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MLB loves its bombs and dingers

If you like dingers, taters, blasts, bombs, big flies, wallops and round-trippers, then the New York Yankees may be the team for you.

Major League Baseball digs the longball. So do fans.

The Yankees will have 13 feet and 530 pounds of slugger in Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the middle of their prodigious lineup this season.

The duo combined for 111 homers, 246 RBI (and 371 strikeouts) in 2017.

Only once in Major League Baseball history has a set of teammates hit 50 or more home runs in the same season. That, of course, was in 1961 when Roger Maris (61) and Mickey Mantle (54) accomplished that feat for the Yankees.

Yes, it’s nuts to have both of those guys in the same lineup.

But what makes the Yanks so dangerous is just how many other dudes they have who can hit the long ball.

And the pop can come from virtually every spot in the order.

Greg Bird hit nine homers in just 147 at-bats in an injury-riddled season. That’s a 30-home-run pace over a full season.

Gary Sanchez hit 33 bombs in just 122 games. Aaron Hicks went yard 14 times in 300 at-bats and Didi Gregorius has 30-homer potential.

Even Brett Gardner hit 21 homers last season.

The Yankees could be doing a lot of yardwork in 2018.

Lineups in the MLB these days are all about striking fear into opposing pitchers.

And then there’s the Pirates, who have a lineup that doesn’t scare anyone.

Other than Andrew McCutchen (and only in the two months of the year that he is hot) and Josh Bell, no one in that lineup is going to make a pitcher’s teeth chatter.

The Bucs were 29th in baseball in home runs last season with a mere 151. Only the Giants were worse with a meager 128.

Of the 12 playoff teams last season, only one hit fewer than 200 homers as a team. That was the Red Sox, and they were knocked out in the first round by the World Series champion Astros, who were second in all of baseball in dingers.

It’s not hard to see that if a team wants to succeed in today’s game, it needs sluggers.

And a lot of them.

That’s why free agents J.D. Martinez and Eric Hosmer figure to get top dollar this offseason.

Those two can hit cannon shots with the best of them.

Martinez blasted 45 homers last season. Hosmer hit 25, but has more pop in his bat than that with the right team and in the right ballpark.

Clout gets the dough.

Of course, baseball is a cyclical beast. Home runs are on the rise now, but these things tend to even out.

It wasn’t long ago when pitchers were dominating and teams were happy to have a couple of 30-homer guys.

For now, though, Ruthian blasts are all the rage — and the key to winning.

Just ask the Yanks.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.

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