It's early, but the Yankees' situation with DJ LeMahieu is looking really bad

Don't you worry, Yankees fans. When there's an overwhelming positive development down at spring training, we will be ALL over it. We would like a promising and special 2025 season. But so far the preview is not suggesting that.

On top of all of the injury issues, New York is dealing with an incomplete roster, one that might very well feature DJ LeMahieu in a prominent role. As incredible as DJLM was in 2019-2020 — and we'll give him credit for his Utility Gold Glove winning season in 2022 — he's largely been a detriment in 2021, 2023 and 2024, subtracting all of the positive production from those previous years.

Over those three seasons, he's been worth 1.2 WAR across 353 games. He essentially lost all of his power and elite contact abilities. His mobility has been severely hampered as well, contributing to a -0.4 dWAR across that span.

And it's apparently not getting any better. Upon arriving to spring training, LeMahieu issued some pretty depressing comments about his struggles ever since signing six-year, $90 million contract (another objectively bad move from the front office, given his age), which already set a gloomy tone.

Yankees' DJ LeMahieu not faring well upon arrival to spring training

LeMahieu added that he took two months off from hitting over the offseason, which was "the longest break he can remember." It was an attempt to reset his body after he's been out of wack for a majority of the last four years, but of course there's no guarantee that will solve any of his issues.

To make matters worse, we have Yankees beat writers trying to throw LeMahieu undeserving bones during live batting practice:

A "possible single"? How so? If second basemen didn't exist? Or if, for some sickening reason, another team put on a heinous defensive shift? Even if there was a slight shift, that ball wasn't hit hard enough to get through.

Then came the really bad video. LeMahieu had another live batting practice at-bat against Yankees minor-league Luis Velasquez (never heard of him) and struck out rather embarrassingly. Velasquez has never ranked inside the Yankees' top 30 prospects and is currently No. 43 on FanGraphs.

Is any of this indicative of how LeMahieu will perform in 2025? Not necessarily. But it's either more of the same (or worse) of what fans have witnessed from 2021-2024. And it doesn't help that Aaron Boone came out and said that he wouldn't be surprised by a resurgent DJ campaign if the veteran can get back to full strength.

It appears we have ways to go before even considering that possibility. Right now, it seems like the Yankees would be lucky if he could hold down a role as a backup infielder.