giancarlo Stanton – 27

6 (1) Gleyber Torres – 25

Pitchers

1 (NP) Luke Weaver – 30

2 (1) Gerrit Cole – 45

3 (3) Clay Holmes – 35

4 (NP) Carlos Rodon – 55

5 (NP) Clarke Schmidt – 36

6 (New signing) Tim Hill – 41

In the list of the Top Yankees players on Baseballreference.com for 2024, (compiled by WAR alone), Luis Gil, Nestor Cortes and Jazz Chisholm Jr. are ranked in the top 12.

As well as our visual assessment of a players contribution to a game, we use primarily the good old fashioned standard statistics (batting average, home runs, RBIs, ERA, Wins and losses, saves), rather than a system of sabermetrics.

Taking into the account the performance that Giancarlo Stanton made in the playoffs, and its proportional significance to the whole team, makes him a vital player for the Yankees despite his other struggles. This brings him onto our list.

Clay Holmes also had many struggles, but we also take into account that when he was good (including in the post-season with 3 wins), he was very good. This means he has a significiantly better ranking in our eyes than he would have when ranked by Wins Above Replacement (WAR) alone.

One remaining player who makes our list but was not listed in the top 12 on baseballreference.com is Tim Hill who played exceptionally well in the second half of the season. Given our policy of having an even number of batters and pitchers, this means he is a nose ahead of Chisholm, who ranks as our seventh best batter.

This year the baseballreference.com site 12 also splits to 6 batters and 6 pitchers (an unusual coincidence). They have no minimum qualifying standard – listing 12 players whether they are considering the 2024 Dodgers or the 2024 White Sox We simply think you can’t call somebody the “Best” if they contributed so little on a team that won as few games as THAT Chicago team.

Our 2023 Yankees player of the year was Gerrit Cole. That title for 2024 moves to Aaron Judge who is our 2024 Yankees player of the year. He also took the award for 2022.