The 2018 New York Yankees won 100 games and didn't win the division. They broke the MLB single-season home run record and didn't win the World Series. They survived a star player's season-ending wrist injury, pieced together one of the best late-July deadline hauls in memory, and still had to play a Wild Card Game just to get into the bracket. Then Boston walked them out the door in four.
One hundred wins. No pennant. A fun season that ended with Giancarlo Stanton striking out with runners on first and second in the ninth inning of an elimination game. That's the 2018 Yankees for you.
The Aaron Boone Experiment Begins
Aaron Boone got the managing job in December 2017 having managed exactly zero professional baseball games. He'd been an ESPN broadcaster. Cashman hired him because, presumably, he liked how Boone talked about the game on television -- which, as hiring criteria goes, isn't the most conventional. (He's also the guy who hit the 2003 ALCS walk-off homer that sent the Red Sox into one of their famous existential spirals, so at minimum the fanbase didn't hate the name.)
Boone managed his first MLB team to 100 wins. You can argue about his bullpen decisions in October all you want -- and I did, loudly -- but that regular-season result is real.
Aaron Judge Breaks, the Baby Bombers Don't
The season's defining story arrived July 26 in the first inning of a game against Kansas City. Aaron Judge took a 93-mph fastball from Jakob Junis off his right wrist and crumpled. Chip fracture. He went on the disabled list the next day and didn't return for 45 games. At the point of the injury, he was hitting .283 with 26 home runs in 99 games -- on pace for another monster year before everything stopped.
(Junis reportedly received death threats after the beaning. Which is insane. It was a pitch that got away, not a cartoon villain moment. We're Yankees fans, not animals.)
What happened next was honestly the best part of the season. The team didn't fold. Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres -- both rookies -- absorbed the lineup gap and turned it into their coming-out party.
Andujar hit .297 with 27 home runs, 92 RBI, and 47 doubles -- tying Fred Lynn's 1975 AL rookie doubles record. He led all MLB rookies in hits, doubles, homers, and RBI, finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year vote behind Shohei Ohtani, and made the whole thing look effortless. (That ROY vote is what it is. Ohtani was pitching and hitting at a generational level. But if Andujar plays a normal season where he doesn't have to follow a pitcher-DH alien from Japan, he wins that award going away.)
Torres was 21 years old. He hit .271 with 24 home runs and 77 RBI in 123 games during his rookie year. He hit the team's record-breaking 265th home run -- more on that in a moment -- at Fenway Park in late September. He became the youngest Yankees player to hit a walk-off homer, breaking a record that had stood since Mickey Mantle. That's the guy you handed the future to.
The Home Run Record
The 2018 Yankees set the MLB single-season home run record with 267. They broke the 1997 Seattle Mariners' record of 264. Twelve players hit 10 or more, and every lineup spot contributed at least 20. The record-breaking shot came from Torres on September 29 at Fenway Park, which felt appropriately pointed.
The record lasted exactly one year before the 2019 Twins broke it -- they hit 307 total, and our record fell somewhere in the middle of that.
So we broke a record that was 21 years old and couldn't hold it for 12 months. Very on-brand.
The Players Who Carried It
Luis Severino was the ace. He finished 19-8 with a 3.39 ERA, 220 strikeouts in 191.1 innings, and a 9th-place AL Cy Young finish. His second straight elite season had him looking like a legitimate number-one starter for the next decade. (The shoulder injuries that came later make 2018 feel even more precious in retrospect.)
Didi Gregorius was the offensive engine during Judge's absence. He hit .268 with 27 home runs and 86 RBI, setting the Yankees single-season home run record for a shortstop -- breaking his own mark of 25 from 2017. Didi was putting up numbers that shortstops just didn't put up, and he did it while running the infield and keeping everyone loose. He was everything you wanted at that position.
Giancarlo Stanton had a strange first year. He hit .266 with 38 home runs and 100 RBI in 158 games -- the kind of line that would make most fans happy. But this was New York, this was Stanton, and "38 homers, 100 RBI" felt somehow like a disappointment because we'd convinced ourselves we were getting the guy who hits 59 home runs in a Miami season while the Marlins are losing 93 games. He was fine. He was really good, actually. But the vibe around his first year never quite clicked.
Gary Sanchez was a problem. He hit .186 with 18 home runs and 53 RBI in 89 games -- the batting average was a disaster -- and led the entire major leagues with 18 passed balls. Cashman publicly defended him mid-season, calling him "by far our best option, on both sides of the ball." Which was technically true while also being the kind of statement you make when you've decided your hands are tied. (Eighteen passed balls. In a single season. I've tried to forget that number and it just won't leave.)
CC Sabathia went 9-7 with a 3.65 ERA in his tenth year as a Yankee, his third straight solid season after some rough stretches earlier in the decade. He was the veteran presence and mentor the young staff needed. At 38, still giving the team innings.
