As expected, the Yankees broke the single-season home run record last season. It’s usually silly to say a team or a player is expected to break a record, especially a home run record, but once the Giancarlo Stanton trade went down, the expectation was the Yankees would at least challenge the homer record, if not break it. Break it they did.

Here is a real quick recap of the home run records set by the 2018 Yankees:

• Single-season record with 267 home runs, three more than the 1997 Mariners.
• Most players with double-digit homers (12!).
• First team to get 20+ homers from all nine lineup spots.

That last bullet point is insane. Insane. The Yankees did not set the home run record because one or two (or three) players had historic power seasons. Stanton led the team with 38 homers and no one else had more than 27. The Yankees set the record with a deep power attack. They could hit the ball out of the park one through nine.

Despite losing Didi Gregorius for half the season or so, the Yankees are again in position to set a new single-season home run record in 2019. In fact, it’s not unrealistic to think they could shatter the record when you consider everything that worked against them last season. The Yankees hit those 267 homers last year despite …

• Aaron Judge missing seven weeks with a wrist injury (and being ineffective thereafter).
• Gary Sanchez missing two months with groin injuries (and being pretty bad when healthy).
• Giancarlo Stanton having what qualifies as a down season compared to the rest of his career.
• Gleyber Torres spending most of April in Triple-A.

“You get this whole team healthy, we’re going to crush the record that we set last year,” said Judge to Coley Harvey recently, stating the obvious. “We’ve got a good team, a lot of guys that could make a lot of solid contact, and a lot of big boys that when they make contact, man, it goes. We’re a team that’s primed and ready to do that.”

The health qualifier is a big one. We know the Yankees won’t make it through 2019 healthy — Gregorius is already hurt and Aaron Hicks is nursing a back issue — because no team makes it through the season healthy. Injuries are part of the game. The teams that best replace injured players are the teams that usually find themselves in October.

That all said, the Yankees should hit a lot of home runs even when they deal with injuries. Look at last season. Judge and Sanchez combined to play 76 fewer games and hit 40 fewer home runs in 2018 than 2017, yet the Yankees still set the record. This team is not reliant on one or two players. That’s what makes them so dangerous. It’s a deep offense.

From 1995-2017, fewer runs were scored per game in the postseason than the regular season, but homers per game went up. Translation: Home runs were more valuable in the postseason than the regular season. That was not the case last postseason …

• 2018 regular season: 4.45 runs per game and 1.15 homers per game
• 2018 postseason: 4.00 runs per game and 1.08 homers per game

… but last year is the outlier. The ongoing narrative that you can’t hit home runs in the postseason doesn’t jibe with the numbers, yet it persists. Whatever. Hitting a homer is the single best thing a hitter can do in any at-bat and last year the Yankees did it better than anyone. There’s reason to believe they’ll do it better than anyone this year as well.

Obviously the goal is to win games and the World Series, not set home run records, but one contributes to the other. Hit a lot of home runs and you’re going to win a lot of games. With good health, the Yankees very well might shatter last year’s home run record. Even with the usual slate of injuries, they still have a chance to dethrone last year’s record-setting offense.

“So far in camp, everybody’s healthy, everybody’s hungry and working hard,” Brett Gardner said to Harvey. “Yeah, I expect us to have a better year, collectively, and not just me, or Giancarlo or (Greg) Bird or whoever. But collectively as a unit, I expect us to be a better offense and score more runs.”

On the eve of pitchers and catchers reporting, there is one thing we know with absolute certainty about the 2019 Yankees: Their projected starting lineup will be very right-handed. With Didi Gregorius injured Aaron Hicks is far and away the club’s best left-handed threat, and he’s a switch-hitter. Brett Gardner can still grind out an at-bat like nobody’s business, but an offensive linchpin he is not.

