TAMPA — Some first days of spring training can double as meet and greets.
But Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field might as well have been a big family reunion — and that’s even with most of the position players still across the street at the player development complex before they report this weekend.
Though the Yankees roster continuity from 2025 to 2026 has much of the fan base up in arms over a lack of change, the players themselves do not seem to share the same worries about running it back with mostly the same group intact from their 94-win team.
“We’re running it back, because at the halfway point [last season], we thought we built a team that was going to go to the World Series and we still believe that wholeheartedly,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said Wednesday as pitchers, catchers and WBC participants reported to camp.
“So for me, I don’t see a problem with running it back with four MVPs on your team.”
Some might argue that the problem is that those MVPs — Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt — will play this season at the ages of 34, 30, 36 and 38, respectively.
And while Judge has won the MVP in three of the past four seasons, the only other MVP to come this decade from that group was Goldschmidt’s in 2022.
That said, the Yankees are banking on more than just that quartet to fuel another strong season that ends with a chance to play for a championship in October.
They are returning 24 of the 26 players who were on their ALDS roster last year when they got their lunch handed to them by the Blue Jays, who later came within inches of winning the World Series.
“If we play well, it’ll be a good thing,” Goldschmidt said of running it back. “If we don’t, it’ll probably be the reason that it’s said we don’t play well. For me, the expectations of this organization, whatever players are here, are to win a championship. That needs to be the mindset.
“Camp hasn’t even started yet, but everyone knows what the Yankees are about. Everyone knows the expectations the fan base has, ownership, front office, the players — this is an organization where it’s championship or bust every year. That’s not going to change whether it’s a similar group to last year or a completely new group.
“We got to prepare, we got to put in the work and that’s the No. 1 thing. What we did last year, even though it is a similar group, doesn’t matter. None of those wins carry over, none of those losses. So we’ll start from scratch and try to build a team that is going to play very well and hopefully win a championship.”
Of course, the team that walks into Steinbrenner Field this week is much different from the one that was here this time last year.
That one had Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco about to make a combined 15 starts for it, Gerrit Cole about to make none, Cam Schlittler headed for Double-A, Stanton dealing with double elbow issues and Ben Rice still largely unproven as a middle-of-the-order threat.
It did not have the group of trade deadline additions — Ryan McMahon, José Caballero, Amed Rosario, David Bednar, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird — who are now back with their feet underneath them and more ingrained in the organization.
It also had what looked like a more established bullpen, even if it did not always lead to better results.
But Goldschmidt’s comments about a fresh start echoed those of Aaron Boone, who will likely repeat some version of that message when he addresses the whole team ahead of its first full-squad workout Monday.
“You’re starting anew, so there’s nothing you’re taking with you ultimately from last year,” Boone said. “It’s all a blank slate.”
