Around the Empire: Yankees news - 5/17/17

SBNation | Grant Brisbee: “The Yankees are leading the league in out-of-nowhere hitters. We must cut them open and find their secrets” - Also, Grant Brisbee. The Yankees are enjoying an extremely successful start to the season in which they’ve become one of the best teams in baseball. A large part of their success has been the resurgence of players that nobody wanted but anyone could’ve had.

New York Post | Joel Sherman: It’s not just players on the team that are doing well, apparently anyone with a Yankee connection is thriving. Players the Yankees gave up on are doing well for their new teams. Obviously Ivan Nova is one of the Yankees in this article but also the lesser-known players like Ben Gamel (aka Benny with the good hair) and “untouchable” James Pazos are also doing well for their new team.

CBS Sports | Dayn Perry: Breaking news: the Yankees offense is very good. Granted, it’s still “early,” but we’re getting to a point where it’s no longer early and the Yankees have continued to be good. In fact, they’re good enough to account for a 124 wRC+. If the season ended right now, that would be the third-best team wRC+ in MLB history. This team is something special, y’all.

FanRag Sports | Robert Murray: Kaleb Ort is now a Yankee. The Yankees are buying the contract of Ort, 24, from the Joliet Slammers of the Independent Frontier League and signing him to a minor-league deal. The right-handed pitcher has a 6.05 ERA in 20 games (12 starts), but in his last two starts he only allowed one run in 13 innings. Ort throws 95-97 mph and has a “plus slider.” There’s a long way to go to see if he even makes it to the majors, but one thing is guaranteed. Championship: secured.

New York Post | Dan Martin: When the Yankees did nothing to upgrade their starting rotation this offseason, everyone knew it was the rotation was likely going to be their downfall. Michael Pineda and Luis Severino came with question marks about consistency and Jordan Montgomery was unknown. Surprisingly, it’s Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia who have disappointed, while the rest have mostly delivered. Though Sabathia did start to change the narrative last night.

Adam Judge

This video is great. As Andrew MEARNS said, “Maybe we owe the creators of Superman an apology for all those years of making fun of Clark Kent's not-so-subtle disguise.” Also the one guy totally redeems his Ellsbury answer with his “gap” comment.

Didi Victory Tweet

I, too, would’ve guessed Chris Carter is a rhino.

P.S. There’s an Easter egg hidden in today’s news. Be the first to find it and you win bragging rights.