Let's Be Honest, Yankees Re-Signing Cody Bellinger Isn't Enough to Compete in Juggernaut AL East

The New York Yankees have finally, mercifully broken free of their offseason stupor. And all it took was a deal with a player who was clearly running out of options.

As Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report, the Yankees are bringing back Cody Bellinger on a five-year, $162.5 million contract. The structure mirrors the one that Bob Klapisch of the Newark Star-Ledger had said the Yankees weren't going to budge from, and Bellinger's return to the Bronx was all but sealed when the cross-town Mets filled their outfield by trading for Luis Robert Jr. on Tuesday.

Bellinger is now set to play for the Yankees for twice as long as his old man did back in the day, and one need only look at his 2025 splits to understand how well his left-handed stroke plays at Yankee Stadium:

Home: .909 OPS, 18 HR
Away: .715 OPS, 11 HR

But since no all-is-right moment is ever complete without a record scratch, here goes: Even with Bellinger, the AL East should not fear the Yankees.

The Most Flawed Team $300 Million Can Buy

Strictly going off the numbers, to poo-poo the Yankees like that is akin to trying to rain on a parade of sentient umbrellas.

This is a very expensive team, with RosterResource estimating the Yankees' Opening Day payroll at $304 million. It also projects as a very good team, with FanGraphs projecting it for the second-most WAR in MLB with Bellinger back in the fold.

But you know what? Numbers shmumbers. The reality of the 2026 Yankees is that they're the same team as the 2025 Yankees, except with more question marks.

The lineup is one of those that's good on paper, but which also barely conceals potential nightmares waiting to happen. Trent Grisham is perhaps the most obvious regression candidate in MLB. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has yet to have a fully healthy year in the majors. Giancarlo Stanton is 36 years old, and even Aaron Judge will be staring baseball mortality in the face when he turns 34 on April 26.

On the mound, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt will still be recovering from elbow surgeries when 2026 begins, and only Ryan Weathers has been brought in as rotation insurance. The bullpen has lost Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, and gained approximately nada in viable replacements.

There are ways for these concerns to get addressed, or at least papered over. There's still time for the Yankees to trade for Freddy Peralta, and maybe they can get involved on Seranthony Domínguez. And who knows? Maybe Jasson Domínguez or Spencer Jones will break out and Anthony Volpe will further boost the offense when he returns from left shoulder surgery.

This late in the winter, though, it's not a good thing if you have to play the "What if This, That and the Other Thing" game to justify a team's seaworthiness for a coming season. And the Yankees are frankly beneath such hoop-jumping, much less at a time when they're faced with competing in this AL East.

While the Yankees Stood Still, the Competition Dug In

The funny thing about the Yankees winning 94 games last year is that they did it in spite of their record in the AL East. They only went 27-25 within the division, and that was even with down years on the part of the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays.

Well, they're both clearly angling to get back into contention in 2026.

That especially goes for the Orioles, whose $155 million splash on Pete Alonso is merely the centerpiece of the best offseason any American League team has had. The Rays have more so been mixing and matching, but that usually means they're up to something. "LOVE this trade for the Rays" and whatnot.

Meanwhile in Boston, the Red Sox's offseason still feels like a big W even after the loss of Alex Bregman. Their deal with Ranger Suárez and a whole bunch of other new additions might make their rotation the best in MLB, and newcomer Willson Contreras is at least more of a power threat than Bregman.

Then there are the Toronto Blue Jays, who have responded to falling two outs shy of winning the World Series in 2025 by sinking $336 million into a new look. It should be for the better, especially if they get the Dylan Cease of 2022 and 2024.

Turning back to those projections, the Rays are the only AL East club that isn't projected to be a top-10 team this season:

1. New York Yankees: 47.4 (2nd)
2. Toronto Blue Jays: 46.5 (3rd)
3. Boston Red Sox: 44.1 (7th)
4. Baltimore Orioles: 43.1 (9th)
5. Tampa Bay Rays: 36.9 (19th)

If so, the Yankees will have at least three bullies their own size to fend off, which will require a greater effort than the one they put forth in 2025.

It would be one thing if they had spent this offseason shaking that off by shaking things up. But by choosing to run it back, they're effectively making a $300 million bet that doing the same thing will produce different results.

That is famously the definition of something, and it doesn't bode well for the Yankees.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.