ORLANDO, Fla. — The numbers told one story. The scoreboard told another. And Aaron Boone? He sees something different entirely.
The New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays finished 2025 with identical 94-68 records. Yet somehow, the teams never looked like equals. Toronto won the season series 8-5. The Blue Jays claimed the AL East title on a tiebreaker. Then they stomped the Yankees 3-1 in the ALDS, outscoring them 34-19 on the way to a World Series appearance.
So why does Boone believe the Yankees are closer than anyone thinks?
Boone calls out the obvious while making his case
The Yankees manager did not sugarcoat what happened. He spoke candidly at the Winter Meetings on Monday, acknowledging the painful reality of 2025.
“We ended with identical records last year. I don’t want to discount that they kicked our ass last year,” Boone said. “Don’t take it out of context. I would say the gap is [small]. We had the exact same record. But they obviously were a great team last year, an eyelash away from winning a world championship.”
The Blue Jays fell one game short in the Fall Classic, losing Game 7 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won ALCS MVP honors after tormenting Yankees pitching throughout October. Toronto looked like the dominant force in the division.
But Boone pointed to the standings as evidence that the separation is not as vast as it appeared.
“They certainly proved to be the better team this year, and hopefully we can close that gap and pass them and others this year,” he said.
The summer months changed everything
The head-to-head record was lopsided, but the damage was not spread evenly. Toronto went 6-1 against the Yankees at Rogers Centre. That included a brutal four-game sweep during the summer when New York was scuffling.
When asked how the Yankees could close the gap, Boone gave a simple answer.
“Well, I mean, playing better against them is the real simple answer,” he said. “At the end of the day, we ended up knotted with them [in the division]. But in the head to head, they kicked our butt, and especially in those summer months. In that stretch where we were scuffling a little bit, they beat us up, including a four-game sweep up there, and that obviously ended up really hurting us.”
That sweep cost the Yankees the division title. The tiebreaker went to Toronto based on the season series, giving the Blue Jays a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs.
The numbers that support Boone’s confidence
The Yankees were not pretenders in 2025. New York led all of Major League Baseball with 849 runs scored. The team bashed 274 home runs, setting a franchise record. Aaron Judge put together another MVP-caliber campaign, hitting .331 with 53 homers and 114 RBIs while leading the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS+, runs, walks, and total bases.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. became just the third Yankee in history to post a 30-30 season, joining Barry Bonds (1975) and Alfonso Soriano (2002, 2003). He slashed .242/.313/.500 with 31 home runs, 80 RBIs, and 31 stolen bases while earning his first Silver Slugger Award.
Max Fried anchored the rotation with a 19-win season and a 2.86 ERA. Carlos Rodon struck out 203 batters.
A side-by-side comparison of the two AL East rivals reveals the Yankees actually held advantages in several key categories. New York outscored Toronto 849-798 during the regular season. The Yankees also allowed fewer runs, surrendering just 685 compared to the Blue Jays’ 721. That run differential of plus-164 for the Yankees dwarfed Toronto’s plus-77 mark.
The power gap was even more striking. New York’s 274 home runs crushed Toronto’s 191 total. The Yankees ranked first in MLB in long balls while the Blue Jays sat tied for 11th. On the mound, the Yankees posted a 3.91 ERA compared to Toronto’s 4.19 mark.
Toronto did hold the edge in team batting average at .265 to .251. The Blue Jays also posted a 112 wRC+ that ranked fourth in baseball. George Springer bounced back with a monster year, hitting .309 with 32 homers and a .959 OPS on his way to winning a Silver Slugger at designated hitter. Bo Bichette rebounded to hit around .270 after a dismal 2024 campaign.
Yet the bottom line remained the same. Both teams won 94 games. The talent was there for the Yankees. The execution against Toronto was not.
Toronto keeps adding while Yankees stand pat
The Blue Jays are not resting on their success. Toronto has already signed Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million deal and added Cody Ponce. The rotation now features Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber, and Jose Berrios.
The Blue Jays also remain in the mix for Kyle Tucker, the consensus top position player on the free agent market.
Meanwhile, the Yankees have taken a quieter approach. They gave center fielder Trent Grisham the $22.025 million qualifying offer. They re-signed Ryan Yarbrough to a $2.5 million deal. They picked up Tim Hill’s club option.
General manager Brian Cashman has said the team wants to re-sign Cody Bellinger and is exploring trades to address a lineup that skews too heavily left-handed. But no major moves have materialized.
“They are now the defending American League champs,” Cashman said of Toronto. “We have to find our way to take that back from them and, at the same time, be better than everybody else in the league.”
Young core gives Yankees reason for optimism
Boone sees 2025 as the foundation for something bigger. He pointed to the growth of several young players who he expects to take their games to new levels in 2026.
“You’re always trying to improve your club and improve your team,” Boone said. “But also pause and say, ‘Hey, we’re pretty good here.’ And we’ve got a lot of really good players and a lot of really good young core players that emerged on different levels last year that we need to continue to grow in their big-league kind of journey.”
He specifically mentioned Jasson Dominguez, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, Ben Rice, and Austin Wells as players ready to elevate.
Schlittler was dominant in the Wild Card Series, beating Boston 4-0 in the decisive Game 3. Warren showed flashes in the rotation. Wells handled the pitching staff well while clubbing 21 home runs.
The Yankees believe internal improvement combined with key additions can flip the script against Toronto.
Boone knows how the message will land
As Boone walked away from reporters at the Winter Meetings, he flashed a knowing smile. He understood how his comments might be perceived.
“Boone Thinks They’re Better!” he jokingly whisper-shouted, imagining the headline.
But Boone was not backing down from his position. The 2025 Yankees had the most talented roster he has managed in eight years. The ending was painful. The Blue Jays dominated the matchups. None of that changes the math.
Both teams finished 94-68. Both teams were legitimate contenders. The difference came down to 13 regular season games and four playoff games against one opponent.
“The end of our season was frankly hard for me, because I felt like we were really good and healthy and peaking at the right time,” Boone said. “We got beat in a series against a team that we obviously struggled with last year in the Blue Jays. So it was hard, and you want to take stock in that.”
The gap may be small. Closing it will require the Yankees to solve a problem that haunted them all season. But Boone is convinced his team has the talent to do it.
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