The Deadline Deals That Saved October
Cashman's July trade deadline work was genuinely excellent. He got J.A. Happ from Toronto on July 26 -- same day as the Judge injury, which is the kind of day that looks either prescient or coincidental depending on your mood -- and Happ proceeded to go 7-0 with a 2.69 ERA in 11 starts. Down the stretch nobody touched him.
Three days later, the Yankees acquired Luke Voit from St. Louis. Nobody outside of Cardinals fans knew who Luke Voit was. He slashed .333/.405/.689 with 14 home runs in 39 games. He was one of the best first basemen in the American League from late July through October. A complete stranger walked into the clubhouse and turned into a critical piece.
Sonny Gray, meanwhile, got removed from the rotation after the deadline. His home ERA was catastrophic -- he couldn't pitch at Yankee Stadium and stop -- and he was left off the postseason roster entirely, then traded to Cincinnati after the season. Gray is one of those guys where you can construct a sympathetic story about the struggles, and I've heard that story, and I still watch those 2018 starts and don't understand what was happening. He wanted to throw more curveballs. Rothschild wanted more sliders. The Yankees Stadium short porch wanted to eat his soul. The marriage was doomed.
Wild Card Game: Yankees 7, Athletics 2
The Yankees hosted the A's on October 3. Oakland's Bob Melvin used Liam Hendriks as an "opener" -- a novel strategy the A's were ahead of the curve on in 2018 -- and Judge greeted him with a two-run home run in the first inning. Voit hit a two-run triple off Hendriks in the sixth. Stanton added a solo shot in the eighth. Severino started and was sharp. 7-2, not particularly close. The House That Ruth Built delivered.
A 100-win team shouldn't have to play a Wild Card Game. I know that's the system and I know the rules don't change because I'm annoyed, but a 100-win team playing single-elimination baseball while Boston wraps up the division by eight games is the kind of thing that makes you question structural choices.
ALDS vs Boston: The Short Version Is Painful
Happ started Game 1 at Fenway and took the loss in a 5-4 defeat. Masahiro Tanaka started Game 2 and the Yankees won 6-2 to even the series. Then Game 3 happened.
Red Sox 16, Yankees 1. The most lopsided postseason loss in franchise history at that point. Severino gave up six runs in three-plus innings. Brock Holt -- Brock Holt -- hit the first postseason cycle in MLB history, completing it with a two-run homer in the ninth of a game that was already over. Nathan Eovaldi, a former Yankee, was masterful. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.
Gleyber Torres and the young guys had carried this team through July and August. But Game 3 in October against the best team in baseball is a different assignment.
Game 4 came down to the ninth inning at the Stadium. Craig Kimbrel was closing it out for Boston with a 4-1 lead. Judge walked. Gregorius singled. Runners at first and second. Stanton came up.
He struck out.
Voit walked to load the bases. Walker got hit by a pitch to force in a run -- 4-2. Sanchez hit a sac fly to the warning track that scored another -- 4-3, two outs, runners on. Torres then grounded to Eduardo Nunez, who threw to first. The Yankees challenged. They lost the challenge. Series over.
That Stanton at-bat -- runners at first and second, playoff game, season on the line -- became the image of his first year in New York. It wasn't fair to reduce a .266, 38-homer season to one strikeout. It's also just what happened.
What This Season Was
Boston was 108-54. They were the best team in baseball -- the best AL team since the 2001 Mariners. They had Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Chris Sale, and a first-year manager in Alex Cora who ran his team with a precision that made the whole thing look easy.
The Yankees were younger, hit more home runs than any team ever, absorbed a generational talent's 45-game absence by turning two rookies into legitimate stars, and still won 100 games. That's real. The Baby Bombers identity that would define the next several years took shape in the summer of 2018, right when the team needed it most.
It just ran into a buzzsaw. And that Wild Card Game -- a 100-win team's reward for finishing second in their own division -- remains the most irritating structural artifact of the modern playoff format.
One hundred wins. No pennant. You already know how it ended.
| 2018 Regular Season Record | 100-62 (.617) |
| AL East Finish | 2nd place (8 GB Boston) |
| Team Home Runs | 267 (MLB single-season record at the time) |
| Aaron Judge | .278, 27 HR, 67 RBI in 112 G |
| Luis Severino | 19-8, 3.39 ERA, 220 K in 191.1 IP |
| Giancarlo Stanton | .266, 38 HR, 100 RBI in 158 G |
| Didi Gregorius | .268, 27 HR, 86 RBI (Yankees SS HR record) |
| Miguel Andujar (Rookie) | .297, 27 HR, 92 RBI, 47 2B (tied AL rookie record) |
| Gleyber Torres (Rookie) | .271, 24 HR, 77 RBI in 123 G |
| Wild Card Game (Oct 3) | Yankees 7, Athletics 2 |
| ALDS Result | Red Sox 3, Yankees 1 |
Aaron Boone Hired as Manager
The Yankees hire ESPN broadcaster and former player Aaron Boone as their 33rd manager. He has zero professional managing experience. Nobody is sure what to make of it.
