New York Post | Matt Ehalt: Yankee Universe got a big of a scare Wednesday. For a brief moment, there was a viral claim that Yankee legend Paul O’Neill is fighting cancer. The YES Network, after speaking to Paulie, quickly corrected the record. The Network’s VP of Communications, Eric Handler, bluntly informed media outlets that he’d “just spoke with Paul. He DOES NOT have cancer!” Great news for Paulie and I think we all look forward to seeing him in his familiar spot in the booth next season alongside Michael Kay and David Cone.
ESPN: The first big free agent signing of the offseason has arrived, and the defending American League champions are the benefactor. The Blue Jays are set to sign former Padres righty and no-hit artist Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million deal, per Jeff Passan and Jon Heyman. The soon-to-be-30-year-old will join Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage atop the 2026 Toronto rotatio. He’s been one of the more healthy arms in the game having made more starts and strikeouts than anyone in the game since the start of 2020 (174 and 1,150, respectively), though he’s recently alternated between seasons receiving Cy Young votes and mediocre results. It will be interesting to see how Cease’s deal affects the rest of the market.
The Athletic | Brendan Kuty ($): In the most recent Yankees mailbag for The Athletic, Kuty answers a handful of questions as we move deeper into the offseason. Perhaps the most important, in response to whether the Yankees will pursue Japanese starter Tatsuya Imai, Kuty predicts the club will. With a rather large caveat. If the bidding gets too high, he expects the club to pivot away from Imai and pursue other options, perhaps former Yankee Michael King.
ESPN | Jesse Rogers: ESPN takes a look around the offseason and gives 16 MLB execs the chance to weigh in on its most pressing questions. For the Yankees, the big one is whether they’ll be the ones to emerge victorious in the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes. A plurality of the execs polled (6 of 16), think King Tuck is headed to the Bronx. A couple of execs speculate Tucker could get at least $350 million from the Yankees, with another predicting he’ll sign a shorter-term deal with the club, with high AAVs and opt-outs, and a chance to hit free agency again soon.
Bloomberg | Neil Callanan and Maxwell Adler ($): Good news: Despite owner Hal Steinbrenners’s recent Little Sisters of the Poor act, it looks like the Yankees remain a revenue juggernaut. Ticker sales and suite licences through September tally up at a cool $340 million. The Yanks’ early playoff exit means ticket revenue will end up lower than in 2024, when their World Series run netted them $102 million. The Yankees, who finished 2025 third in MLB attendance, seem primed for another big revenue season in 2026. Feel free to make a (successful) World Series run and top the coffers off even more.