NEW YORK -- The Yankees' clubhouse has a new vibe. When the media enters the locker room each day, around 3:20 p.m., the speakers are turned up and music is pumping. This wasn’t the case when icons like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran kept it strictly business.

Music was played on occasion back then, but it was rarely noticeable. On Monday in the Yankee Stadium home clubhouse, Drake’s “Hotline Bling” boomed loud and clear about three hours prior to first pitch, giving the place a little more of a nightclub feel instead of the staid office atmosphere of the old days.

While CC Sabathia and Aaron Hicks help pick the tunes, an unlikely source is the true inspiration for the post-trade deadline/post-A-Rod playlist -- rookie Aaron Judge.

“When I got here, Hicksie was always playing music," Judge said. "And then there were a couple of days without it, and I was like, 'What’s going on?' I always bugged Hicksie, 'Let's put on some music. Let's put on some music.' I think he just got tired of me bugging him."

With Judge not letting up, Hicks relented. “I finally said, ‘You do it,'" Hicks recalled. "That’s how he got on music duty.”

So DJ Judge was born. Before an oblique injury ended his regular season on Tuesday, the 6-foot-7, 275-pound Judge didn’t make a great impact on the field, hitting four homers and striking out 42 times in 84 at-bats, but in the clubhouse he has delivered some big hits. His emergence as a locker-room presence, despite his lack of big-league success in his limited time in the majors, is a prime example of the new Yankees clubhouse.

"I always bugged [Aaron Hicks], 'Let's put on some music. Let's put on some music,' I think he just got tired of me bugging him." Aaron Judge

These days, there is a different energy in the room.

“It is big,” Hicks said of Judge, a rookie, being entrusted with the DJ role. “We come from not really listening to music here to listening to music."

While it would be easy and convenient to draw a straight line between the Yankees' recent winning ways and the new soundtrack, it just wouldn't be true. This isn’t a story about how the Jeter/A-Rod/Beltran veteran approach was a failure -- because it obviously wasn't, given their results through the years. Instead, this is about a mixture of players, young and old, who are grooving to a different beat.

“I feel like there is more energy and intensity than we had before,” third baseman Chase Headley said.

No longer do you half expect 25 guys to arrive at the ballpark with briefcases. There is a more relaxed atmosphere around the team -- a combination of lower expectations, youth and a new batch of leaders. The trade deadline eased some tension in the room, relieving the uncertainty surrounding several players. The music got turned on, and the Yankees loosened up.

“There was just a sense of calm,” backup catcher Austin Romine said.

The deadline trades created some voids in the clubhouse. Leadership on a baseball team is often broken up into cliques. Nothing changed for the starters, as Sabathia remained the captain of the staff, though his days as an ace are long gone. But with Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman traded, Dellin Betances moved into the closer role and, though only in his third year, is now the leader of that unit. With the position players, when A-Rod and Beltran walked out the door, Yankees manager Joe Girardi thought Brett Gardner, Headley, Brian McCann and Mark Teixeira stepped in.

“Now it gets spread out a lot more because now you don’t have that one guy,” Girardi said.

McCann, a seven-time All-Star with an $85 million contract, has handled his demotion from starting catcher with grace and heaps praise on Gary Sanchez, calling the rookie backstop a “stud” and conceding the Yankees’ No. 1 job to him.

“There is nothing to fight,” McCann said. “He is as good as they come.”

A decade ago, McCann was in Sanchez's shoes. He flew through the Braves' system, reaching the majors at 21, driving the ball all over the place and making the All-Star team at 22 in his first full year in the big leagues. He dealt with an incumbent All-Star in Johnny Estrada.

“I was in [Sanchez’s] situation when I first came up,” McCann said. “If I was in that situation, I was always going to help him as much as I can. He is the starting catcher. He has done an amazing job.”

"[Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran] have earned the right to do whatever they wanted. Not that they did things the wrong way, but other guys see them do something, a young guy who has never been in the clubhouse before thinks, 'Oh, that is normal.' Maybe it is not normal. Those guys have earned that right to do that. It is probably not OK for some other guys to do those things, having to make a quick phone call or a FaceTime to your kids. It is perfectly fine if Carlos Beltran does it, but it is not perfectly fine if a rookie is doing that." Chase Headley

When iconic players like Jeter and A-Rod were in the clubhouse, they were the focus, even when they stopped being standouts on the field. With careers that reached the highest levels of fame, it was impossible for them not to be, which in most ways was a good thing.

In Jeter’s case, his no-excuses approach was passed down, while, in A-Rod’s, his addiction to baseball immortality pushed him to display an all-time work ethic. The standards were set high and went unchallenged -- probably rightly so.

In the first half, A-Rod and Beltran set the tone of a more placid clubhouse.

“When you have Alex and Carlos, their leadership styles, their personalities are going to dictate what goes on,” Headley said. “Once they left, it kind of changed a little bit. Their personalities, more laid back, just go out and play and do their thing. Now, it has been passed down. I think there is a little bit more energy, hands-on style of leadership going on than there was before. That is certainly not a shot at them.

“[Rodriguez and Beltran] have earned the right to do whatever they wanted. Not that they did things the wrong way, but other guys see them do something, a young guy who has never been in the clubhouse before thinks, ‘Oh, that is normal.’ Maybe it is not normal.

“Those guys have earned that right to do that. It is probably not OK for some other guys to do those things, having to make a quick phone call or a FaceTime to your kids. It is perfectly fine if Carlos Beltran does it, but it is not perfectly fine if a rookie is doing that.”

Now, though, a rookie is helping to set the rhythm of the clubhouse. With Sabathia and Hicks’ support, Judge became the team’s right fielder/DJ, and the change is apparent.

“For whatever reason, there is a better feeling in the clubhouse in terms of the energy,” Headley said. “That’s not [the traded players or A-Rod’s] fault. A lot of it, quite frankly, when you bring in a lot of young guys who are extremely hungry, who have not done anything in the major leagues, there is going to be an excitement to get to the park every day. Those guys have been there, have done that.”