Around the Empire: Yankees news - 11/18/22

CBS Sports | Dayn Perry: We’ve all been thinking it for months, but now it is official — Aaron Judge is the 2022 AL MVP. Judge won the award decisively, earning 28 of the 30 first place votes (the two other votes went to the historically-incomparable Shohei Ohtani, who put up another excellent season). Judge was undeniable this year though, and the award was ultimately his and his alone. Now it’s just a matter of whether the Yankees will retain their reigning MVP, which, speaking of ...

Sports Illustrated | Daniel Chavkin: Brian Cashman spoke to the media yesterday, and among the many things that the GM-without-a-deal spoke about was the team’s status with their superstar outfielder. Cashman confirmed that the Yankees have made a new offer to Judge recently, and approached Judge about this right after the team was eliminated from the postseason. We don’t know the details, and we likely won’t hear those details until an official deal comes to fruition, but it’s certain that it was bigger than the seven-year, $215 million deal the team offered before the regular season.

ESPN | Jeff Passan: Let’s keep it on Judge for a minute longer, or rather a piece of history related to Judge. The man who caught Judge’s 62nd home run ball has decided to take it to auction, and he’s hoping for a big result after turning down a $3 million offer already. Cory Youmans said that he wants to be fair to whoever wants the ball and has the means to own it, and that he’s curious what the ball will draw.

The Athletic | Chris Kirschner: (Subscription required) Hal Steinbrenner made rounds with the media as well recently, and dropped several noteworthy comments that will undoubtedly have ripple effects on the offseason. While his most quoteworthy mention included claiming that he has enough money to bring Aaron Judge back as well as make any additions to make the Yankees a World Series contender, it sure seems like to him they were already one that simply got bogged down by injuries. I don’t know if Hal has paid much attention to the season at large over the past few years, but that’s been a recurring theme and it’s not one that is likely to change anytime soon.

Sports Illustrated | Max Goodman: In non-Judge news, the Yankees indeed have a hole on the other side of their outfield as well. They’ve been linked to possibly re-signing Andrew Benintendi or vying for Japanese star Masataka Yoshida who will be posted this offseason from the KBO, but one name that is also in play is Brandon Nimmo. Nimmo had a solid year atop the Mets lineup, collecting 5.4 fWAR after playing in a career-high 151 games with a decent .800 OPS. Of course, plenty of other teams will be interested in Nimmo as well, including his former employers, so he might be too pricy for the Yankees’ tastes when other options are available.