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MLB.com | Thomas Harrigan: This article dates from 10 days ago, but it wasn’t relevant until now. As you may already know, the Yankees drafted catcher (for now) Austin Wells for the second time in three years — this time with the 28th overall pick, 34 rounds higher than in 2018. We’ll have more analysis on Wells as a prospect, but here’s a chance to get to know the future Yankees left-handed power bat.
ESPN | Alden Gonzalez: “There will be baseball in 2020,” league commissioner Rob Manfred said in an appearance on the MLB Network. On the heels of an offer from the MLBPA that contained several concessions, the league is preparing a counter-offer that will allegedly move in the “player’s direction,” according to Manfred. However, he did suggest a hope that the players will back away from their insistence on prorated salaries, something that does not seem likely, particularly following several players’ reactions to comments from Bill DeWitt, Jr. that owning a baseball team is “not profitable.” Either way, the negotiations appear to be heating up, and hopefully we will see some progress, because no fan wants the league to impose a 50-game season unilaterally.
ESPN | Joon Lee: This is, strictly speaking, not related to the Yankees, but still an important piece nonetheless. In an interview discussing teammate Bruce Maxwell’s decision to take a knee during the national anthem in 2017, Delino DeShields went on to speak about being a black Major League Baseball player. Trying to summarize this piece would be a disservice to DeShields; I simply recommend taking five minutes and reading about some of the abuse that DeShields and others have received in his own words (this includes the embedded tweets). That abuse has come from a variety of places, including, unfortunately, Yankees fans. Be better than that.
SNY.com | Scott Thompson: Former Yankee outfielder Claudell Washington passed away yesterday morning at the age of 65 after battling an illness for several years. A bit of a journeyman, he played for several teams over the course of a 17-year career.