Reason for optimism: The addition of Starlin Castro continues an unmistakable trend -- the Yankees are getting younger.
Reason for pessimism: The Yankees are still a really, really old team.
In 2015, American League teams gave up at least one run in the seventh inning 26.5 percent of the time, and the league's collective runs allowed in the seventh inning was 4.31. There was nothing particularly notable about that scoring pace; it was more runs than were scored in the second inning, nearly the same as the fifth inning, and less than teams scored on average in the sixth. Given that AL teams scored 4.32 runs per game overall, the seventh inning came closest to representing an average game's run environment.