TAMPA, Fla. — Aaron Boone’s first message to the 2025 New York Yankees, delivered at Steinbrenner Field in mid-February when all uniformed personnel were still beardless and an ulnar collateral ligament had not yet torpedoed their ace’s season, was about hunger. Having the hunger to win. Fighting for it.

“It’s not just a given,” said Boone, who is entering his eighth season as the team’s manager. “The early indications tell me I do think we have an edge to us, a purpose to what we’re doing. But it’s early. We gotta live that.”

For the Yankees, and their fan base, expectations never fluctuate. It’s forever World Series or disappointment, and disappointment has punctuated each of the past 15 seasons.

That appetite spiked coming off a 2023 season in which the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years. This season, the hunger is amplified by a vastly different result in 2024: The Yankees reached the World Series only to squander a five-run lead in a home elimination game against the Los Angeles Dodgers — with one of the worst defensive innings in postseason history.

Baseball is a sport that requires people to constantly flush away inevitable failure to move on to the next pitch, the next at-bat, the next game. But, as Boone knows, failure can also serve as a motivator. His players are learning all about that, too.

“I think some of those things, some of those feelings you don’t necessarily get over ever,” 23-year-old shortstop Anthony Volpe said. “But I think our team and our clubhouse has done a pretty good job of using those things and those feelings to push us to new heights and new things. I think the best part is I don’t think we’ll ever get over that.”

The inning-long disaster gave way to an equally long offseason: seeing Juan Soto defect to the rival New York Mets in free agency this winter, losing ace Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery this spring. Now, with a reshuffled roster, the Yankees will look to move forward, starting with their season opener Thursday at Yankee Stadium against the Milwaukee Brewers.

How do the players — and the franchise — bounce back?

“When you mess up a couple of times in one game, especially in the biggest game of the year, it sucks,” Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “Then that brings in the hunger for this year. Like everybody is ready to roll. Everybody’s super excited. Everybody’s locked in.”

THE TEAM THAT plays Thursday in the Bronx will be very different from the one that took the field on the eve of Halloween, the last time Yankee Stadium hosted a baseball game.

That night, the fifth-inning debacle — made possible by three two-out miscues, opening the door for the Dodgers to score five runs — did not ultimately cost the Yankees the World Series. New York rallied and led 6-5 entering the bottom of the eighth inning before fumbling another lead. But it is the infamous fifth inning’s sequence of events — Judge dropping a routine fly ball in center field, Volpe committing a throwing error, Cole not covering first base on a ground ball to Anthony Rizzo that should’ve ended the inning without a run scored — that will be remembered.

“I mean, it’s tough,” Cole said. “Just gotta carry it like a battle scar.”

Said Boone: “I feel like it’s going to sting forever. And that’s what I said to the guys immediately after the game. Hard for me to say if the way it happened, if that makes it sting any more. I don’t know. Getting to where we got to and the amount of success we had last year and not finishing it off, it hurts.”

Baseball history is littered with postseason collapses. Several of them have happened in New York, including in 2003 at the old Yankee Stadium, when Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little stuck with Pedro Martinez in the eighth inning with a 5-3 lead in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. The decision backfired. The Yankees rallied to tie the game and, in the 11th inning, Boone — then a Yankees infielder — clubbed a Tim Wakefield knuckleball into the left-field stands to send New York to the World Series.

But Boston proved you can reach the summit after hitting rock bottom — the Red Sox exacted their revenge in the ALCS against the Yankees the next year by becoming the first team in major league history to overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-seven series.

“Losing Game 7 [in 2003] was devastating, and it’s hard not to have that linger a little while into the offseason,” said Miami Marlins assistant general manager Gabe Kapler, an outfielder on both the 2003 and 2004 Red Sox teams. “And we definitely felt like we were as good or were better than the Yankees in 2003. We made some important additions in that offseason, and we felt like going into 2004 we were poised to make a run.”

In the days after the World Series, the Yankees received another dose of motivation. Members of the Dodgers emptied a saltshaker on an open wound when they criticized the Yankees in various podcast interviews, pointing out that they entered the series expecting to exploit New York’s subpar defense and baserunning. Around this time, too, bumper stickers of the Fox score bug from the fifth inning — showing the Yankees up 5-0 with two outs — went viral.

Jon Berti, a Yankee in 2024 who signed with the Chicago Cubs during the offseason, said Dodgers players “disrespected” the Yankees with their criticism. Boone said he hopes his team will handle winning the World Series “with a little more class” if it does so. Yankees reliever Luke Weaver said he didn’t understand the motivation for the comments. Other Yankees steered clear.

“What am I going to say?” said Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, the reigning AL MVP. “You win, you can kind of say whatever you want. If you don’t like it, you got to play better.”

The Yankees won for most of the 2024 season, finishing with an AL-leading 94-66 record before knocking off the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians to claim the pennant.

