Simply put, sports is cyclical. While many fans will hate teams like the New England Patriots, Golden State Warriors, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees for having 'too much success', there are plenty of examples of the team doing poorly as well. For die hard Yankees fans, an absence of October baseball has stung at them since they were knocked out in the wild card game in 2012. While it certainly isn't the longest playoff drought by any means, it's now been six years since New York has experienced a playoff win.

While the Yankees have floated above .500 in each of the past four seasons, the front office has started to gear towards the future. But while New York looks to the future, the franchise also made moves this offseason to help them compete for a playoff spot this season. New York is in a transition year and while arguably the team should have focused completely this offseason on the future, they'll try and fight to stay relevant in the playoff hunt as the future core gets closer to coming together.

Now let's take a look at what to expect from the Yankees in 2017.

The Bats:

Gary Sanchez

As he climbed up through the minor leagues, Sanchez's bat was his calling card. But no one expected the numbers he put up this season, it was unprecedented. When the Yankees called up Sanchez for good on Aug. 3, the new era of the Yankees' catcher spot began. Over 225 plate appearances in the second half, Sanchez put up some of the best numbers in baseball. He hit the seventh-most home runs in the second half and played more than 10 games less than the batters above him, He led the majors in isolated power (.365) and had the fourth-highest wRC+ in the majors.

While Sanchez struck out in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances last season, he also drew a walk in 10.5 percent of his plate appearances. Scouts knew he would hit for power, but Sanchez's .299 batting average and .425 wOBA was unexpected. Certainly there was a portion of luck to his early success, a 40 percent HR/FB percentage is far from sustainable. Last season amongst qualified hitters, Ryan Braun held the top HR/FB percentage at 28.8, so regression is coming for Sanchez.

There will also be the second season adjustment for pitchers. They've had an offseason to watch some tape on Sanchez to find out what spots in the zone he crushed and where he struggled. The pitches they'll throw to him in 2017 could now be more frequently off-speed, picking different zones where Sanchez isn't able to just unleash on the ball and square it up for his power. 42 percent of his contact last season was hard hit and we'll likely see a drop in that number with the change in approach from pitchers.

As we look ahead to Sanchez in the 2017 season, regression will come. While Yankee Stadium's short porches certainly help with fly balls, Sanchez's rate will sink noticeably this season. He certainly can draw walks, but his second season should also see a significant share of strikeouts after he walked back to the dugout in 25 percent of his plate appearances last season.

With the HR/FB drop in addition to the drop in hard contact and increased strikeouts, we'll likely see a batting average in the range of .240-.260 with 25-30 home runs. It will still make for a tremendous season, but just not an MVP-caliber type that he put up in the miraculous second half last year.

Greg Bird

Bird is an unknown as New York heads into spring training. He came up in 2017 and was strong in his MLB debut with a .261/.343/.529 slash line with a 137 wRC+ and 11 home runs. Very good numbers for the rookie and something the organization hoped would give him confidence for 2016.

Then in late January, an old injury had come back. Bird played through a shoulder injury the summer before without complications, but now he had torn his right shoulder labrum. As a result, Bird missed the entire Yankees' 2016 season, but was able to play in Rookie ball for 17 games.

If the shoulder is completely healthy and Bird is back to his old self, he should easily lock up the first base job. Now with Mark Teixeira out of the picture, Bird possesses that power-patience combo the Yankees love to have.

When Bird was healthy, he drew a walk in over 10.5 percent of his plate appearances across each level he played at. He is your three-outcome hitter, so a strikeout percentage over 22 percent shouldn't be a surprise.

Bird's 2015 season really represents something close to what kind of numbers he could put up with 500-plate appearances. When Bird had more than 450 plate appearances in a season, he finished in the 17-22 HR range and with his power now landing in Yankee Stadium, 20 HRs is a reasonable mark.

It won't come with more than a .250-.260 batting average, but the more important number is Bird's wOBA. His ability to work the counts and draw walks from when he entered the minor leagues until now will continue to carry over and it should keep his wOBA in the .340-.350 range.

Starlin Castro

While overall the Yankees trade last year to land Starlin Castro might be a win since they re-acquired Adam Warren, Castro wasn't very good last season for New York.

Yes, Castro hit 21 home runs and had a .270/.300/.433 slash line, but he was a negative player defensively at second base and his 94 wRC+ and .313 wOBA aren't the type of offensive output and value you expect from someone who hurts your team defensively.

