Around the Empire: Yankees News - 5/17/15

New York Times | Billy Witz: Accustomed to leading the league in road attendance, two years off from postseason play and the retirement of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera have resulted in a last place mark in road attendance. Of course, playing 19 of 37 games against the Blue Jays and Rays is sort of a recipe for low attendance.

NYPost | John DeMarzo: Aaron Judge is going to be good at baseball. I'm putting it at 50/50 he'll be good at baseball in Colorado on July 31st.

Hardball Times | Frank Jackson: A look at the surprisingly eventful playing career of Yankees' legendary manager Casey Stengel.

Grantland | Ben Lindbergh: Mike Trout is the consensus best player in baseball, and that alone is enough to make him (for me) the most fascinating player in baseball. That's all before I consider his near Yankee-ness: the fact that he was selected with the 25th pick of the 2009 draft, which the Yankees surrendered to the Angels when they signed Mark Teixeira; the fact that he's a New Jersey native; that he wore #2 in high school like a certain shortstop. So I find this interview with and his father fascinating. I'm actually surprised they didn't save it a few more weeks for Father's Day.

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: The headline says Pineda didn't have his slider, but to me the subtext is: can the coaching staff help a tremendous young pitcher develop. What separates an A.J. Burnett from a Roy Halladay is consistency. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild has been blessed with a lot of great arms to work with in his four plus seasons in New York, but for the last couple of years he's coaxed greatness out of veterans like Hiroki Kuroda and David Robertson. Helping an unfinished product like Pineda reach his potential is a different sort of challenge.