Easily searchable team platoon split data goes back to 2002 and last season the Yankees gave 63.2% of their plate appearances to right-handed batters, their highest rate in that time frame. For reference, 58.9% of plate appearances league-wide went to righties in 2018. The team’s swing in right-handed plate appearance percentage over the last five years is pretty amazing:

• 2018: 63.2%
• 2017: 59.1%
• 2016: 40.1%
• 2015: 31.4%
• 2014: 35.8%

Four years ago the Yankees were very left-handed and we all complained they were too prone to infield shifts. Now the Yankees are very right-handed and the complaint is, uh, they strike out too much? The strikeout issues aren’t as bad as you may think — the Yankees had a 22.7% strikeout rate as a team last year, just above the 22.3% league average — but we need something to complain about, I guess.

“Hopefully we can get some balance with a more fluid offense that can score a lot of different ways,” Brian Cashman said during his end-of-season press conference and adding balance is not what happened this winter. The Yankees replaced Gregorius with the righty hitting Troy Tulowitzki and essentially replaced the switch-hitting Neil Walker with the righty hitting DJ LeMahieu. Also, Luke Voit is poised to fully replace Greg Bird at first base.

Last year the Yankees took nearly two-thirds of their plate appearances right-handed and, with Gregorius sidelined and Voit pushing Bird out of the picture, it’s possible they’ll take even more plate appearances right-handed this year. It is very un-Yankee-like. The franchise’s history is littered with patient and powerful left-handed batters and the new Yankee Stadium is tailor-made for lefties. That right field short porch is begging to peppered with fly balls.

Being so right-handed is not necessarily a detriment. The 2017 World Series champion Astros took 64.7% of their regular season plate appearances right-handed, for example. They pulled it off because they didn’t just have a lot of right-handed hitters. They had a lot of great right-handed hitters. Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, so on and so forth. The Yankees are cut from a similar cloth with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres, etc.

In fact, the lineup being so right-handed last season did not stop the Yankees from being one of the best hitting teams against right-handed pitchers. Their numbers and league ranks against righty pitchers in 2018:

• AVG: .254 (seventh best)
• OBP: .330 (fourth best)
• SLG: .471 (second best)
• wRC+: 115 (second best)

The Yankees were actually quite a bit better against righties (115 wRC+) than lefties (102 wRC+) last season, which is not what I would’ve guessed. We can’t chalk that up to small sample size noise either. The Yankees collectively had over 2,300 plate appearances against southpaws last season. I guess it’s just one of those things. I know if I were a lefty pitcher, I wouldn’t want to face the Yankees. I wouldn’t want to face them as a righty either, but I digress.

On the aggregate, the Yankees were very productive against right-handed pitchers last season despite having such a right-handed heavy lineup. That doesn’t mean there weren’t moments when being so right-handed worked against them. I think we all remember Justin Verlander cutting through the Yankees in early-May* …

… and Sergio Romo getting some key right-on-right outs with that frisbee slider in the late innings for the Rays. Overall, the Yankees were really good against righties last season. There were still times when a little more balance would’ve been nice, the same way a little more balance would’ve been nice when the Yankees were so left-handed in 2015. Same idea, different sides of the plate.

* Fun Fact: The Yankees won that game thanks to this.

Cashman and the Yankees had literally an entire offseason to add left-handed balance to their lineup and they instead doubled down on righties with Tulowitzki and LeMahieu. Michael Brantley, Daniel Murphy, and Jed Lowrie were all out there ready to add lefty thump to the lineup, but the Yankees passed. Bryce Harper and switch-hitter Marwin Gonzalez are still out there, yet the Yankees are showing essentially zero interest.

With Tulowitzki, the Yankees brought him because he is basically free and teams love free. Why pay something for something when you could possibly get something for nothing? With LeMahieu, it was about the total package. From Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d):

The Yankees viewed LeMahieu as the second-best free-agent infielder behind Manny Machado, ranking him ahead of Marwin Gonzalez, Jed Lowrie and the rest. LeMahieu, in the club’s opinion, offers elite defense and superior makeup, and some of the team’s internal data suggested he was under-valued offensively.

The Yankees didn’t ignore the lack of lefties because they’re dumb or oblivious. They just don’t value lineup balance much. Overall talent and expected production trumps handedness. The same applies to the pitching staff. Three lefty starters were acquired this offseason (J.A. Happ, James Paxton, CC Sabathia). Why? Because they were the best available players at their price points (which is another topic for another time). Not because they’re lefties.