It was Castro's first time playing second base though, so it's possible now with a full year and an offseason under his belt, he'll head into the 2017 with a better understanding of how to play the position and can be respectable enough there to make it work.

If he does that, then some regression with the bat will be more accepted. He still has enough power to hit 16-18 home runs, but more concerning is the lack of walks. For the second year in a row, Castro walked in less than four percent of his plate appearances, meanwhile his strikeout percentage rose to 19.3 percent.

Soon to be 27, these are Castro's prime years and he certainly can fill the gap until New York's young middle infield prospects are ready to rise up to the majors a year or so from now. But in terms of overall value to a team, Castro's slightly below average in most advanced stats and it's more likely that his 2014 season with a 117 wRC+ and .341 wOBA was a fluke, 2013, 2015 and 2016 is the real Castro.

Didi Gregorius

The acquisition of Gregorius has proven to be a very good one for the Yankees. While he didn't put up much numbers wise in 2015, he was strong defensively and helped prevent some runs in a park where every run counts.

Last year, the fielding remained a positive for Gregorius and he added power to his game. After a 2015 season where he had just nine home runs and had never hit more than seven home runs at any level, the 26-year-old hit 20 bombs this past season.

The jump in power vaulted Gregorius' ISO from .105 in 2015 to .171 last season and he managed to bump up his batting average .011 points and increased his wRC+ by nine points. Part of the bump in power could be attributed to generating more power off the bat. Didi generated more power behind his swings in 2016 as his average exit velocity a miler per hour.

While 20 home runs might be a little too high for Gregorius, park factors and further development with the bat as he enters his prime years can certainly put him well within range of 15-17 HRs. He'll hit for enough average and power that combined with the defense, makes him a solid, young piece for New York going forward until Gleyber Torres is ready to come up.

Chase Headley

Simply put, Headley is the ultimate stopgap. Signed to a four-year, $52M deal before the 2015 season, Headley represents your average third baseman. For the second straight season, he gave the Yankees 10-plus home runs with a 90 wRC+ and played well defensively at the hot corner. He might be slightly overpriced at $13M per year, but he is the cardboard over the broken car window that is the Yankees' third base spot.

If there is good news for Headley, who comes off a 2016 season where he had a .251/.329/.383 slash line, it's that after May 4, he put up a .268/.343/.425 slash line with a 107 wRC+ and .331 wOBA over the rest of the season. He'll never hit 20-plus home runs again, but he'll keep the gap filled for another year or two until the Yankees find a third basemen for the long-term.

Brett Gardner

The Yankees best outfielder once again was not their highest-paid outfielder. Brett Gardner, who moved over to left field in 2014, put up the best numbers amongst New York's main outfield trio, but we also saw signs of age from the 32-year-old.

We saw the most significant drop from Gardner in the power department, where he went from a combined 33 home runs between 2014-2015 to only seven last season. The number of plate appearances, 600-plus, remained consistent and he hit around the same amount of doubles, but his HR/FB percentage dropped from 11 percent from '14-'15 to 5.9 percent in 2016.

Gardner did hit more groundballs than he ever had before with 52.3 percent of balls off the bat being grounders, so that partially explains part of the home run drop. But the lack of fly balls leaving the yard was a dramatic change from the past two seasons, though it matched up with his 2013 and 2008-2011, all of which he hit less than 10 home runs.

His average exit velocity off the bat did drop two miles per hour from 2015 to 2016, which could also in part explain the drop in the home run/fly ball rate. He also had four "just enough" home runs by ESPN's hit tracker measurements, but didn't have a single one this season.

Jacoby Ellsbury

Signed to a seven-year, $153M deal early in free agency, Ellsbury's career in the Bronx has not gone well. Due $21.143M over each of the next four seasons, Ellsbury's first season with the Yankees went very well offensively with 16 home runs, 39 stolen bases, a 109 wRC+ and .271/.328/.419 slash line. Then things seemed to fall off a cliff the past two seasons as his home runs dipped into single digits and he stole only two more bases combined over the past two seasons than he did in 2014.

Ellsbury was healthier in 2016 and played in 37 more games than the previous year, but he just performed at the level of an average outfielder. New York put him at the top of its lineup but Gardner only put up .308 wOBA over the season and even when he did get on base at a limited clip, Gardner's elite-level speed was gone and he was no longer as much of a threat on the base paths as he used to be.