Gleyber Torres Makes His Debut
Torres, 21, plays his first MLB game. By May he's already hit the youngest walk-off homer in Yankees history, breaking a record held by Mickey Mantle.
Judge Breaks His Wrist
Jakob Junis hits Aaron Judge with a 93-mph fastball in the first inning against Kansas City. Chip fracture in the right wrist. He's done for 45 games. Same day: the Yankees acquire J.A. Happ from Toronto.
Luke Voit Arrives from St. Louis
The Cardinals trade Voit to New York for Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos. Almost nobody notices. Voit then hits .333/.405/.689 with 14 home runs in 39 games. People notice.
Judge Returns to the Field
Judge comes back in the eighth inning against Toronto, initially for defense only. He hits just one home run after returning -- the injury clearly lingered -- but his presence mattered.
Torres Breaks the Home Run Record at Fenway
Gleyber Torres hits the team's 265th homer of the season at Fenway Park -- one more than the 1997 Mariners -- to set the MLB single-season record. The Bombers eventually reach 267. They do it in Boston. Of course they do.
Wild Card Game: Yankees 7, Athletics 2
Severino starts, Judge homers off Hendriks in the first, Voit triples in two runs in the sixth, Stanton goes deep in the eighth. The Yankees advance past Oakland in comfortable fashion. One-and-done formats feel less brutal when you win.
ALDS Game 2: Yankees Even the Series
After losing Game 1 at Fenway, Tanaka starts Game 2 and the Yankees win 6-2 to even things up. The series is headed back to the Bronx. It feels like opportunity.
ALDS Game 3: The Disaster
Red Sox 16, Yankees 1. Severino lasts three-plus innings. Brock Holt completes the first postseason cycle in MLB history against the Yankee Stadium crowd. The series lead is 2-1 Boston.
ALDS Game 4: Stanton, Kimbrel, and the End
Down 4-1 in the ninth, Judge walks and Gregorius singles. Giancarlo Stanton strikes out with runners at first and second. Voit walks to load the bases, Walker gets hit by a pitch (4-2). Sanchez hits a sac fly to make it 4-3. Torres grounds to Nunez, throw to first, challenged and lost. Red Sox 4, Yankees 3. Boston advances.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many games did the Yankees win in 2018?
The Yankees went 100-62, their first 100-win season since 2009. It was the 20th time in franchise history they'd reached that mark. They still finished second in the AL East -- Boston went 108-54 -- which meant a Wild Card Game just to get into the ALDS bracket.
When did Aaron Judge get hurt in 2018?
Judge was hit by a pitch from Kansas City's Jakob Junis on July 26, 2018, in the first inning at Yankee Stadium. He suffered a chip fracture in his right wrist and missed approximately 45 games. He'd been hitting .283 with 26 home runs at the time of the injury. He returned September 14 but hit just one more homer the rest of the season -- the wrist clearly affected his power through the end of the year.
Did the Yankees win the AL East in 2018?
They didn't. The Boston Red Sox went 108-54 to win the division by eight games -- one of the best AL records since the 2001 Mariners went 116-46. The Yankees' 100 wins were enough to host the AL Wild Card Game but not enough to avoid single-elimination baseball. It's a genuinely maddening quirk of the format.
What was the Yankees home run record in 2018?
The 2018 Yankees hit 267 home runs, breaking the previous MLB single-season record of 264 set by the 1997 Seattle Mariners. Twelve players hit 10 or more, and every lineup spot contributed at least 20 -- a first in MLB history. Gleyber Torres hit the record-breaker on September 29 at Fenway Park. The record lasted one year; the 2019 Minnesota Twins finished with 307, breaking ours along the way.
Who managed the Yankees in 2018?
Aaron Boone, in his first MLB managing job. He'd been an ESPN broadcaster since retiring as a player and had no professional managing experience at any level before taking the job in December 2017. He's also the guy who hit the walk-off homer for the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS -- so the Bronx relationship was warm even before he won 100 games in year one.
Did Giancarlo Stanton have a good first year with the Yankees?
That depends on your frame. He hit .266 with 38 home runs and 100 RBI in 158 games -- legitimately solid production. But expectations in New York were enormous, the adjustment to the scrutiny was visible all year, and his strikeout with runners on first and second in the ninth inning of the ALDS elimination game became the defining image of his first season. The numbers were good. The feeling around his year was complicated.
A 100-win season carrying a Wild Card asterisk, a home run record that lasted one year, and two rookies who showed you exactly what the next half-decade was going to look like. The 2018 Yankees were better than their October ending, and not quite good enough to escape it.