Around the Empire: Yankees news - 11/14/23

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: After a few days of rumors, it’s now official: the Yankees hired James Rowson to be their hitting coach for the 2024 season and, they hope, beyond that. He will be replacing interim Sean Casey, who had recently announced he wouldn’t be returning for next year.

Rowson was the Detroit Tigers’ assistant hitting coach this past season after serving stints as hitting coach in Minnesota and the bench coach in Miami. Now, the Yankees are offering him a better position to try and resurrect an offense that ranked 25th out of 30 teams in runs scored. As Estevão outlined yesterday, Rowson has a past as a minor league hitting coordinator in the Yankees organization (2008-11; 2014-16) and will have a huge responsibility in his hands.

As Hoch notes, Rowson was around during Aaron Judge’s developmental phase and had nothing but good things to say about him. “He always wanted to know, ‘Why?’ Which I think is the most important question that a young hitter can ask,” Rowson once said. “Any time you’re making adjustments or you’re talking about the game, it was like, ‘Hey, tell me why you want to do that?’ When guys ask that question, you really know that they’re going to make it their own.”

The two will reunite, with Judge having established as one of the premier hitters in the American League (at least in part thanks to Rowson’s early work).

Yahoo Sports | Ryan Young: Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has recently made headlines because of what he says and not because of what he does. He was asked about Giancarlo Stanton and things were no different:

“We try to limit the time he’s down. But I’m not gonna tell you he’s gonna play every game next year because he’s not. He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game.”

While he is not lying (Stanton played 101 games in 2023 and 110 in 2022 due to a variety of lower body injuries), the choice of words was certainly odd and on par with the, uh, blunt style he has shown this offseason.

Stanton had a career-low .695 OPS, a .191 batting average, and 124 strikeouts in 415 plate appearances, albeit with 24 homers.

New York Post | Joel Sherman: With Carlos Mendoza joining the New York Mets to be their manager, the Yankees’ bench coach job is now up for grabs. The team has been looking for the right candidate, and that search has resulted in an interview with one of their former pitchers.

Per reports, Andrew Bailey interviewed for the position on Monday. The righty has been with the San Francisco Giants for the past four seasons as their pitching coach. He was the 2009 AL Rookie of the Year as the A’s closer and made back-to-back All-Star teams before injuries curtailed his career. Bailey last pitched in 2017 and entered the coaching ranks shortly afterward.

Bailey has been hunting for some pitching coach gigs, too, but is now being considered to be Aaron Boone’s right-hand man. As a player, he retired with a fine 3.12 ERA and 95 saves, having pitched for the Yanks in 2015 (5.19 ERA in 8.2 IP).

Ah, memories?