The Yankees lose without home runs. That is not the whole argument.

The Yankees went 225–449 when they failed to hit a home run from 2010 through 2025. There is your ammunition for the next argument about the offense. Before firing it, though, check the rest of baseball. Other teams had much the same trouble.

Start with what actually happened. In the 16 completed regular seasons after the 2009 championship, from 2010 through 2025, New York played 674 games without hitting a home run. The Yankees won 225 and lost 449. That is a .334 winning percentage, with 2.59 runs scored per game.

Winning once in three tries is nobody’s idea of a versatile offense. It is also close to what everyone else managed in the same circumstances.

Our Retrosheet calculation puts the rest of MLB at a .327 winning percentage in its own no-homer games over the same period. Weight those other teams' season-by-season results to match the Yankees' distribution of no-homer games, and the comparison becomes .328. New York's .334 does not reveal an exceptional inability to win this particular kind of game.

A critic can still make a case against the roster. This statistic alone will not make it.

Power was an advantage, not just a dependency

When the Yankees hit at least one home run, they went 1,190–626, a .655 winning percentage, and scored 5.69 runs per game. The sharp difference from their no-homer record is real. Calling that difference proof that home runs caused every additional win is not.

These games were not played in a laboratory. Pitchers, parks, weather and available hitters all changed. A lineup having a good night may hit a home run along the way; a struggling one may do neither. Grouping the final scores tells us what happened, without isolating every reason it happened.

Nobody needs to apologize for scoring with one swing. The concern is what remains when that swing never comes. Can the lineup reach base and keep an inning going against good pitching? That is a better roster question than whether New York enjoys its home runs too much.

What happened against better starters?

We classified opposing starters by their season-to-date ERA before that day's games, requiring at least 30 prior innings. A starter qualified as above average on this measure if his ERA was below the league's. This is a measure of prior results, not a declaration of underlying talent, and it does not use his eventual season-ending ERA.

Against those starters, New York went 531–440 overall. In the 285 games when the Yankees did not homer, they went 86–199: a .302 winning percentage. The season-matched comparison for the rest of MLB was .300.

The result was similar with a stricter 60-inning requirement: .302 for New York, compared with .297 for the season-matched league group. A different check, using the pitcher's previous completed season with at least 60 innings, produced .324 for the Yankees and .308 for the comparison.

Across all three checks, the Yankees’ no-homer win rate was not worse than the comparison group’s. That is a problem for the sweeping indictment. It is not an acquittal of every lineup assembled over 16 seasons. A weak season or a bad acquisition can disappear inside an aggregate this large.

There is also a distinction between winning and hitting. In the primary above-average-starter group, the Yankees scored 2.28 runs per no-homer game; the other clubs scored 2.46 in their pooled comparison. New York's win rate alone cannot tell us how much of the outcome belonged to the offense, its own pitching or its defense. That scoring comparison is not season-matched and should not be presented as an adjusted measure of offensive quality.

Judge the roster, not the slogan

Name the change that would have helped: a different platoon, a hitter who reached base more often, a workable defensive replacement. Then compare the choices the Yankees actually had. That is harder than saying they depend on home runs. It also gives the argument a chance to lead somewhere.

There are 449 losses in that no-homer column. Nobody has to enjoy them. But if we are going to call them evidence of a distinct Yankees failing, we have to explain why the rest of baseball kept losing the same way.

About the data

This study covers completed regular seasons from 2010 through 2025, including regular-season tiebreakers. It excludes 2026 and postseason games. Rates exclude ties. The league comparison excludes the Yankees; season matching weights each league rate by the Yankees' decided games in the same category and season. These are descriptive comparisons, not causal estimates or tests of statistical significance.

Starter-quality categories use results available before the game date; earlier games on the same day do not change the baseline. Suspended games were reconstructed on actual play dates. Low-innings pitchers remain separate. All designated starters are included, including openers; ERA and a minimum innings threshold cannot distinguish every pitching role. Full-game runs and wins include the bullpen's work and are not labeled as results solely against the starter. The research also retains separate starter-charged runs, hits, strikeouts and outs for follow-up analysis.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org".