The American League East is wide open and is a division that probably doesn't have a consensus favorite. The New York Yankees would seem to be a contender, as they enter this season a little bit younger in some spots and hoping to snap their two-year postseason drought.
What are the three important stats to keep an eye on in 2015? Here’s a quick look.
Offense: Will we see a return of home cooking?
In their first four years at the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees scored 1,810 runs -- more than any team other than the Rockies -- and hit 511 home runs, 56 more than the team with the next-most.
But the last two seasons, the Yankees offense has cratered and ranks 21st in runs scored at home. The Yankees still hit a decent number of home runs (the seventh-most in baseball at home over the last two seasons), but their 245 combined doubles and triples at home are the fewest in that time.
This is where someone like minor league second baseman Rob Refsnyder could make a big impact if given a chance to play later this season. Refsnyder had 58 extra-base hits in the minors last season.
More immediately, keep an eye on someone like Chase Headley, who had only four combined doubles and triples in 35 games in the Bronx last season. Those numbers don’t jibe with his usual rate of producing such hits and it would figure that he would improve in his first full season in Yankee Stadium.
Pitching: Can the starters stay healthy?
A starting rotation of Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia, Nathan Eovaldi and Adam Warren looks good on paper. But that comes with a huge if, as in if those five can stay healthy for an entire season. Tanaka’s elbow, Pineda’s shoulder and Sabathia’s knees are among the game’s most fragile body parts to watch in 2015.
Last season, Hiroki Kuroda was the only Yankees pitcher to finish the season with more than 20 starts. The only other time that the Yankees had so few 20-start pitchers was in 1989, when Andy Hawkins was the only one. The Yankees cannot afford another season of trying to patch together a starting rotation, given that their options for replacements are limited, barring a trade for someone like Cole Hamels.
Defense: How much value will the Yankees get at shortstop?
It seems as if the gloves have come off this winter, as fans and followers have acknowledged how the Yankees lacked defensively at shortstop towards the end of Derek Jeter’s career.
Didi Gregorius is a player with great athletic gifts and potential, whose Defensive Runs Saved numbers (he was right at major-league average with 0 Defensive Runs Saved in 2014) do not yet match up to those of the best in the game.
That potential still seems to be there. Baseball Info Solutions tracks defensive performance for major league teams and media and credited Gregorius with 41 "Good Fielding Plays" in his 580 innings played last season.
That prorates to a rate of 70.7 per 1,000 innings, which ranked best among the 35 shortstops who played the most last season.
Gregorius’ ratio of Good Fielding Plays to Misplays & Errors ranked sixth-best in that same group. Of the five players who ranked above him, four were at least seven Defensive Runs Saved better than Gregorius.
The good news is that even if Gregorius is an average defensive player (which is basically a worst-case scenario), just his play in the field should theoretically be worth a win or two more than the Yankees have gotten the past few years.
Mark Simon writes about the Mets and Yankees for ESPN NY. You can follow him on Twitter at @msimonespn