• Yankees trade for Johnny Cueto

To say Cueto is good is a pretty obvious statement (just look at his stats) but his fit with the Yanks make sense. Yankees pitchers seem to have a hard time pitching past the 5th inning at times, and Cueto led the league in innings last year. The Yankees could really, really use an ace (they could really use a lot of other things). Cueto is as perennial as an ace gets nowadays. Cueto’s home park in Cincinnati plays more terror to homers than Yankee Stadium does, so he could definitely handle the place.

• The Yankees will have a new second baseman

Pretty soon, Rob Refsnyder and Jose Pirela are going to be thriving too much in the minors for the Yanks to ignore. Time for the youngsters to shine.

• The Yankees make the playoffs…maybe, maybe not

The Yanks are at a rare time when a team looks like if everything goes wrong, they could lose 90 or more games. They also look like a team where if everything goes right, they could win 90 games. If they learn how to score some runs, the pitchers understand that not everyone can get injured, and the bullpen lives up to the hype, then they have a legitimate shot. A little bias here, but hey guys, I’m rooting for you.

Yankees need a boost in their offense and they could use a better right fielder. I think Babe Ruth would help out a bit for obvious reasons. For those few who aren’t aware of how good the Babe was, his 162 game average of 46 homers, .342 average, and .474 OBP would make him the best in the game by far even in a different era.

Breakout: Popular choice would be Michael Pineda but I think we all already know what he’s capable of. My choice is the currently Tommy John recovery victim Ivan Nova. Nova is a good kid with braces, a good curveball, and an up-and-down career. He had 16 wins in 2011 with a 3.70 ERA, then a horrendous 2012 with a 5.02 ERA, a bounce back 2013 with his lowest ERA yet, then a surgery-shortened 2014. If this every-other-year trend keeps up, this means 2015 is the year of Super Nova. His peak was when he was AL Pitcher of the Month August 2013, a month where I think he can recreate.

Regress: Dellin Betances will surely regress in a sense that he can’t have an all-time season again. My pick for the guy who will have a bad year though is Brett Gardner. He was a dynamic beast in 2009-2011, where he stole 40+ bases a couple times and was always on base to ignite the Yankee line up. Now, he’s been one of the most frustrating player on the Yankees for me. He’s still going to bring that great defense out, but offensively he just isn’t the same. He doesn’t steal bases enough for his speed. His strikeout rates get worse every year and it’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t even look like a slap hitter. He’s looking for home run. I think it’s finally going to create some problems in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IpiQQMiF40

I’d like to consider myself a forgiving man. My opinion on him as a person is pretty low but when it comes to baseball, if he can play baseball and not be a distraction to the team then I’ll welcome him back. I would never root against a player on a team that I root for. That’s not how rooting works.

Although rooting for him to do so bad that he decides to retire and relieve the Yankees of the bad contract and publicity doesn’t sound like such a bad idea now that I think about it…

Scoring runs.

The starting pitchers have great potential and we already know about that bullpen. The Yankees have Gold Glovers at first base, third base, center field, right field, a guy in left field who deserved one (Brett Gardner), and Didi could be a guy who wins one one day. Defense and pitching are nice, but none of that matters if you can’t score a run.

The Yankees lineup is full of players who have been elite run producers in the past. They have speed and on-base people at the front and lots of power in the middle. You’d think they score a lot of runs right? Wrong.

On paper, I believe it has to be second best or best (hello Kansas City) bullpen in baseball. Half of the players in the bullpen are new to the team so I can’t judge it all at once, but looking at it makes me wonder if this one strength can keep New York as a winning team.

Joe Girardi is going to have a fun time having two of the top 5 pitchers in baseball mixing and matching at closer and set-up man. Lefty Andrew Miller has been good for a minute now before going 2.02 ERA, 62.1 innings, and 103 K’s on us last year. Dellin Betances was just godly with a 1.40 ERA, 90 innings, and 135 K’s. With two guys that ridiculous the Yankees won’t have to worry about winning once they get the lead in the later innings. Take note that I say getting the lead…