Around the Empire: Yankees news - 6/20/23

NY Post | Jon Heyman: The story of the Yankees right now is how inept they look without their captain, Aaron Judge, out on the field. Prior to this it was the everyone’s injured narrative (featuring newcomers like Carlos Rodón and mainstays like Luis Severino alike), the “the rookies are failing” narrative, and the DFA several players narrative. If you haven’t picked up on it, that’s a lot of bad vibes for a team that is technically in the playoffs if they started today. The only way to turn things around, however, is for the team to collectively piece together a turnaround from their awful slump and prove they can do something beyond wait for Judge to save them.

MLB.com | Mike Lupica: One of the players that really needs to step up is Giancarlo Stanton. The big slugger has carried the offense through several postseasons, but he’s been missing in action for far too many regular season games that has had an impact on the Yanks needing to go through the Wild Card so many times. Here’s an opportunity to light the torch and lead the way for the offense when its desperately needed — we’ll see if Stanton is capable of catching fire.

Sports Illustrated | Matthew Postins: Derek Jeter has infamously avoided the broadcast booth for most of his time since retiring from baseball, but FOX worked their magic on him slowly but surely. After spending years as an executive with the Marlins, Jeter got a taste of the desk in last year’s World Series and took a liking to it — so when FOX came calling again afterwards he listened this time, and talks accelerated quickly from there.