There were some improvements at the plate for Ellsbury. He increased his walk percentage up 1.6 percent from the previous season with an increased amount of plate appearances, , he cut his strikeout rate down by four percent from 2015 and Ellsbury generated more power off the bat consistently. As a result, we saw nine more doubles and two additional home runs from him compared to the previous season, all of this a part of his isolated power jumping from .088 to .111.

This is likely where Ellsbury's numbers will sit around this season, a batting averaging hovering around .265, 7-10 home runs, 20 stolen bases and a 90 wRC+. This contract has not worked out for the Yankees and it's going to cling to their payroll for a while, but he's the probably the best option they have right now and managers will always play their highest-placed guys.

Aaron Judge

Likely a future piece of the Yankees' core, Judge earned a promotion to New York after an excellent stretch in Triple-A that saw him hit 19 home runs with a 147 wRC+ and a .219 isolated power in 93 games. While he did strike out in 24 percent of his at bats against Triple-A pitching, he also drew a walk in 12 percent of his plate appearances and held an excellent .384 wOBA.

Projection wise, there's plenty to love with Judge's 70-grade raw power and the potential for a 50-hit tool, but he's not there yet. That's the best-case scenario for Judge's career if he develops fully and reaches his potential. You saw glimpses of that potential throughout the minor leagues, though his best batting average at any level sat around the low-.280s, but his major-league debut sat on the opposite end of the scale for impressions.

Judge got a small simple size of major league pitching with 95 plate appearances in 27 games. He was able to hit his first four big league home runs, a display of the pure moonshot power he can unleash when everything lines up. So from that perspective, there were at least four positives to take away. But those four home runs made up basically a quarter of his hits across the 95 plate appearances. He had nearly as many walks (nine) as hits (15), but struck out 42 times, in over 40 percent of his trips to the box, Judge trotted back to the dugout with the bat in his hand and the ball in the catcher's mitt.

He'll learn from the miserable first cup of June that was his initial taste of the big leagues. Judge will always strike out a bunch, he's an aggressive hitter who puts a lot on his swings and either generates a lot of power off the bat or a lot of wind power from the swing and miss. But he isn't going to strike out 40 percent of the time, almost certainly not even 30 percent of the time across 350-plus plate appearances.

With half his starts coming in Yankee Stadium and many others coming in hitter-friendly American League parks. So 18-20 home runs is certainly achievable if he can win over the starting right field job and get a majority of the starts over Aaron Hicks. The batting average will be sub-.250, but the power, run-production and a few stolen bases will make him a good piece for the Yankees this season and even better for the future.

Matt Holliday

Two things should be noted with Holliday. First, the Yankees made a great decision to sign him to a one-year deal with the plan to make him their designated hitter. Two, New York cannot put him out there defensively. It doesn't matter if you are facing an N.L. team or it's a long stretch, Holliday's days in the outfield should be long over and unless it's pregame warmups, Holliday should only be out their if New York is in DEFCON2 situation during a game.

A look back at Holliday's 2016 season showed that health, or a lack of it, proved to be a problem for him once again. He had surgery in August for a broken thumb and missed all but the final three games of the season. He still generated plenty of pop, with 20 home runs and a .215 isolated power in 426 plate appearances. It marked Holliday's highest ISO since 2011 and gave a glimpse of the production he could still put up when healthy.

The move to designated hitter in the A.L. East is perfect for him. It should decrease the risk of an injury or further breakdown and allow him to focus more of his time just on hitting. For 13 seasons, Holliday has had a wRC+ over 100 and last year marked the first time since 2005 he had a wRC+ below 120 and the first time in his career that Holliday had a batting average below .270. Holliday remains a very good hitter and if healthy should hit 25 home runs.

The Arms:

Masahiro Tanaka

Tanaka is the thin thread that holds New York's rotation together and gives it some reliability. That comparison is also fitting, given he pitches with a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his pitching elbow. It could go at any point and it certainly leaves some concern going forward about how risky he is and what could happen if it goes. But despite it, Tanaka continues to pitch at a high level and turned in a great season in 2016.

Last season, we saw Tanaka take the next step and become a workhorse in New York's rotation. While he fell one out short of 200 innings pitched, he showed he can carry the workload for New York and serve as the team's ace.