Four right-handed hitting Yankees batted at least 300 times against right-handed pitchers last season and the worst of those four was Stanton, who hit .249/.328/.465 (112 wRC+) against northpaws, and that’s pretty darn good. Last year was last year though, and just because the Yankees hit righties well with a right-handed lineup last year does not mean they’ll do it again this year. There are three reasons I’m not sweating this though:

1. The righty bats are really good. It’s one thing to stack your lineup with righties like late career Vernon Wells and Kevin Youkilis, Eduardo Nunez, and Ben Francisco. It’s another to do it with Judge, Stanton, Torres, Andujar, and Gary Sanchez.
2. Most of the righty bats are young. Tulowitzki is 34 and LeMahieu is 30. They’re the exceptions. Stanton is 29, Judge and Sanchez are 26, Andujar is 23, and Torres is 22. Age-related decline is not a concern with these righty hitters.
3. Personnel changes during the season because that’s baseball. Who had Andrew McCutchen and Luke Voit hitting first and fifth, respectively, in the Wild Card Game at this time last year?

You can add Sir Didi’s eventual return here, giving the Yankees another lefty bat, though I’m inclined to treat anything Gregorius gives the team this year as a bonus. He is expected back at some point and that’s great. After a major procedure like Tommy John surgery, I prefer to prepare for the worst. Gregorius will probably hit the ground running when he returns. There is a chance he won’t though.

In a perfect world the Yankees would sign Harper and plop him into the middle of the lineup, mostly because he’s a very dangerous hitter and partly because he’s a lefty. That’s probably not going to happen, unfortunately. Greg Bird staying healthy and remembering how to hit would help balance the lineup, but, given his recent track record, it’s impossible to count on that. What you see is what you get with the lineup right now.

A righty heavy lineup is not inherently a bad thing. Again, the Astros won the World Series two years ago with a ton of righties. It can work. The Yankees have prioritized talent over handedness, and as the season plays out, they’ll have a chance to adjust the lineup as necessary. My guess is the right-handed heavy lineup will be one of those things that is discussed as a potential issue all season but is never actually a significant problem, kinda like last year.

As you’d expect with a team that won 100 games and went to the postseason, the Yankees pounded out several big hits this past season. Especially early in the year, when they went on that 17-1 run and seemed to come from behind in the late innings every game. You can’t win that many games without occasionally turning some high probability losses into wins.

With that in mind, it’s time for our annual look back at the five biggest base hits of the Yankees’ season. To do so, we’re going to use Championship Probability Added, which is essentially Win Probability Added on steroids. WPA tells us how much closer a play gets you to an individual win. CPA tells us how much closer a play gets you to winning the World Series.

Given the nature of the CPA, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn the team’s five biggest hits of the year came in the postseason. In fact, their 14 biggest hits of the year came in the postseason. Don’t worry, we’ll make some time for the clutchiest regular season hits later in the post. Let’s dig into the five biggest hits of the year according to CPA, shall we?

5. Sanchez vs. Price in ALDS Game Two

The Yankees’ fifth biggest hit of the regular season left the yard. With the Yankees already leading 1-0, Gary Sanchez clobbered a long solo home run against David Price in the second inning of ALDS Game Two. Price left a cutter up just enough and Gary did not miss it.

Sanchez’s career numbers against Price are absolutely silly. Including the postseason, he is 7-for-14 with six homers against Price. Four walks and only two strikeouts too. That’s a .500/.611/1.786 batting line. I usually don’t put too much stock into hitter vs. pitcher stats — I absolutely believe a hitter can “own” a pitcher and vice versa, though head-to-head numbers usually come in very few plate appearances, and it’s hard to know what’s legit and what’s noise — but man, when you’re 7-for-14 with six homers against a guy, I have to take notice. CPA: +0.009.

