The Yankees scored 858 runs last season, second in the majors to the Astros, and now they've added Giancarlo Stanton, the most prolific home run hitter in baseball.
But in addition, they hope to have Greg Bird healthy all season; they might have a blossoming slugger in Miguel Andujar; they believe Brandon Drury has 30-home run potential; and they are convinced Gleyber Torres will be an excellent all-around hitter.
Which raises the question: where might this offense stack up, in 2017 and years to come, with some of the famous juggernaut teams in Yankee history?
Can they outslug, say:
The 2009 team, the most recent championship team, that had perhaps the best offensive infield in history with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira?
The 1998 team that set a standard for excellence by winning 114 games?
The 1961 team of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris fame?
The 1936 team that scored the most runs in Yankee history of any that won a championship?
The 1927 team of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and the famed Murderer's Row lineup, to which all others are compared, at least in Yankee lore?
I'll get to the numbers, but for some perspective I asked Willie Randolph, who is here in camp as a special instructor, what he thinks the ceiling could be for this team, especially offensively.
Randolph, the great second baseman of the late 1970s championship teams, has been around the Yankees in one capacity or another for most of the last 40 years or so, and though he was quick to say he is always guarded about predicting greatness, he said this is the best collection of young talent he's ever seen in this organization.
"I really can't say I've seen anything like it," Randolph said Saturday. "I was around when the Core Four was here. I saw that mix. And I think there's more overall talent here than when that team was coming together.
"Don't get me wrong. I want to see how things play out. I always want to see how young guys deal with adversity, but I'm really excited about what I see.
"These young guys have all been brought up in the organization in a way where I don't hear a lot of "me."
They all talk about team, and they all come to work every day wanting to get better.
"I saw it with (Aaron) Judge last year. He blew me away with the way he handled himself, and I'm seeing it with a lot of these young guys now.
"It's impressive. And with some of the established guys to take the pressure off, I really like the mix of this team. They're going to be fun to watch. I mean, you saw what (Giancarlo) Stanton did (on Friday), right?
"It was almost like a check-swing and the ball went off the fence in right field. I love how he can go that way with ease. He's going to put some numbers up. It's going to be impressive."
Yes, as I wrote on Friday, Stanton left everyone in astonishment at his display of opposite-field power, lining a pitch a foot outside off the wall in right-center. As Randolph noted, Stanton's willingness to hit the ball the other way makes you wonder if he can top last year's total of 59 home runs now that he has that right-field porch at Yankee Stadium.
Considering the Judge-led Yankees outhomered everyone in the majors last year, racking up 241 home runs, this team should be a lock to eclipse that total.
But there will be a ton of strikeouts along the way as well. So can this team outscore great teams from the past that made more contact as well as flexed their own long-ball muscles?
Perhaps noteworthy, going by the average age of the lineups I mentioned earlier, via baseball-reference.com, the 2018 team could wind up being the youngest of them all.
As it is, the '27 Yankees were the youngest of those championship teams — the average age of all the at-bats taken that year was 27.8.
And since the average position-player age for last year's team was 28.6, it figures to be younger with the likes of Drury, Andujar, and Torres expected to get a lot of at-bats.
In any case, just how high is high?
The '36 Yankees, led by Gehrig and a young Joe DiMaggio, scored the whopping total of 1,065 runs in a 154-game schedule. They hit 182 home runs but more remarkably hit .300 as a team.
Only the '31 team scored more runs in Yankee history, with 1,067, but they didn't win the AL pennant.
Of course, it was quite a different era of baseball, when
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