We saw plenty of improvement from Tanaka last season, especially in terms of the long ball. After he allowed 25 home runs in 154 innings pitched in 2015, Tanaka reduced that to 22 home runs across the entire season in nearly 50 more innings. It's an important achievement and shows he is learning even more how to pitch in Yankee Stadium and what different ways he can use to attack major-league hitters.

Tanaka's command shined once again as he had a BB/9 below 1.5 and BB% below five percent for the third time in his career. While it seems like Tanaka's days of striking out a quarter of the batters he faces are over, he's still someone who New York can count on for 160-180 strikeouts in a season.

As he enters his fourth season, this will be a big one for Tanaka. While he signed. a big seven-year, $155M extension when he came over from Japan before 2014, Tanaka can opt out at the end of the 2017 season for a chance to cash in even more.

While it's a strange thing to say given who he plays for, Tanaka is one of the more underrated aces in baseball.

Michael Pineda

Pineda's career has certainly been a rollercoaster. From being a top prospect in the Seattle Mariners system and putting up great numbers as a rookie, through the trade to New York where everything seemed to go wrong medically and he wasn't able to pitch significantly until three years later.

But slowly he made his way back and in 2015 he turned in a quality season under the circumstances with a 4.37 ERA, 8.74 K/9 and a strong 3.34 FIP. After throwing 160 innings, Pineda was able to remain healthy and have a healthy offseason so he could head into the new season without any issues and just focus on improving.

There was certainly some improvement. The swing-and-miss stuff from earlier in Pineda's career was as strong as ever with a 10.61 K/9 and he surpassed 200 strikeouts for the first time in his career. It was a great strikeout ratio, but there were also several factors that led to a jump in his ERA to 4.82 last season.

Pitching in Yankee Stadium works against Pineda's tendency to generate fly balls. His fly ball percentage sits at 32 percent and in New York with the short porches, that translated into nearly one out of every five fly balls leaving the yard.

Pineda's 3.80 FIP indicated a pitcher whose defense and ballpark weren't especially helpful for preventing runs. That's further demonstrated when you factor in the .339 BABIP he had last season. That number is consistent with his .332 BABIP in 2015, but up until 2015 his career BABIP was below .280.

As we look toward the 2017 season, inconsistency will remain a problem for Pineda. There will be a stretch of starts where he strikes out nine batters, walks two and only allows two runs. But he can run into starts where the command is way off, he'll walk five and allow five runs.

The BABIP should come down this season, especially with Gregorius and Headley's consistency on defense and hopefully an improving Castro. If he can show improvement with the command and cut down on his walks while the defense behind him helps out on the balls in play, Pineda's ERA could drop below 3.9 for the first time since his 2011 rookie season.

CC Sabathia

It's a bit hard to believe given some of the numbers he's put up the previous three seasons, but Sabathia was a quality, healthy starter last season. Across 30 starts, Sabathia put up his best statistical marks since 2012. He registered an ERA under 4.0, raised his K/9 and lowered his WHIP, all at the age of 36. For Sabathia to even be healthy enough to make 30 starts carried value, but the numbers he put it up made his comeback season all the more remarkable.

What caused the drop in ERA is a worthwhile question. One stat that jumps out is the massive decrease in opposing hitters' batting average on balls in play against Sabathia. After three straight seasons of a .308-plus BABIP, Sabathia had a .288 BABIP this past season. Part of that drop is due to the fact that Sabathia generated more groundballs, a noted five percent jump in groundball percentage from the previous season. He generated softer contact and as a result the percentage of fly balls that remained in the infield jumped from 9.5 percent to 13.7 percent.

The lower numbers are tremendous, but fielding clearly played a major part in Sabathia's success this past season. Sabathia's 4.26 FIP demonstrated a pitcher who more so got lucky more times than not. Sabathia's BABIP more likely than not will rise up again past the .300-mark, which would follow the trend of his career over the past five seasons. A rise in BABIP in addition to this alarming 3.26 BB/9 last season raise the risk of more hitters taking advantage of the base runners he puts on and driving them in. If he can stay healthy, Sabathia should be better than what we saw from him from 2013-'15, but it's highly unlikely we see him repeat his numbers from last season. For the time being, he makes for an acceptable No.3 starter on a team that is in a transition year.

Luis Severino

Severino simply put was excellent in his rookie season. While it was limited to 62 1/3 innings, Severino struck out 56 batters. He also kept runners off the base paths for the most part with a 1.20 WHIP and he kept the runs down with only 20 allowed, a 2.89 ERA in 11 starts.

