Around the Empire: Yankees news - 3/7/22

NJ.com | Brendan Kuty: It goes without saying that when the minor league season kicks off, the likes of Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez lead the list of Yankees prospects to watch. When asked who to look for in 2022, though, new manager Rachel Balkovec volunteered a pair of smaller names to keep an eye on in Andres Chaparro and Eric Wagaman. Chaparro impressed as a corner infielder in A-Ball last year, while Balkovec highlighted how hard Wagaman has been hitting the ball in minicamp this year. You can check out our own Dan Kelly’s analysis of Chaparro here.

CBS Sports | RJ Anderson: MLB and the MLBPA met again yesterday, and the union made yet another proposal. The most important details included a small decrease in the proposed pre-arbitration bonus pool and granting MLB the ability to impose a pitch clock by 2023 with 45 days notice (as well as allowing them to ban shifts and make bases larger). Notably, the players did not move on their proposed CBT thresholds. Despite the small concessions from the players, the league disingenuously described the union's offer as worse than before.

ESPN | Jesse Rogers: More on the idea of a pitch clock: MLB reportedly wants to institute a 14-second clock with no runners on base, and a 19-second clock with runners on. The potential rule change has not generally been greeted kindly by current players, with Max Scherzer speaking up to say that it there’s no place for a clock in baseball. Former Yankees star CC Sabathia disagreed on a recent episode of his R2C2 podcast, arguing that “This is a time to make some changes fundamentally to the game.” A pitch clock likely would go some way toward reversing the seemingly unstoppable upward trend in game length.

NJ.com | Randy Miller: The NJ.com scribe sat down for an interview with right-handed reliever Greg Weissert. At age-27, Weissert is an older prospect, and one who hasn’t ever had much shine to his name, never ranking among MLB Pipeline’s or FanGraphs’ lists of top Yankee prospects. But Weissert does possess one of the best sliders in the system, and could be sleeper pick to break out in the high minors this season coming off his first taste of Triple-A in 2021.