Three Yankees most likely to homer off old friend Nestor Cortes
03/29/2025 07:15 AM
Which Yankees sluggers have the best shot to go yard in the second game of 2025?
The Yankees played a winning note to open their 2025 campaign, holding on to a 4-2 victory over the Brewers on Opening Day. It appears this new-look Bombers offense will have to bash its way to victory and that was certainly the case on Thursday.
Austin Wells — already the first catcher in franchise history to lead off a game for the Yankees — opened his team's account by becoming the first catcher in MLB history to hit a leadoff home run on Opening Day. The other half of the chicken parm bros followed suit shortly after, Anthony Volpe doubling the Yankees' lead in the second with a solo shot of his own. We managed to go one-for-three in our Opening Day home run prediction, Madison correctly tabbing Wells to go yard, so let's see if we can do even better by predicting the three players most likely to homer in game two this afternoon.
New York faces a different test than Opening Day starter Freddy Peralta as they are set to face old friend Nestor Cortes in just a few hours. The Yankees traded Cortes to the Brewers for closer Devin Williams over the winter. The 30-year-old lefty resurrected his career in his third stint in pinstripes, going 28-19 with a 3.33 ERA, 3.68 FIP, and 495 strikeouts in 489 innings across the last four seasons with the Yankees.
Few southpaw starters rely on their fastballs more than Cortes — he threw his four-seamer and cutter a combined 73.6-percent of the time, second behind Garrett Crochet in fastball usage rate. He lives at the top of the zone with that pair of pitches, particularly in early counts or when behind the batter. As such, we should look for three Yankees hitters who are capable of handling elevated heaters that stay on plane.
Aaron Judge
Although the Brewers kept the captain in the yard on Opening Day, Aaron Judge remains a no-brainer decision solely based on the fact that no one has come close to hitting as many home runs as he has over the last four years, his tally of 196 a full 18 more than second-place Shohei Ohtani. No hitter has performed better against the four-seamer than Judge in the same timeframe, his 95 Statcast runs above average against the pitch bettering second-place finisher Juan Soto by 16 runs.
Judge struggled with timing in the first month of games last season, but at just 92 mph, Cortes' fastball might be the perfect velocity for Judge to send into the bleachers.
Paul Goldschmidt
Paul Goldschmidt went 0-for-4 in his Yankees debut, but his resurgent second half of 2024 that saw him post a 120 wRC+ as well a productive spring in which he slugged three homers and a 156 wRC+ provide hope that there is still gas left in the tank of the 37-year-old former MVP.
A lot of his second-half success owed to a renewed ability to crush the fastball. In fact, a lot of his results were dragged down by an awful April and May — across the final four months, Goldschmidt posted an expected slugging of .517 and 56.4-percent hard-hit rate against the four-seamer. He has destroyed lefties his entire career and that remained the case in 2024, Goldschmidt maintaining a 134 wRC+ against opposite-handed pitchers. Thus, the matchup against Cortes appears ripe for Goldschmidt to open his Yankees account.
Austin Wells
I normally would not pick a left-handed batter to homer off a lefty. However, the combination of Wells' scorching-hot spring that he appears to have carried into the regular season as well as a mechanical adjustment he's made with his swing relative to last season provide confidence he can make it back-to-back games with a home run to open his season. Wells crushed three home runs in his final three spring games followed by his leadoff blast on Opening Day, so he is by far the hot hand in the Yankees lineup.
More encouraging was the pitch that Wells sent over the short porch on Thursday, a chest-high 93.4 mph four-seamer from Peralta. Pitchers found a hole in Wells' swing toward the end of last season — fastballs on the inner-half and belt-high or above — and their exploitation of that zone led him to post a 22 wRC+ in the final month, likely costing him the AL Rookie of the Year to teammate Luis Gil.
Regardless of whether or not it was partially a result of fatigue in his first full season as a major leaguer, Wells' swing became quite long through the zone by the end of the season, meaning he has zero shot of catching his barrel up to the pitch above. His bat sails well below the pitch as it passes practically over the label.
Compare that with his swing on the leadoff jack on Thursday:
The swing appears shorter and more compact, Wells pulling his hands in to get the barrel to a pitch on the corner up and in. However, the bigger adjustment I see is a much faster rotation of his upper half, clearing up a bunch more room for his bat to rotate freely and stay on top of the elevated cheese. With this revamped swing, Wells has a good chance to do similar damage on fastballs that the Yankees know Cortes likes to throw to this zone.
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