4. Judge vs. Price in ALDS Game Two

One inning before Sanchez gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in ALDS Game Two, it was Aaron Judge who gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead. That was homers in back-to-back at-bats for Judge dating back to the ninth inning of Game One. Price left a cutter out over the plate to Judge, and he walloped it over the Green Monster for a mighty no-doubt dinger.

That was huge, obviously. Whenever you drop Game One of a postseason series — especially a best-of-five series — you want to come out right away and take it to ’em in Game Two. Respond right away and don’t give the other team a chance to feel confident.

Also, my favorite thing about this home run is this picture:

Perfect. Just perfect. I know Price got the postseason monkey off his back in the ALCS and World Series, but it’s still comforting to know the Yankees crush him. Including the postseason, Price allowed 23 runs and eleven homers in 17.1 innings against the Yankees this year, and that includes one start in which he allowed two runs in six innings. Goodness. CPA: +0.009.

3. Sanchez vs. Rodriguez in ALDS Game Two

Right back to ALDS Game Two. It was a pretty important game, after all. Last game the Yankees won this season! Also the game that allowed them to tie the ALDS at a game apiece.

The Yankees were nursing a 3-1 in the sixth inning of ALDS Game Two and, as we all know, a two-run lead in Fenway Park is nothing. The game might as well be tied. Sanchez thankfully gave the Yankees some insurance with a very long — longest of the season, in fact — three-run home run against Eduardo Rodriguez. I enjoyed this homer greatly:

That was the longest home run hit by a Yankee this season and it was also the last home run hit by a Yankee this season. Sanchez came oh so close to a walk-off grand slam in ALDS Game Four and instead had to settle for a sacrifice fly (video). That non-homer won’t necessarily haunt me this winter — haunt is too strong a word — but damn, every once in a while I think about it and it bums me out. I thought it was the big one. CPA: +0.011.

2. Gregorius vs. Kimbrel in ALDS Game Four

Baseball is cruel. According to Championship Probably Added, the team’s second biggest hit of the season did not drive in a run. It wasn’t a walk-off hit or a game-tying hit or a screaming line drive or anything like that.

The second biggest hit of the season was Didi Gregorius’ ground ball single in the ninth inning of ALDS Game Four. All it did (“all” it did) was bring the tying run to the plate with no outs in the final half-inning of the season. It proved to be the Yankees’ final hit of the season and also Didi’s final pre-Tommy John surgery hit. Like I said, baseball can be cruel.

That dinky little single put two men on base with no outs. Judge drew a four-pitch walk to start the frame and, later in the inning, Luke Voit drew a walk to load the bases and Neil Walker took a pitch to the foot to force in a run. That’s when Sanchez hit his high non-homer. Sigh. CPA: +0.011.

1. Judge vs. Hendriks in AL Wild Card Game

The Yankees played five elimination games last postseason and went 4-1. The four wins were nice, but, ultimately, the one loss is the only thing that really counts. This year the Yankees played only two elimination games. They lost ALDS Game Four and went home. They got to the ALDS with a Wild Card Game win over the A’s.

The club’s single biggest hit of the season — both sabermetrically and emotionally, I’d say — came in the first inning of that Wild Card Game. Against A’s opener Liam Hendriks, Judge clobbered a two-run home run that gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the winner-take-all game.

That took the edge off a bit. The Wild Card Game is intense, man. We’ve been through them a few times now. Judge’s homer this year doesn’t compare to Didi’s Wild Card Game homer last year, but gosh, it was awesome. Also, I’m pretty sure this is the closest we’ll ever get to see Judge come to flipping his bat. Too bad the camera cut away so quickly:

Beyond putting two runs on the board in a winner-take-all game, that home run was also important because it showed up Judge’s wrist was healthy. Or healthier, anyway. Judge went 9-for-41 (.220) with one homer in 13 regular season games after returning from the disabled list and the homer didn’t come until his second-to-last game. Then he smashed that first inning homer in the Wild Card Game. At 116.1 mph, it was not only Judge’s hardest hit ball since the wrist injury. It was his hardest hit ball since June 4th, nearly two full months before the wrist injury. It was great to see. CPA: +0.019.

