Around the Empire: Yankees news - 8/27/22

Sportico | Barry M. Bloom (subscription required): Brian Cashman has taken a lot of heat recently with the Yankees sliding in August, partially due to the unpopular trade of Jordan Montgomery and partially due to Oswald Peraza not getting a callup to help the major league team. The organization seems to still have faith in the man who has led the front office for longer than any of his contemporaries, as reports are swirling that Cashman will still be in command heading into 2023 regardless of how the season ends. Honestly, this isn’t too much of a surprise, but I’m sure there will be some displeased with the news.

NJ.com | Randy Miller: Clay Holmes threw to live hitters yesterday in Oakland, and the results were scintillating. “This was just a live BP, but stuff wise, it was there. Velocity wise, it was there. Movement quality was there and he was strike throwing,” said Aaron Boone before last night’s game against the A’s. Reports from the session said Holmes’ sinker was looking as it did during his All-World first half. Holmes is targeting the beginning of next week for his return from back spasms.

MLB.com | Mike Petriello: Aaron Judge hit his 49th homer of the year against the Athletics, keeping himself well on pace to challenge Roger Maris’ American League home run record of 61. With a little more than a month to go in the year, planning out and speculating on where Judge could potentially hit the decisive ball — as well as several other milestone homers — is the name of the game, and Petriello lays out where the most optimal seating locations to catch those balls could be.

FanGraphs | Ben Clemens: The Yankees are one of the foremost teams pushing the exit velo revolution, but it seems like leaguewide there’s a complete lack of players focused on hitting soft line drives. The data shows that there is a niche for it and that if it was consistently applicable then a hitter could perform at an elite level relying on it, but that’s the catch — it’s not really reliable. The range of optimal launch angles for soft line drives is shorter than for harder hit screamers, and players who manage to do so in one year have a difficult time maintaining that from year to year. The moral of the story here? Hit it hard, and hit it deep.