“I think there’s a blend of like, pride and confidence for how well we played, for how long we played,” said Cole, who will act as an unofficial pitching coach this season while he recovers from surgery. “And then there’s like a little chip. There’s like a little edge. So it’s a nice blend of like, ‘Hey, we know we’re good. We know we can get back there.'”

The Yankees’ attempt to return will come in a wide-open American League. PECOTA, Baseball America’s widely cited projection system, predicts the Yankees will finish with 85 wins, enough for a third-place finish in the competitive AL East, the seventh-best record in the AL and a 51.1% chance of making the playoffs.

This year, they will rely on a new group of veterans — headlined by lefty ace Max Fried, All-Star closer Devin Williams and former MVPs Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt — and a wave of young position players — Volpe, Jasson Dominguez, Austin Wells and Ben Rice will begin the season as regulars — to absorb Soto’s departure and a rash of injuries. And to become that last team standing, they’ll have to play better when it matters most.

“In my two seasons, I think there’s always been laser focus,” Volpe said. “But I think there’s probably just that little — I mean, a pretty big chip on everyone’s shoulder.”

THIS OFFSEASON WAS full of change for the Yankees — and represented a shift in their place in the landscape of Major League Baseball. The Dodgers, not the Yankees, are now the organization irking owners around the sport with their lavish spending, again positioning themselves as World Series favorites with a lucrative revenue stream from Japan and a projected payroll more than double that of 16 other teams, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Meanwhile, the Mets lured Soto to Queens after his sensational season in the Bronx — a previously unthinkable notion for the little brother franchise in the decades before billionaire Steve Cohen bought it.

Even the Yankees’ traditions have changed. Last month, hours before the club’s Grapefruit League opener, owner Hal Steinbrenner announced a modification to the organization’s long-standing facial hair policy — since 1976, beards had been outlawed, with free agent signees famously changing their signature looks upon becoming Yankees. “Well-groomed beards” are now allowed, though the definition of “well-groomed” remains unclear.

Days later, the team confirmed — in the wake of the Dodgers celebrating their World Series title to the song on the field at Yankee Stadium last fall — that Frank Sinatra’s rendition of the theme from “New York, New York” will be played only after wins. The song — for several years Liza Minnelli’s version was used after losses — had been played after all Yankees home games since 1980.

Of course, much remains the same. The oft-stated win-or-bust goal stands. And the Yankees’ projected payroll is again more than $300 million, fourth in the majors.

Upon hearing Soto’s decision, GM Brian Cashman sprang into action, making a series of moves in December to overhaul the roster. The Yankees signed Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract two days after Soto chose the Mets. Williams, strikeout specialist Fernando Cruz, Bellinger and Goldschmidt were acquired over the next 10 days. The front office didn’t spend enough to fix everything — upgrading third base remains unchecked on the list of priorities — but the transactions raised the team’s floor.

“I think we addressed some needs or some deficiencies more so than we would’ve been able to had we brought Juan back,” Boone said. “But there’s a lot of different ways to do it. And I think if it has to be one way, you limit yourself a little bit.”

Regardless, a series of blows this spring is already testing the team’s depth.

Losing Cole leaves the Yankees’ projected top-tier rotation without its No. 1 option. Luis Gil, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, will miss at least the first two months with a lat strain. Clarke Schmidt will begin the season on the injured list with a balky back.

With those three sidelined, Carlos Rodon will be the team’s No. 2 starter and will get the ball for Thursday’s season opener. Marcus Stroman, who reported to camp not expected to make the rotation, will begin the season as the No. 3 starter. Will Warren, a 25-year-old rookie, and Carlos Carrasco, a 38-year-old non-roster invitee to spring training, round out the group.

Giancarlo Stanton, who, alongside Soto, powered the Yankees’ postseason run with a Herculean October, has torn tendons in both of his elbows and will miss substantial time, if not the whole year. Their veteran third-base option, DJ LeMahieu, is hurt again. Other concerns include Dominguez’s defense in left field and a shortage of right-handed hitters to better balance the lineup.

“All you’re trying to do is create that type of momentum to when you finally get everything you want, it’s on the right trajectory,” Weaver said. “So it’s kind of weathering the storm, so to speak, in order to hopefully see that rainbow.”

The Yankees, as they have done in each of the past four years, could acquire a player in the final days leading up to the start of the regular season to bolster the roster. Last season, in need of a third baseman, they traded for Berti the day before Opening Day.

“I think we have a good team,” Cashman said, “and we look forward to testing it when we deploy March 27th.”

The 2025 Yankees will undoubtedly be tested. By the injuries. By the rest of the American League. By the weight of what happened during — and since — Game 5.

“You think about any loss, you can’t really sit there and dwell on it,” Judge said. “Whether it’s losing Game 1 or losing Game 5, a loss is a loss. We just didn’t do our job.”