Aaron Boone has no issues with the Yankees running it back after a quiet offseason: ‘Different doesn’t mean better’

“I guess he was right,” said Boone, whose team fell to the Blue Jays in four games and was outscored by 15 runs. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he was surprised by the comment considering Kiner-Falefa played two seasons for him in New York. Isiah Kiner-Falefa made some news this month when he said the Blue Jays were more fearful of playing the Red Sox in the American League Division Series last season than the Yankees. What’s more surprising is that the Yankees decided on a “run it back” strategy for this season and have essentially the same roster as last year outside of relievers Luke Weaver and Devin Williams, who both signed with the Mets. The Yankees re-signed free agents Cody Bellinger, Paul Blackburn, Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario, and Ryan Yarbrough. Trent Grisham could have walked but accepted the $22.05 million qualifying offer. The only significant addition from outside the organization was lefthander Ryan Weathers, who was acquired from the Marlins for four prospects. Weathers is 12-23 with a 4.93 ERA over five seasons but the Yankees believe he can stay healthy and be a reliable rotation option as they wait for reinforcements from within. Boone doesn’t view the quiet offseason as an issue. “Different doesn’t mean better,” he said. “Reality is we think we had a really excellent club last year. It fell short in the playoffs. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have a team capable of getting to the finish line. “We have to go do it. It’s a blank slate. We have to put the work in now.” Running it back could well work. The Yankees won 94 games last season and will have Gerrit Cole returning from Tommy John surgery, perhaps as soon as early June. The 35-year-old righthander hasn’t pitched since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. Cole threw off the mound in spring training this past week, which was heartening for Boone. “Great to see. He looked like Gerrit Cole,” Boone said. “Really efficient, really great command. Everything looks like it’s coming out free and easy. Everything’s going really well.” Carlos Rodón is expected back in May after surgery on his left elbow. Until then the Yankees will rely on Weathers, Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, and Luis Gil as their five starters. Schlittler, the Walpole High and Northeastern product, dealt with back pain early in camp but insisted it was not an issue. He had a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts last season and allowed two earned runs over 14⅓ postseason innings. General manager Brian Cashman sees a flexible roster that gives Boone options to match up against opposing pitchers. The Yankees led the majors in runs [849] and home runs [274] last season and were actually eighth in stolen bases [134]. He’s also enthused about the organizational pitching depth. One of those pitchers is Elmer Rodriguez, the righthander the Red Sox traded to New York for catcher Carlos Narváez before the 2025 season. Rodriguez was 11-8 with a 2.58 ERA in 27 minor league games last season. Cashman said he didn’t necessarily intend on running it back — “The term we’re hearing so much of, and understandably so,” he said — but the offseason marketplace pushed him in that direction. He looked into trades and free agents but felt better about who was already on the roster. “That’s how it played out,” Cashman said. “This was what we were comfortable doing. We’re certainly not apologetic. The team we had last year was a really strong team. … You can dream on this team. If it plays to its abilities, it could take a shot at the title.” Still, it’s a fine line. The Red Sox won Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against the Yankees last season and it was 3-3 through seven innings of Game 2 before the Yankees scored a two-out run in the eighth inning on a two-strike single by Austin Wells. The go-ahead run scored on a close play at the plate. Had the Yankees been eliminated at home, bringing back the same team would not have felt like much of an option. “We look forward to proving ourselves once again,” Cashman said. Team USA manager Mark DeRosa said Red Sox reliever Garrett Whitlock was on his radar from when he first started building a roster for the World Baseball Classic. “He can handle righties and lefties and I wanted a bullpen with neutrality,” DeRosa said of the righthander. “Garrett also was someone who made it known that he wanted to play and [Team USA pitching coach] Andy Pettitte really wanted him. It was an easy choice.” Righthanders have hit .244 with a .668 OPS against Whitlock in his career. Lefthanders have actually been worse, hitting .227 with a .648 OPS. “I wanted to put