* * *

You’ve got to qualify for the postseason before you can get big hits in the postseason, and the Yankees, despite winning 100 games, didn’t lock up a postseason spot until the final week of the season. Such is life when four AL teams win 97+ games. Here are the team’s five biggest regular season hits by CPA:

1. April 26th: Sanchez’s three-run walk-off homer vs. Fernando Rodney (+0.004 CPA) (video)
2. May 9th: Brett Gardner’s go-ahead two-run triple vs. Craig Kimbrel (+0.004 CPA) (video)
3. May 29th: Gardner’s game-tying two-run homer vs. Chris Devenski (+0.003 CPA) (video)
4. May 3rd: Gleyber Torres’ go-ahead two-run single vs. Brad Peacock (+0.003 CPA) (video)
5. May 29th: Gleyber’s walk-off single vs. Peacock (+0.003 CPA) (video)

Now, for the sake of completeness, here are the five biggest regular season hits by WPA:

1. April 26th: Sanchez’s walk-off homer vs. Rodney (+0.66 WPA) (video)
2. August 31st: Gleyber’s go-ahead two-run single vs. Alex Wilson (+0.55 WPA) (video)
3. August 7th: Giancarlo Stanton’s go-ahead two-run homer vs. Tyler Danish (+0.49 WPA) (video)
4. May 29th: Gardner’s game-tying homer vs. Devenski (+0.47 WPA) (video)
5. June 20th: Stanton’s two-run walk-off homer vs. Ryan Cook (+0.43 WPA) (video)

By both measures, Sanchez’s walk-off home run against the Twins was the biggest hit of the regular season. That was win No. 6 during the 17-1 stretch. CPA and WPA are nice, it’s good to put a number on things, but big hits have a certain feel to them, know what I mean? To me, the biggest hit of the regular season felt like Gardner’s go-ahead triple against Kimbrel and the Red Sox. That was a wild back-and-forth game and Yankee Stadium had a postseason atmosphere in May. The place was rockin’. I can’t remember the last time a hit in May felt that important.

I usually pair the biggest hits post with a biggest outs post (biggest out by Yankees’ pitchers, that is), but I kinda gave them away already in the Dellin Betances season review post, so I don’t think there’s a need to dig back into it. Besides, four of the five biggest outs came consecutively. Here’s the list:

1. Wild Card Game: Luis Severino strikes out Marcus Semien to end fourth (+0.011 CPA)
2. Wild Card Game: Betances gets Matt Chapman to fly out for the first out of the fifth (+0.009 CPA)
3. ALDS Game Four: CC Sabathia gets Ian Kinsler to fly out to end the first (+0.008 CPA)
4. Wild Card Game: Betances gets Jed Lowrie to fly out for the second out of the fifth (+0.007 CPA)
5. Wild Card Game: Betances strikes out Khris Davis to end the fifth (+0.007 CPA)

And finally, if you’re a masochist and are simply dying to know, the biggest hit against the Yankees this season was J.D. Martinez’s three-run home run in ALDS Game One (+0.017 CPA). The biggest regular season hit was Justin Smoak’s grand slam against David Robertson (+0.004 CPA and +0.61 WPA) back during the first series of the year, when the Yankees intentionally walked Josh Donaldson to load the bases. That was far too much aggravation for the fourth game of the season.

There are few things in baseball more enjoyable than a no-doubt home run. The crack of the bat, the hitter stopping for a moment to appreciate what’s he done, the pitcher either getting mad at himself or owning it, the crowd ooohing and aaahing … they’re great. Few things energize the crowd like an out-of-nowhere monster home run.

This post is not about those home runs. We covered those homers earlier this week. This post is about the homers on the opposite end of the spectrum. These are the wall-scrapers. These homers generate a very unique feeling. These are the homers that keep you on the edge of your seat as you watch the ball in flight and wait to see whether it’ll land safely over the wall or stay in play. The thrill of the homer, the agony of the outfielder camped under it.

