Around the Empire: Yankees options limited following Bellinger rejection

Forbes | Peter Chawaga: The Yankees are at an impasse in free agent negotiations with Cody Bellinger and now expect their former outfielder to sign elsewhere. However, do not expect the front office to change focus to multiple impact additions the way they pivoted from Juan Soto to Bellinger, Max Fried, and others last winter. In his report on the deadlock between the Yankees and Bellinger, Buster Olney suggested that the Bombers would shift their attention to back-up plans Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette. However, a separate insider has now poured cold water on both those options, with Bob Klapisch maintaining that Tucker remains well outside of their budget while expecting Bichette to sign with the Phillies after mentor and former bench coach Don Mattingly switched benches from Toronto to Philly.

The Athletic | Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon ($): The Brewers have named their asking price for starting pitcher Freddy Peralta, expecting any return package to be headlined by a young, controllable starting pitcher able to be plugged directly into the major league rotation to fill Peralta’s departure. Given that he comes with two fewer years of team control than Edward Cabrera — who was just traded from the Marlins to the Cubs in exchange for a package headlined by the Cubs’ top overall prospect Owen Caissie —it is not expected that Peralta will command as expensive return. If various rumors are to be believed, we have a framework for the type of offer the Yankees would be willing to make in the starting pitcher trade market, with one report alleging that they offered Ben Hess and Dillon Lewis — ranked sixth and sixteenth, respectively, by MLB Pipeline. Hess is not considered MLB-ready, though you could plausibly substitute in Will Warren or Luis Gil to start the conversation. Peralta is a free agent following the upcoming season and is coming off an impressive year, having gone 17-6 in 33 starts, with a 2.70 ERA, 3.64 FIP, and 204 strikeouts in 176.2 innings.

Awful Announcing | Sam Neumann: Earlier this week, we relayed that David Cone would not be returning to ESPN broadcasts after the network declined to extend his contract. They opted out of the media rights deal it held with the league and subsequently lost the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast to NBC. Fortunately for us, that means we will be getting more of Cone on YES broadcasts, with their former pitcher expected to increase his broadcast workload to 60 appearances, up from 40 in 2025. His increased presence dovetails nicely with the departure of John Flaherty from the YES booth, though it still falls short of the 90 appearances he made yearly on YES before joining ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball booth in 2022.