The New York Yankees finished with the same regular-season record as the Toronto Blue Jays, despite the fact the Jays won both the American League East and represented the AL at the World Series.
Aaron Boone remembers that fact, and he is hoping to remind the rest of the baseball world how close the Yankees and Jays remain ahead of the 2026 season.
The Yankees manager called the gap “small” between the American League East rivals, who also are the two most recent AL champions.
The Blue Jays won the regular-season tiebreaker between the clubs, and therefore the AL East, due to their 8-5 record in head-to-head games.
Toronto, of course, knocked off the Yankees in four games in the American League Division Series en route to the World Series, where it fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games.
Aaron Boone: The Blue Jays Were ‘The Better Team’ in 2025
Boone called the 2025 Yankees the best roster he had, which was a key factor in them finishing even with the Blue Jays with 94 wins — the most in the AL.
âWe ended with identical records last year,” Boone said at the Winter Meetings in Orlando on Monday. “They obviously were a great team last year, and an eyelash away from winning a world championship.”
Still, he admitted the Jays were better than the Yankees on the field, proven by Toronto’s 11-6 record in head-to-head games, including the playoffs. Toronto went 8-1 against the Yankees with a 75-41 run differential at Rogers Centre, which became the new house of horrors for the Yanks.
“I donât want to discount that they kicked our [butts] last year; like, donât take it out of context,” Boone said. “They certainly proved to be the better team this year, and hopefully we can close that gap.â
The Yankees Could Argue They Are Better Than The Blue Jays
The head-to-head meetings aside, Boone is right to believe the Yankees are better than the Blue Jays — especially given his biases.
New York had a 97-65 expected win-loss record in 2025, three games worse than their final record of 94-68. The Yankees scored the most runs (849) and had the second-best run differential in the majors (+164) behind only the Milwaukee Brewers and did so without ace and 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole, who missed the whole season after spring training Tommy John surgery.
Toronto, conversely, went 27-20 in one-run games and had an expected win-loss record of 88-74 in 2025. It won 54 games at home — second-most in the majors behind only the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Yankees accomplished all that while Cole and standout right-hander Clarke Schmidt each mended from elbow surgery — Schmidt was in the midst of a seven-start stretch where he pitched to a 2.17 ERA when the Yankees shut him down, and the righty elected to have Tommy John surgery.
Plus, the Blue Jays’ offseason moves so far have looked like the team trying to keep up. They overpaid for righty Dylan Cease, giving the almost-30-year-old a seven-year, $210 million contract despite his 4.55 ERA last year with the San Diego Padres.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Yankees Manager Aaron Boone Sends Bold Message to Blue Jays at Winter Meetings appeared first on Heavy Sports.