Yankee Stadium is known to give up hilariously short homers from time to time. Sometimes the short porch comes back to bite the Yankees. Most of the time, it helps them out. Since the ballpark opened in 2009 the Yankees have out-homered their opponents 1,183 to 923 at Yankee Stadium. Quite the gap there. Let’s break down the team’s five* shortest home runs of 2018.

t-5. Andujar vs. David Price

* You’re getting a bonus homer free of charge, folks. The fifth shortest homer of the season is actually two homers tied at the same distance, so I’m including both rather than picking a favorite.

I hope you’re all Miguel Andujar fans. You’re going to see him a bunch in this post. His 25th home run of the season — and his 67th extra-base hit — was one of those classic “what is he swinging at that pitch was out of the zone holy cow how did that carry out” Andujar homers. He seemed to hit a lot of those. This one was against David Price on September 19th. Landed a few rows back in right field.

With that home run Andujar joined Aaron Judge, Joe DiMaggio, Bobby Murcer, and Joe Gordon as the only rookies in franchise history to hit 25 home runs. Gleyber Torres was one short of joining the club. Distance: 340 feet.

t-5. Judge vs. Anibal Sanchez

Judge hit six homers in a ten-game span in late-June and early-July this year, and the fourth of those six homers was this short porch job in an interleague matchup against the Braves. Not a whole lot to this one. Anibal left a cutter up and Judge was able to reach out and drive the ball the other way.

Doesn’t Judge make that look so, so easy? It’s not. If it was, everyone would do it. Those seemingly effortless homers are among my favorites, even if they are Yankee Stadium cheapies. Distance: 340 feet.

4. Romine vs. Jalen Beeks

We’ve all seen countless short porch home runs that would’ve been caught for outs in other ballparks. What about the short porch homers that would’ve been foul balls elsewhere? This is one of those. On August 14th, Austin Romine slashed a fly ball to right field that stayed fair by a few feet and went for a two-run homer. Check it out:

If it were, say, 324 feet down the right field line at Yankee Stadium rather than 314 feet, does that make it out? Or does it slice just foul? I guess we’ll never know. Fortunately, it is 314 feet to right field, not 324 feet, and Romine’s home run put two runs on the board: Distance: 339 feet.

3. Andujar vs. James Paxton

Andujar hit 27 home runs this season and somehow only five were to the opposite field. Doesn’t that seem low? That seems low. I feel like Andujar did a good job spraying the ball around this year. I guess he did, but only so many balls to the opposite field left the yard.

Well, anyway, this homer was part of a three* homer attack against Paxton. I put the asterisk in there because one of those three homers was robbed. Giancarlo Stanton’s fly ball was over the center field wall, the replay made it clear as day, but Mitch Haniger brought it back. Alas. There was no bringing this one back though:

Big fan of Andujar’s helicopter follow through. This homer was not quite the full helicopter, but it’s close. This was the game No. 72 for the Yankees and homer run No. 10 for Andujar. He hit 17 homers in the final 90 games. Pretty good pace, that is. Distance: 399 feet.

2. Stanton vs. Dallas Keuchel

In an upset, the second longest home run by a Yankee this year was not hit in Yankee Stadium. It was hit in Minute Maid Park in Houston. In an even bigger upset, it was not Stanton’s little golf shot into the Crawford Boxes in left field. That homer somehow traveled 384 feet (?), according to Statcast.

No, the team’s second longest homer of the season was Stanton’s first homer of the game a few innings earlier. Keuchel left a changeup up a little too much and Giancarlo lined it into the right field seats for a two-run blast.

I love it when the Yankees bring the short porch on the road. Most hitters poke that pitch the other way for a single, or maybe far enough away from the right fielder for a double. Stanton hit a laser into the seats. That is Not Normal. Distance: 339 feet.

1. Andujar vs. Jaime Schultz

That’s right, the two shortest Yankees’ home runs this season were not hit at Yankee Stadium. Didn’t see that coming, eh? I’ve been doing these posts since 2012 and never before did the team’s shortest homer of the season come on the road, nevermind the two shortest.

