The thought exercise we are going to undertake here involves the Yankees, their best player and a pile of money. Notably, how big of a pile it would take to sign Aaron Judge and what the stress points are both ways now — and in the future.

But before we get to that, here is a fun number: 26.6.

Want to guess what that represents?

OK, this was a two-second shot clock and your time is up. That is Judge’s Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference) for his age 25-to-just-completed-age-29 seasons (I eliminated his age-24 cameo in 2016).