There's leading a category, and there's asserting violent ownership of it. The 2018 Yankees, insofar as home runs are concerned, are an instance of the latter.
Going into Tuesday's slate, the Yankees lead the majors with 202 home runs. In second place are the Dodgers with 174. Stated another way, the Yankees have out-homered the second-most powerful team by more than 16 percent. That's a huge margin when you're talking about the top two in a given statistical grouping. Along similar lines, the Yankees have more than doubled up the last-place team (the Tigers, with 99 home runs).
None of this is especially surprising. After all, the Yankees in 2017 cracked an MLB-leading 241 homers and then added Giancarlo Stanton over the winter. Throw in the arrival of a couple of notable power prospects and what's going on now isn't all that surprising. At this point, the question is whether the 2018 Yankees will wind up setting the single-season record for team home runs. That record belongs to the 1997 Mariners, who mashed 264.
The current Yankee model has hit those 202 home runs in 124 games. That comes to a per-game average of 1.63. Scale that figure to 162 games, and that puts the Yanks on pace for ... 264 home runs. Yep, at the moment, they're on pace to tie the record of the '97 Mariners.
At this point, the question becomes whether the current Yanks model will be able to ever so slightly nudge up their current pace and break the record. On Monday, hard-hitting shortstop Didi Gregorius hit the disabled list with a left heel contusion. Already on the DL are fellow cloutsman Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez. Speaking of which ...
With Gregorius, Judge and Sanchez now all shelved by injuries, the Yankees are currently without players who have accounted for 30.7 percent of their home run production this season.
— Coley Harvey (@ColeyHarvey) August 21, 2018
Obviously, that's a blow. Sanchez hit the DL on July 24 with a groin strain, and Judge joined him three days later thanks to a chip fracture in his wrist. Since Judge went down, though, the Yankees have actually averaged 1.7 home runs per game. In part, that's probably a small sample size at work, but it's at least a bit of evidence that the Yankees' power capabilities go beyond the frontline performers. That'll be necessary, given that Judge doesn't have a clear time-table for his return (Sanchez should soon begin a minor-league rehab assignment).
To sum it all up, we'll turn to the SportsLine Projection Model (@SportsLine on Twitter). It projects the Yankees over the remainder of the season to decline from 1.63 homers per game to 1.55. That puts them in line for 261 total home runs. While they'd become just third team in MLB history to hit 260 or more dingers (the 2005 Rangers hit 260), they're forecast to come up three homers shy of the record. Obviously, it figures to be a close finish, and the 2018 Yankees -- while no doubt more focused on making and going deep into the postseason -- may wind up making homer history.