Andujar’s third appearance on this list comes courtesy of a home run he hit in the “that’s for you, bitch” game. The Yankees scored four first inning runs against Schultz, the opener du jour, and put that game to bed early. Andujar’s dinger plated the team’s second, third, and fourth homers. Check this out:

Fun Fact: The Rays cut out that portion of the wall in the left field corner so Carl Crawford could rob home runs back in the day. Then Evan Longoria hit a walk-off home run to that spot in Game 162 in 2011 while Crawford failed to catch Robert Andino’s liner in Baltimore, which sent the Rays to the postseason and the Red Sox home following their September collapse. Good times.

Anyway, that ball left Andujar’s bat at 89 mph with a 30° launch angle. If I’m reading the Statcast breakdown correctly, batted balls with the same exit velocity and launch angle go for a home run only 2% of the time. The batting average on such batted balls is .087. Hit it anywhere else on the field, and it’s an out. Hit it down the line toward that little cutout at Tropicana Field, and it’s a three-run home run. Good times. Distance: 337 feet.

As far as home runs go, the 2018 Yankees lived up to the hype. The set a new Major League record with 267 homers, and they did that despite Aaron Judge missing close to the two months, Giancarlo Stanton not having a typical Giancarlo Stanton year, and Gary Sanchez being either hurt or ineffective all year. This club would’ve shattered the previous homer record (264 by the 1997 Mariners) with everyone at full strength.

As far as home run distance goes, the 2018 Yankees lagged behind the 2017 Yankees and the rest of the league. Part of it is the ball seemingly being de-juiced — there were 5,585 homers hit this season after a record 6,105 last season — and part of it is the aforementioned injuries and ineffectiveness. Some quick average home run distance numbers:

• 2018 Yankees: 394 feet (25th in MLB; MLB average: 397 feet)
• 2017 Yankees: 399 feet (18th in MLB; MLB average: 400 feet)

Blame the short porch. The Yankees certainly hit some long home runs this season, as we’ll see in the bit, but they also hit a ton of short porch Yankee Stadium cheapies, which drag down their average home run distance. I will happily continue to trade average home run distance rank for actual runs on the board in games. The Yankees really know how to use their home ballpark.

Anyway, dingers rule, and as a fan of dingers I’ve been putting these “five longest homers of the season” posts together since 2010. Last year’s post was an all-timer. Only one of the 35 home runs covered in the 2010-16 posts would’ve appeared in the 2017 post. This year isn’t quiet as majestic, but it’s still pretty fun. Let’s dive into the Yankees’ five longest home runs of 2018.

5. Stanton vs. Blake Snell

On Opening Day, Stanton clobbered two impressive home runs in the Game One win over the Blue Jays. Five days later he heard boos at Yankee Stadium after going 0-for-5 with five strikeouts. Fans, eh? The next day, in the team’s sixth game of the year, Stanton hit the team’s fifth longest home run of the season to silence the boos.

The first at-bat homer against likely AL Cy Young award winner Blake Snell was Stanton’s first homer at Yankee Stadium as a Yankee. (He hit one in the Bronx as a Marlin.) Also, that was the only game all year in which Judge, Sanchez, and Stanton all hit home runs. Happened once all year. Distance: 458 feet.

4. Sanchez vs. Kyle Gibson

Sanchez woke up on the morning of September 10th with a hideous .181/.279/.400 (84 wRC+) batting line in 308 plate appearances around two stints on the disabled list. He’d gone 3-for-25 (.120) with one home run in his first seven games back from his second groin injury, and while it’s somewhat understandable after the long layoff, it made it no less frustrating to watch.

Later that night Gary had what we all hoped would prove to be a big breakout game (it wasn’t) against the Twins. Sanchez had a homer, a single, and a double in the span of three at-bats from the sixth through eighth innings. Kyle Gibson served up the home run that broke the scoreless tie.

That is one of those home runs that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief. How could anyone hit that pitch in that location …

… that far out of the ballpark? That’s a 95 mph two-seamer diving down and in, and out of the zone. Sanchez was still able to get good wood on it and park it in the third deck at Target Field. Pretty wild. Distance: 460 feet.