He entered 2016 with a rotation spot locked up, but things went downhill rather quickly. For as great as Severino's K/9 was in his rookie season and a stellar ERA, it covered up more alarming numbers. A 4.37 FIP, 3.18 BB/9 ratio and .265 BABIP.

Those numbers are the greatest indicators of regression and it hit Severino like a brick wall last season. In sevens tarts to begin the season, he allowed a whopping 49 hits, 10 walks, eight home runs and 29 earned runs across 35 innings. His ERA skyrocketed to 7.46 and he averaged two home runs per start. It was a disaster for New York and they shifted the young righty into the bullpen.

New York sent him down to the minor leagues to work his command and further improve his secondary pitches. In 11 starts at the minor-league level, Severino showed flashes of his top form with 59 strikeouts and a 1.07 WHIP across 66 2/3 innings with a strong 3.11 ERA and 2.95 FIP.

He came back up to the big leagues in late July and worked as a long reliever, with two starts mixed in between July 27-September 22. Across 23 1/3 innings out of the bullpen, Severino allowed a single run and limited the 86 batters he faced to a .105/.209/.158 slash line. Remarkable numbers that were in quite contrast to the .337/.389/.587 slash line he allowed over 47 2/3 innings as a starter.

As we look ahead to the 2017 season, Severino should have a good chance to start the year in New York's rotation, but command and more variance in his pitches is mandatory. If he continues to just use his fastball-slider combo with 90 percent of his pitches, he'll make things too easy for hitters and they'll crush him. Severino is just 22 and still has so much to learn about how to pitch around the strike zone and where to work against major-league hitters.

2017 may not be as rough as what we saw last season, but Yankees fans shouldn't expect too much this season nor should they write him off if the numbers aren't as strong this year. Severino has a bright future, but it could take until he is older and more experienced before the real brightness comes out.

Chad Green

The competition for the fifth starter spot will include a handful of names. Green, Adam Warren, Bryan Mitchell and Luis Cessa. It should carry deep into spring training, though Warren is likely favored to go to the bullpen and that could make it a three-man race. 

Green could have a leg up on the competition as he ended the year in the Yankees' rotation with five starts. But across 22 innings as a starter to end 2016, Green allowed 27 hits, nine walks and five home runs. His final two starts of the season also only went for a combined 6 1/3 innings. But his work in Triple-A is really what stood out for New York and earned him the opportunities. Across 13 starts in Triple-A, Green struck out 27.4 percent of the 365 batters he faced and limited opponents to a .198 batting average.

If Green wins the gig out of spring training, he should put up respectable numbers for a fifth starter in the American League. He's going to run into some issues with walks, but he could turn in 100-plus strikeouts with enough innings and keep his ERA around in the low-mid 4's.

On the Farm

Before July, the New York Yankees had a strong farm system. With the likes of Aaron Judge, Jorge Mateo, Gary Sanchez and James Kaprielian. The future was bright for The Bronx, but General Manager Brian Cashman wasn't done yet. New York traded away star relievers Aroldis Chapman, who they bought extremely low on from the Cincinnati Reds and Andrew Miller in a matter of days. In return, New York further frontloaded its farm system with potential stars for the future.

Given how much talent is in the system, let's take a look at some of the young talent that could lead New York to greatness in the future.

Gleyber Torres - SS - 20 y.o.

The centerpiece of the return for Chapman, the hype machine continued to run full blast after he crushed High-A pitching. Across 511 at bats between Chicago and New York's High-A clubs, Torres carried a .349 on-base percentage, .413 slugging percentage, 11 home runs, 22 steals and 31 doubles. The young shortstop displayed his tools against good competition for his age, then took it to the next level in the Arizona Fall League where he smashed three home runs, six doubles and had a .403/.513/.645 line in 18 games.

He is slowly growing into his body and as he adds more muscle to his game and continues to develop his swing, Torres should be able to generate more power and he has shown a good eye at the plate that has allowed him to draw walks and generate a high OBP. Defensively, he's expected to be above average for the position with 55-grade fielding ability and arm strength, tied in with excellent instincts can project him to hold up well at the position.

If as Torres grows and gains muscle he loses some of his range for the position, he can easily be flipped over to second base where his bat will still play very well at the position and his defense would certainly put him in the above-average range. If the tools continue to develop, Torres could become a star middle infielder for the next eight-plus years for the Bronx Bombers.

