Despite some uncertainty heading into the season, the New York Yankees are still proving to be one of the best teams in the league.

After a strong offseason, the Yankees came into the spring as arguably the team to beat in the American League. However, injuries hit the franchise hard during the spring with multiple key players hitting the injured list.

Losing their ace, Gerrit Cole, looked like it could have crippled the team, but fortunately Max Fried has been an ace in his place. Even though Fried has performed well, there have been a lot of inconsistencies in the rotation and the back end of the bullpen that need to be cleaned up.

Furthermore, even though the team was built on a strong starting rotation and bullpen, it has been the offense that has carried the load for much of the year so far.

This might come as a surprise considering they lost a star to free agency, but New York has seemingly moved on rather easily.

Jim Bowden of The Athletic (subscription required) recently wrote about why the Yankees should be optimistic about the season and highlighted their offense as being one of the best in the league despite a star departing.

“The Yankees’ offense is doing just fine in life after Juan Soto thanks to significant contributions from Ben Rice, Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt,” he wrote.

Coming into the year, there was a lot of concern about how the offense was going to perform without Soto.

The talented slugger left in free agency, creating a void that seemingly wasn’t going to be able to be filled. As one of the best hitters in the game, New York was never going to be able to replace him with just one player over the winter. However, they were able to create depth and improve some areas of need.

Despite losing one of the best hitters in the game, this is still an explosive offense. The new additions of Cody Belinger and Paul Goldschmidt have come in and helped, while some of the young talent has also taken a step forward.

Furthermore, the key to the offense is a healthy Aaron Judge and the two-time American League MVP is off to an amazing start.

Judge might have his eyes set on a third AL MVP this campaign, and even though Soto is gone, there is a lot of help around him.

Overall, with the pitching staff dealing with issues, it’s easy to be optimistic about the team’s outlook when seeing how well the offense is performing.