3. Sanchez vs. Josh Tomlin

Poor Josh Tomlin. That dude allowed 25 home runs in 70.1 innings this season. That works out to a 3.2 HR/9. More than one every three innings. Here are the fewest innings among pitchers with 25+ home runs allowed in baseball history:

1. Josh Tomlin, 2018 Indians: 70.1 innings
2. Chris Young, 2016 Royals: 88.2 innings
3. Bruce Chen, 2006 Orioles: 98.2 innings
4. Danny Darwin, 1995 Rangers & Blue Jays: 99 innings
5. David Hernandez, 2009 Orioles: 101.1 innings

Two Orioles in the top five seems about right. Sanchez took Tomlin deep on May 4th for the 13th of those 25 home runs. It was the third home run Tomlin allowed in that game. Gleyber Torres and Judge took him deep earlier in the game, though neither hit the ball as far as Sanchez, who hammered a no-doubter to left.

Another pitch out of the zone. The Gibson home run came on a pitch below the zone and the Tomlin homer came on a pitch above the zone. Oddly enough, those are two of only three (maaaybe four) home runs Sanchez hit on pitches outside the strike zone this year. (The third is the walk-off homer against the Twins.) Distance: 461 feet.

2. Judge vs. Tony Barnette

Judge dominated this list last year. He hit five the team’s sixth longest home runs last season. This year, he hit only one of the five longest. Blame the wrist injury, which not only took away seven weeks of playing time, but also sapped his power a bit for the first few games following his return.

Long before the wrist injury Judge clocked his longest home run of the season and the Yankees’ second longest home run of the season. It came on May 23rd in Texas and this is the inevitable home run I couldn’t remember. Usually as I compile these posts, I see the distance and the hitter and the pitcher, and it’ll jog the memory of the homer. This one drew a blank. There’s always one each year. The video:

Ah yes, that’s the good stuff. That’s the classic “oh yeah, I got all of that one” Aaron Judge swing followed by quick step out of the box and a jog around the bases. That was the sixth homer as part of an eleven-homers-in-29-games tear for Judge that spanned May 4th to June 9th. Distance: 471 feet.

1. Sanchez vs. Eduardo Rodriguez

Plot twist: The Yankees’ longest home run of the year did not come during the regular season. It came in the postseason. It was the team’s longest homer of 2018 and also their last homer of 2018. At least it was one to remember.

In Game Two of the ALCS, with the Yankees holding a far too narrow 3-1 lead, Sanchez unloaded on a mistake fastball from Eduardo Rodriguez for a sorely needed three-run insurance homer. Look at this blast. Just look at it:

It’s hard to tell from the video but I’m pretty sure the ball cleared the big Fanatics sign and sailed out of Fenway Park entirely. Either way, Sanchez hit that ball out to the deepest part of the park and over the highest wall in baseball, and it was an absolute no-doubter. Second homer of the game for Gary too. Without them, the Yankees probably get swept in the ALDS. Distance: 480 feet.

* * *

It is in no way surprising that Judge, Sanchez, and Stanton accounted for the five longest home runs of the season for the Yankees. Actually, they accounted for the 14 (!) longest home runs by a Yankee this year. For the sake of variety, here are the team’s five longest homers hit by someone other than Judge, Sanchez, or Stanton:

1. August 27th: Gleyber Torres vs. Carlos Rodon (444 feet) (video)
2. May 20th: Austin Romine vs. Jason Adam (440 feet) (video)
3. May 20th: Tyler Austin vs. Erik Skoglund (440 feet) (video)
4. May 23rd: Neil Walker vs. Doug Fister (436 feet) (video)
5. June 13th: Gleyber Torres vs. Erick Fedde (435 feet) (video)

Austin Romine? Austin Romine. We only have four seasons worth of data, but that is not Romine’s longest home run of the Statcast era. He blasted a 442-foot dinger back in 2016 (video). Huh. Well, anyway, the homers by guys other than Judge, Sanchez, and Stanton aren’t quite as impressive, but that’s okay. They all count the same. Long home runs sure are fun though, aren’t they?