This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

With the Super Bowl in the rearview mirror, it is officially baseball season. Yankees pitchers and catchers are due to report to George M. Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday and hold their first workout on Thursday, though many of the team’s most recognizable stars have been training in the Tampa, Fla., area for weeks.

As the group reunites and begins aiming for its 2024 goals, there are several key storylines to track throughout Spring Training and into the regular season. Here are three of them:

Welcome to the Aaron Judge & Juan Soto Show
At a recent event, Judge suggested his ideal lineup for the 2024 season, which would feature Soto batting second and Judge hitting third. That sounds good to us, and more importantly, it also does to manager Aaron Boone. Soto boasts elite power and patience, giving the Yankees two of the game’s top offensive players at the top of each turn through the lineup. A year removed from breaking Roger Maris’ single-season American League home run record, Judge blasted 37 homers in 2023, despite missing 51 games due to a right hip strain and a right big toe strain.

Much of this season will revolve around Soto, who is eligible for free agency after the campaign and figures to be in line for a megadeal that will make him one of baseball’s highest-paid players. Every checkpoint -- from his first stretches with the position players to his first Opening Day in pinstripes to the inevitable highs and lows of a 162-game schedule -- will be accompanied by headlines and opinions concerning how Soto fits into the Yankees’ world and if he seems inclined to stay beyond this year.

Banking on bounce-backs
If we rolled the clock back one calendar year, few would have predicted that the Yankees would manage only 82 victories while failing to qualify for the postseason in 2023. It took a bitter cocktail of injuries and underperformance to create that scenario, and the club is largely hoping to leave that disappointing season in the dustbin of history. The new PECOTA projections seem to be on the Yankees' side, forecasting New York to win between 94 and 95 games and take the AL East crown.

That’s encouraging, but those models rely on the assumption that most of the players will perform to their career norms or reach forecasted levels of improvement. For that to become reality, the Yankees need healthier seasons from several key figures -- including first baseman Anthony Rizzo, right-hander Carlos Rodón and left-hander Nestor Cortes, all of whom spent a considerable amount of the 2023 season on the shelf.

A focus on the future
Nothing was guaranteed to Anthony Volpe as he arrived in his first big league camp one year ago. But he outperformed Oswald Peraza during the spring to claim a spot as the Opening Day shortstop. Volpe produced the first 20-20 season for a Yankees rookie, while joining Derek Jeter as the only shortstops in franchise history to win a Gold Glove. Yet, there is more ground for Volpe to cover. Boone believes that Volpe can become a more patient threat at the plate, boosting his on-base percentage while cutting down on strikeouts.

Had Jasson Domínguez not sustained an injury that required Tommy John surgery on his right elbow just eight games into his promising big league career, he would be one of the most prominent prospects in camp. Considering “The Martian” would be competing for the everyday center-field job, the offseason might have looked a little different, perhaps reducing the urgency to import Alex Verdugo from the Red Sox. With Domínguez out until summer, though, top prospect Spencer Jones figures to garner plenty of attention in his first big league camp.