Offensively, the Yankees can lay claim to once again being one of the most impressive collections of talent in the history of baseball. This is a club that was able to deal Gary Sheffield, a hitter approaching 500 home runs, without batting an eyelash.

It all starts at the leadoff spot, with centerfielder Johnny Damon. Though it’s hard for Yankee fans to cheer for him and he throws like a girl, Damon brought a pesky dimension to the top of the Yankee order that the club hadn’t had since the days of Chuck Knoblauch. Damon’s numbers, other than a career-high 24 homers, didn’t blow you away (.285, 35 2B, 80 RBI, .359 OBP), but he does so many things that you can’t get from the box score. Watching him work pitchers and fight off tough strikes with a swing that would get someone cut from a high school team, you begin to realize how much the Red Sox really lost when Damon skipped town.

After Damon, Derek Jeter continues to be the best ‘intangibles’ player in baseball. Jeter gets a bad rap because he’s a pretty boy (true), he plays for the Yankees (true) and doesn’t put up incredible power numbers (also true). Still, he was robbed of the MVP Award when it was given to Minnesota’s Justin Morneau. How many players hit over .300  with 30+ homers and 120+ RBI? Not a ton, but several right? Ok, now, how many guys hit .340 with 97 RBI from the two-hole, all while playing the most important defensive position on the field and being the captain of a team that is considered a failure if it doesn’t win the World Series that suffered catastrophic injuries to two of its best hitters? I’m not saying Jeter deserves any sympathy (he’s got enough money to pay people to sooth his ego), but he did deserve to win the MVP.

Bobby Abreu, assuming his oblique strain is ready to go, will hit third and should have a monster year. Abreu came to the Yankees in a midseason steal (highway robbery) with the Phillies, with the reputation of not being able to carry a team. That sounded great to the Yankees, a team full of guys that have been looked at to carry teams in the past. Abreu can be just one of the guys here and his style of spraying line drives to all fields reminds me of another left-handed hitting rightfielder that Yankee fans once adored, Paul O’Neill. Hitting behind Damon and Jeter, in front of A-Rod, and with his incredible plate discipline, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Abreu to top 110 RBI for the first time in his career. And keep in mind that after hitting only 8 homers in 98 games with the Phillies, Abreu smacked 7 in only 58 games with the Yanks. So much for having lost all his power after the 2005 Home Run Derby.

A-Rod is a whole other column, but for the purpose of this preview let’s leave it at this: A-Rod’s either going to snap out of it on his own or not. Everyone and their brother has a theory about why one of the most talented players in baseball history (not an exaggeration) has struggled so mightily in pressure situations since coming to the Yankees. There have been moments that looked like turning points—a walkoff extra-inning home run against the Braves last summer comes to mind—that haven’t resulted in Rodriguez shaking off the choker’s mantle. And now that Peyton Manning has finally won a title, the monkey is officially on A-Rod’s back. Another 35-homer 120 RBI year won’t mean anything without the ring that he’s always said he came to New York to win.

Jason Giambi is another Yankee that hasn’t won the ring he came to New York to pursue. He’s finally back to his old power numbers (37/113 in ’06), but will probably never again be the .300 hitter he once was in Oakland. That’s fine with the Yankees as long as he continues to put balls in the seats, and a .253 average is a lot easier to swallow when you pair it with a .413 on-base percentage as Giambi did last season.

Leftfielder Hideki Matsui was out with a wrist injury for most of last season, but picked up right where he left off upon returning, hitting nearly .400 in the 19 games he played at the end of the year. And now that his consecutive games streak is over, Torre can be more liberal about giving him a day off here and there to keep Godzilla fresh. A return to a 30/100 year with a .300 average is within reasonable expectation.

Jorge Posada had perhaps his best season last year at age 35, hitting 23 home runs and driving in 93 while batting .277 and playing in 143 games. He also had an excellent defensive season. Still, the team needs to find an eventual successor to the switch-hitter, just as Posada was groomed to take over for Joe Girardi in the late 90s. Wil Nieves is penciled in as the backup, but he’s not the future in New York, so expect the Yankees to actively pursue a catcher in the next few years.

Second baseman Robinson Cano can lay claim to being among the best in the game at his position and last season he led baseball in road batting average (.364) for the second consecutive season. Like Wang, Cano is a bargain at less than $500,000 and the Yankees hope that he can shake the nagging injuries that have limited him to 132 and 122 games in his first two seasons. If he can, 25 homers and 100 RBI wouldn’t be too much to ask. Pretty darn good for a # 8 hitter.

Doug Mientikiewicz was brought in to play good defense at first, but he was hitless in spring training at last check so it remains to be seen how long that will last. He’s supposed to be half of a righty/lefty platoon with either Josh Phelps or Andy Phillips. Phillilps has been tending to his mother, injured in a car accident, in Alabama, and Phelps has been tearing up the Grapefruit League, so it will be interesting to see which player wins the job. Miguel Cairo returns to back up at the other three infield positions, and young Melky Cabrera will see plenty of action as the fourth outfielder. Cabrera showed he can be part of the team’s long-term plans by softening the blow of Sheffield and Matsui’s injuries last year with his excellent play, including a phenomenal catch against Manny Ramirez in a big game in the Bronx.

Yankee fans should be encouraged by the team’s strategy change under Brian Cashman. Rather than dealing young talent (Melky Cabrera came up in several trade talks this offseason), Cashman acquired it in deals with the Diamondbacks and Tigers. If he continues on this path and resists the urge to trade players like Cabrera, the Yankees will ultimately reap the benefits, just as they did in the mid-90s when the farm system produced Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada in quick succession. Speaking of Williams, he’s a notable exception at camp this year, having refused the Yankees offer of a minor-league deal and a spring training invite. It's unfortunate for such an integral part of the Yankee dynasty to be forgotten, but out of sight, out of mind.

Once again, the New York and Boston will be neck and neck in the AL East with the dark horse Blue Jays hoping to pull off a major upset. And we all know that it might come down to which former team Roger Clemens chooses to return to that walks off with the division. Expect 95-100 wins for the Yanks this season, and I’m betting that at least 5 of them come from the right arm of Phil Hughes. (And I’m hoping that another dozen or so come from the Rocket, starting in June.)

2006: 97-65 (1st in AL East, lost to Detroit in ALDS)