Around the Empire: Yankees news - 9/2/22

MLB Trade Rumours | Anthony Franco: At long last, Oswald Peraza has finally been called up. With rosters expanding on September 1, Peraza’s call-up is certainly a huge splash for a team in desperate need of a vibe shift. The 22-year-old shortstop is the Yankees’ No. 3 ranked prospect (No. 53 in all of baseball per MLB Pipeline) and has been the target of speculation for a while now, as he tore up Triple-A for the last few months after a pretty rough start to the season.

It’s still unclear how much playing time Peraza will receive right away — Oswaldo Cabrera has played nearly everyday since being called up, but the team still might be committed to the incumbent, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, at short — but odds are a prospect of his stature wasn’t called up to sit on the bench every day. Either way, this team needed an infusion of energy and a new look in the lineup, and Peraza was clearly ready to make the leap. Here’s hoping Peraza joins the lineup and hits the ground running.

Also, in an logical related move, No. 1 prospect Anthony Volpe is getting a bump up as well:

The 21-year-old Volpe will take Peraza’s old spot at shortstop in Triple-A Scranton after a terrific year with Double-A Somerset. The fifth-ranked prospect in all of baseball got off to a shaky start, but from mid-May onward, he has dominated the Eastern League with a .282/.373/.523 triple slash, 28 doubles, 14 homers, and 30 steals in 80 games, good for a 142 wRC+.

Bleacher Report | Timothy Rapp: As if the news couldn’t get any better for Yankees fans (and we deserve some positivity around these parts, to be entirely honest), ESPN’s Jeff Passan believes that Aaron Judge will be a Yankee for a long time. On the Pat McAfee Show, Passan predicted that Judge would ultimately re-sign with the Yankees this offseason, perhaps for a contract north of $300 million. Of course, it goes without saying that this is just Passan’s opinion and anything could happen, but I’d like to think someone with Passan’s connections and stature wouldn’t just drop a prediction like this without at least a little knowledge to inform it.

New York Post | Dan Martin: After such a great start to the season, a lot of Yankees fans, myself included, got maybe a little too comfortable with the lead the team got out to in the AL East. In the early days of this downturn, we all thought the same thing: Relax, it’s just a blip. They have a huge lead.

Well, it’s been a couple months, and all of a sudden that lead isn’t so large anymore, as the ever-pesky and annoying Tampa Bay Rays are just six games behind the Yankees for the division lead heading into the final month of the season. With a three-game series coming up and a total of 6 head-to-head games in the next 10 days, it’s officially time to sweat for a lot of Yankees fans. Not mentioned in this article: the Mariners are also just six games behind the Yankees, so if they do lose control of the division, it’s possible they won’t even end up hosting a playoff series. So much for the positivity, eh?

There was also a truly confounding Anthony Rizzo update provided by Aaron Boone during his appearance on The Michael Kay Show, just before the news of Peraza’s call-up broke.