Clint Frazier - OF - 22 y.o.

New York acquired two star prospects in July from reliever trades and Frazier was the second. While he isn't as heralded and recognized as Torres, Frazier is largely a top-20 consensus prospect in all of baseball and offers tantalizing potential.

The 22-year-old has progressed through the ranks since Cleveland drafted him with the fifth pick in the 2013 Amateur Draft and reached Triple-A in the middle of the season. Frazier displayed some of the ridiculous potential he has at the Double-A level, where in 89 games he put up a .276/.356/.469 slash line with a 129 wRC+, 13 home runs, 13 stolen bases and 25 doubles. Impressive stuff from a 21-year-old at the time. If you watched him play when it all clicked, few hitters across the minor leagues had the bat speed, quick reaction and power that he could generate behind the swing.

But it's also important to note that even at the Double-A level, Frazier struck out in 22 percent of his plate appearances. There has always been serious swing-and-miss to his game with an aggressive approach at the plate that has led to a strikeout percentage over 20 percent at every level of competition he has faced. It's a real concern going forward and can raise serious doubts about if he can reach his potential. 

Frazier's first experience at Triple-A certainly didn't go as well as New York or he hoped. In 165 plate appearances, Frazier struck out in 46 of them and had a .229/.285/.359 line over that stretch. The lack of contact on the ball in addition to a miniscule 6.7 walk per rate. 2017 should provide him an opportunity to better himself and turn things around, now with a better understanding for Triple-A pitching and a full offseason working with Yankees coaches to further develop his swing and approach at the plate. The upside could see Frazier be a perennial All Star in the outfield, but there's sizable risk attached to him as well.

Blake Rutherford - OF - 19 y.o.

Another benefit of the Yankees recent early ends to the season have been higher draft picks. It's how the team landed Kaprielian in 2015 and how New York walked out of the 2016 Amateur Draft with Rutherford. The 19-year-old handled his first taste of the minor leagues well, though a hamstring injury limited him to 100 plate appearances in Rookie ball. He made the best of it with two home runs, seven doubles, four triples and a .382 batting average.

If he was a year younger when he entered the draft, Rutherford's skill set probably lands him in the top-seven selection given his tools and that he's a left-handed bat. But despite being a bit older than other high school grads in the draft, his 60-grade power and hit tool jumped off of scouting reports and 50-grade speed represented even more potential for a multi-dimensional outfielder. Fielding is not his calling card, but when you have a high-caliber hit tool and are further developed than other hitters coming out of high school, the defense won't matter as much.

There could be some questions about where he plays in the future given the number of young outfield options New York will have, but that's a problem for the future. Rutherford should be a fun bat to watch progress in A-ball this year and if he performs well, could move up to High-A later in the season. Yankees fans likely won't see him until 2020, but the young slugger offers plenty to get excited about going forward.

Jorge Mateo - 2B/OF - 21 y.o.

Burn, baby, burn. Mateo is one of the fastest players across all of baseball, that includes the major leagues. Speed is largely his game and it was on display in High-A this year where he stole 38 bases. What makes that number all the more impressive is it could climb even higher once the bat starts to develop more. But there are major questions with Mateo, both on the diamond and off, that could keep him from big-league success.

Consistency with the bat and getting on base remains a major concern for the 21-year-old. Last season, Mateo turned in a .245/.299/.362 slash line, an ugly mark for a player at that level. To make matters worse, Mateo struck out in over 21 percent of his plate appearances. The hitting hasn't exactly come along yet, but scouting reports still peg him for an above-average hitter. A big reason for that is his excellent bat speed, which is a reason many continue to believe he will reach his potential. But his overaggressive approach at the plate and poor eye for the zone, could make it a slower development.

Another question Mateo faces is maturity after the Yankees suspended him for two weeks in July. Before the MLB Futures Game, New York suspended Mateo after he complained to management when he didn't receive a promotion to Double-A. It irked the team and his High-A manager and resulted in questions about his attitude.

Long-term, this should all be a distant memory as Mateo's hit-speed combo can make him a dangerous weapon on a major-league roster. He might be a second basemen, a position he picked up last season, long-term or he could be shifted to center field after he experimented with it during the offseason. Multi-position versatility paired with his tools make him one of the top-60 prospects in all of baseball.

James Kaprielian - SP - 22 y.o.

