Around the Empire: Yankees news - 8/26/21

New York Post | Ken Davidoff: Gio Urshela is expected to be activated today, Corey Kluber and Gleyber Torres are due to be back with the Yankees soon, and the team as currently constructed has won 11 straight games with major contributions from guys that certainly weren’t imagined as being key players back in February. There are only 28 roster spots starting September 1st, and there will be a host of decisions the Yankees have to make about who fills them.

ESPN | David Schoenfield: 11 straight wins is the Yankees’ best streak since 1985, and its come at exactly the right time for the club. Both Boston and Oakland, the two closest teams in the Wild Card hunt, have stumbled over the same two-week period, allowing New York to pass them both and build a bit of a cushion in the standings. With a four-game set in California against the A’s, they have a chance to make an even bigger delta between themselves and the green and gold.

FanGraphs | Dan Szymborski: Miguel Cabrera became the 28th player to join the 500 home run club last weekend, one of the last major milestones in his Hall of Fame career. Dan takes a dive into the ZiPS projection system to see which active players have the best chance of reaching 500 dingers, and the Yankees spot three names on the list of those with at least a one percent chance: Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Gallo and Gleyber Torres. That ZiPS doesn’t feel comfortable in Aaron Judge making that list is something to watch for the rest of his career.

MLB.com | Jim Callis, Sam Dykstra and Jonathan Mayo: MLB Pipeline dropped its updated ranking of farm systems across baseball, and while the Yankees have seen Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez jump up some of the individual rankings, the team system is pretty stagnant, largely due to trading away ten prospects at the deadline.