together a real team,” he said. “I wanted high-character guys that would come together and be selfless. Garrett fit that mold.” DeRosa also is intrigued to see how Sox outfielder Roman Anthony will emerge from the WBC experience. “Bobby Witt Jr. was 22 when he was on the team in ’23 and it was priceless for him,” DeRosa said. “He was around people like Mike Trout and Nolan Arenado in that clubhouse every day. You’ve seen what he’s done since. “Roman already carries himself like a superstar. I think being in a lineup with [Kyle] Schwarber, [Bryce] Harper, and everybody else can only benefit him in the long term.” A few other observations on the Red Sox: ▪ Brayan Bello checked in at 205 pounds, same as last season. But he looks bigger, a product of adding some muscle during the winter. “I feel the same,” the righthander said. “Maybe a little stronger.” A more notable change is that Bello added a curveball to his repertoire. He talked with pitching coach Andrew Bailey about it late last season and went back to the Dominican Republic with instructions to work on the pitch. Bello averaged a career worst 6.7 strikeouts per nine innings last season. His talent suggests that should be significantly higher. Maybe another breaking ball other than his sweeper will make a difference. “With my fastball, it’s a good pitch,” he said. “It feels good to me.” Bello will pitch for the Dominican Republic in the WBC. He is tentatively scheduled to face the Tigers in an exhibition game in Santo Domingo on March 4. The team then moves to Miami for pool play starting March 6. ▪ Wilyer Abreu will play left field for Venezuela in the WBC with Ronald Acuna Jr. playing right field. And Jarren Duran will play right field for Mexico. So that’s why you could see Abreu in left and Duran in right during the first week of exhibition games. ▪ In an alternate universe, Masataka Yoshida could have been a fairly solid corner outfielder or designated hitter for a team such as the Guardians, Rockies, or Twins had he agreed to a contract that reflected his true value. Say four years and $44 million. But when Chaim Bloom threw five years and $90 million on the table back in 2022, agent Scott Boras immediately snapped it up. Now Yoshida is an overpaid spare part on a team that could use his roster spot for a more useful player. With $37.2 million remaining on his contract, it doesn’t seem likely the Red Sox will go the Pablo Sandoval route and release him. Yoshida could enter the season as the DH against righthanders, but that would mean putting one of the outfielders on the bench. Yoshida acknowledged that his time in Boston, “Wasn’t what I expected. Let’s leave it at that.” He also said it has been a “challenge” for his family but they have adapted. That the Sox still have four outfielders along with Yoshida and are developing Kristian Campbell as an outfielder doesn’t make a lot of sense. Significant trades are rare in spring training. But something needs to give. ▪ The top of the left field wall at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla., now has a No. 39 in memory of former Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell, who died of thyroid cancer in October at the age of 62. Greenwell was drafted out of North Fort Myers High in 1982. He started a second career as a businessman and politician after retiring from baseball and was a Lee County commissioner at the time of his passing. It hasn’t been an easy road for Boston’s Joshua Baez, who was a second-round pick of the Cardinals in 2021 out of the Dexter Southfield School in Brookline. Injuries and underperformance defined his first four professional seasons before the 22-year-old outfielder hit .287 in 2025 with a .884 OPS, 46 extra-base hits, and 54 stolen bases in 63 attempts over 117 games for High A Peoria and Double A Springfield. He had hit .229 with a .739 OPS over 232 minor league games before that breakout season, striking out 308 times in 752 at-bats. Baez was added to the 40-man roster in November and is potentially a big piece of the rebuilding process under new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom. Baseball America has Baez 54th on its top 100 prospects list. He’s seen as a potential 30-30 player on the major league level. “I think there’s things [to improve] on both sides of the ball,” Bloom said. “Don’t want to gloss over just how remarkable his 2025 was in terms of the extent of the improvements that he made at the plate. You do not usually see that. “Give a lot of credit to Josh, a lot of credit to everybody who worked with him for that turnaround. He got a place offensively in terms of his hitting approach — just real adjustments he made in terms of movement and posture that allowed him to get to his tools, which are considerable.” Specifically, Baez adopted a more upright stance at the plate