New York is in need of young, reliable major league pitching and it's another reason why they drafted Kaprielian with the 16th overall pick in the 2015 Amateur Draft. The young right came out of UCLA with a closer ETA to the big leagues in the wings. A young, polished arm that had a good start in Low-A right out of college built further momentum for a quicker climb to the big leagues, but things got thrown off course in 2016.

After just three starts, Kaprielian went down with a strained flexor tendon that cost him most of the season. What made it worse is how sharp Kaprielian performed to start the 2016 season. While it was only 18 innings, he struck out 22 batters, walked only three and had a 1.50 ERA over that span. His fastball also showed increased velocity, further solidifying his repertoire going forward and made him even more appealing pitching prospect.

He did return to the mound at the end of the season with 27 innings pitched across seven starts. Naturally, a pitcher who missed the previous five months with an arm injury would struggle. In his return, Kaprielian allowed 22 hits, 13 runs, four home runs and held a 26/8 K/BB ratio.

The injury likely kept Kaprielian from starting the 2017 season in Double-A, a costly year of development likely left in the past now. The 22-year-old should still be able to make quick work of High-A batters now that he's healthy and could spend the second half of the season in Double-A if all goes well.

Justus Sheffield - SP - 20 y.o.

Another big piece acquired in the Andrew Miller trade, Sheffield continues to put up good numbers at every level despite his own numbers not being on his side. Like with all sports, height is given favor in scouting and standing at 5'10", Sheffield doesn't have that on his side. 

But the numbers speak for themselves, especially from his 2015 season on. Sheffield started 2015 with Cleveland's Low-A affiliate and posted a 2.99 FIP, 9.73 K/9 and just a 0.56 HR/9 across 127 2/3 innings. It earned him a promotion to High-A the next season, where he once again impressed. Across 19 starts, Sheffield limited opponents to a .250 batting average with a 22.8 strikeout percentage and 3.59 ERA.

After the trade, New York kept Sheffield in High-A early on. But after five starts, where he limited opponents to a .157 batting average and paired it with a 0.92 WHIP and 1.73 ERA, New York bumped him up to its Double-A club. The jump had mixed results for Sheffield, which was from a 20-year-old at a new level. He did strike out 17 batters over 12 2/3 innings, but it also came with nine walks and 12 hits.

As we look ahead to the future, Sheffield's tools will continue to develop. His fastball-slider combo could both develop into 60-grades and as his command improves, while he doesn't have the top-level stuff to be a front-line starter, Sheffield could make for a reliable No.3 starter in a few years.

Domingo Acevedo - SP - 22 y.o.

What Sheffield lacks in height, Acevedo more than makes up for. As he steps onto the mound, a 6'7" righty stares down at his competition. When he winds up to pitch, the young pitcher out of the Dominican Republic can sling a fastball that tops out in the triple digits. He is the raw, projectable hurler who teams drool at the chance to get and New York has worked along slowly to help him develop the overpowering stuff.

Acevedo made it up to Low-A to start the 2016 season, it wasn't pretty for the hitters who faced him. Across 42 2/3 innings, Acevedo struck out nearly 30 percent of the batters he faced and held opponents to a .218 batting average against him. Acevedo's command shined as well with just seven walks allowed to 164 batters faced, a 4.3 walk percentage. As a result, New York bumped him up to High-A, where the success continued.

He wasn't fazed by the challenge of higher competition. Across 10 starts, Acevedo registered a 9.66 K/9 rate with a 2.90 FIP and had a 54/15 K/BB ratio. It's likely Acevedo spends more time in High-A given the history of how New York has brought him along. If he continues to show great command with the 70-grade fastball and a changeup that could reach a 60-grade level, those are two premium out pitches to work with and slider in progress, it's a great three-pitch combo to have.

The biggest question that faces Acevedo is where he sticks in the major leagues. Of his 18 total starts in 2016, he only went for six-plus innings in eight of them. With documented shoulder problems and a limited workload, the concerns about Acevedo's ability to stick in the rotation over the course of a season. While he is on the older side for a developing prospect, Acevedo's stuff will play in the majors. Whether it's as a late-inning reliever or No.4/Mo.5 starter, Acevedo's durability and ability to carry a workload this season will be a key factor that determine his future role.

Potential 2020 Lineup

C - Gary Sanchez

1B - Greg Bird

2B - Gleyber Torres

SS - Didi Gregorius

3B - Manny Machado

OF - Aaron Judge, Jorge Mateo, Clint Frazier