Around the Empire: Yankees news - 6/26/18

New York Daily News | Mike Mazzeo: After Domingo German turned in a poor start on Saturday, Brian Cashman reiterated the obvious. The Yankees are in the market for starting pitching. He says he believes the current group is “good enough,” but Cashman still wants the starting pitching to get better. So as the trade deadline approaches, he will be doing his thing. However, he wants to do so without giving up Clint Frazier. Cashman likely needs to be blown away in order to give up Red Thunder.

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: Speaking of Frazier though, he’s continuing his season as the Scranton Shuttle’s most frequent rider. With the news that Gary Sanchez will miss 3-4 weeks on the disabled list, it wasn’t shocking to see that Kyle Higashioka take his spot. What was a little surprising was learning that Frazier was once again sent down to Triple-A, and Giovanny Gallegos was called up to take his spot. I guess extra pitching help isn’t that surprising seeing as how Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa are starting games this week.

New York Post | Joel Sherman: While it’s nice to dream of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and/or Madison Bumgarner in pinstripes, the likelihood of any of them becoming Yankees is low. J.A. Happ, on the other hand, is a much more reasonable target. Based on previous trades of players like Happ, we can get an idea what he might cost. “A Happ-level starter in his walk year has basically returned two good, but not elite starters.” The Yankees system is pretty deep, so they have the ability to pull off such a trade.

New York Post | Joel Sherman: With Gary Sanchez hurt, Austin Romine will handle the bulk of the catching duties and Kyle Higashioka will back him up. Outside of 2016, Higashioka has really struggled at the plate, so it would’ve been nice if the Yankees still had Erik Kratz. Kratz was traded to the Brewers on May 25th, because he had a June 1 opt-out, so rather than losing him for nothing, Cashman made a deal. Kratz has a .918 OPS in 11 games as the Brewers backup catcher, which sure would be nice insurance to have right now.

Cut4 | Adrian Garro: If you know me at all, you know I hate National League rules. Pitchers batting is just dumb. They're not there to bat, they're not good at it. Let's stop this charade. But that won't stop me from being amused at certain pitchers batting. Bartolo Colon hitting a home run is one of my favorite pitcher hitting highlights. Now I have Dellin Betances to look at as well. In his first career at-bat, Betances had a Gary Sheffield like stance and looked like an absolute monster out there. It was adorable and awesome.

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Sometimes baseball is dumb, but then sometimes baseball is great. What a game!