and closed his swing to generate more power. “Going forward there’s still more there on the defensive side of the ball. He’s a really good athlete,” Bloom said. “He’s powerful; he’s fluid; he can move. We want to see that really come to fruition on the defensive side. “Offensively, obviously, it’s a question of continuing to carry those improvements forward to the next level, where he’s going to be challenged with more experienced pitchers. He’s going to be challenged with guys that are going to be better equipped to exploit any little thing that he isn’t doing well at that particular moment.” Baez will face pitchers in Triple A who have major league experience and won’t be afraid to challenge him. “You want to see him sustain it [and] carry it forward,” Bloom said. “Very exciting. You got to see every bit of what he could be down the road at the big league level. And now we want to see that carried forward into the next level of the minor leagues.” Baez was born in Boston and raised in the Dominican Republic through fifth grade before his family returned to the city. There were 15 Massachusetts natives who played in the majors last season, an unusually high number. Baez could be the next player to join them. The collective bargaining agreement doesn’t expire until Dec. 1, so the shocking resignation of MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark this past week is something the union can overcome. New interim director Bruce Meyer was already the union’s lead negotiator and preparations were well underway for what will be contentious talks. “We’ll be fine,” Red Sox pitcher Tanner Houck said. “Our lawyers haven’t changed.” That’s true. But it was unsettling to Sox players that Clark was having an affair with his sister-in-law, who was a union employee. Clark also was being investigated for financial improprieties regarding a youth baseball program the union had started. Whether Meyer becomes the executive director or it’s somebody else, the union needs to get its house in order and be more forthcoming to the rank and file about what’s going on at the executive level … At 34, Mike Trout wants to return to center field this season for the Angels. He has not played more than half a season in center since 2022, when he started 110 games there. Trout played only 185 innings in the field last season, all in right. If the idea is to keep him healthy, playing center doesn’t seem ideal. Trout has played only 396 of a possible 810 games the last five seasons but still had a .902 OPS … Chris Sale of the Braves has formulated a strategy for the new automated ball-strike challenge system: He wants nothing to do with it. “I would never challenge. I would never do it. I won’t do it,” Sale said. “I’m not an umpire; I’m a starting pitcher. I’ve never called balls and strikes in my life. Plus, I’m greedy. I think they’re all strikes.” Most teams seem to feel the same way and will leave it to the catcher, and certain hitters, to challenge. Teams will have two challenges per game and retain any that are successful. In the case of extra innings, a team without any challenges remaining will get one per inning … The Padres are up for sale, a process that could be wrapped before the season is over. As those talks continue, team chairman John Seidler took care of general manager A.J. Preller with a contract extension that would take him through at least 2028. CEO Erik Greupner already had a contract through 2030. Five prominent players — Jackson Merrill (2034), Fernando Tatis Jr. (2034), Xander Bogaerts (2033), Manny Machado (2033), and Jake Cronenworth (2030) — also have long-term deals. Even Don Orsillo landed a long-term contract last season. Orsillo is entering his 11th season calling Padres games on television. He was with the Red Sox for 15 years … Walker Buehler received $21.5 million from the Red Sox last season and posted a 5.45 ERA. Now he’s in Padres camp on a minor league contract that would pay only $1.5 million if the righthander makes the team, with $2.5 million in performance bonuses … Happy birthday to Daniel Nava, who is 43. The outfielder was with the Red Sox, Rays, Angels, Royals, and Phillies from 2010-17 and had a .737 OPS over 589 games. Nava was the equipment manager at Santa Clara University before resuming his playing career at a nearby junior college. He returned to Santa Clara and hit .395 as a senior but was not drafted. Nava played for the independent Chico Outlaws in 2007 and was sold to the Red Sox for $1. He made his debut on June 12, 2010, and hit a grand slam at Fenway Park off the first pitch he saw. Nava was a key member of the 2013 championship team, starting 121 games and driving in 66 runs. He now works in player development for the Dodgers. Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him on Bluesky at peteabeglobe.bsky.social‬.