Outside The Confines: Damn, Yankees

2016. Finding Dory was the top-grossing movie of the year. Rihanna’s “Work” dominated the radio waves. Every book club was reading The Girl on the Train. It was also the year Aaron Hicks joined the Yankees. Now, eight years later, the struggling outfielder has been designated for assignment. By the numbers, as part of a team with a fair amount of outfield depth, it shouldn’t be a surprising move. But for a club that seems to like picking up aging stars, and holding onto players past their prime for sentimental reasons, it’s actually kind of a shocker they pulled the plug on Hicks, especially so early in the season.

More on that move below, plus Byron Buxton, sibling relievers, the re-opening of Hinchliffe Stadium and much more.

(It’s a holiday in Canada today, so I hope my abbreviated preamble will be forgiven.)

Now on to today’s links!

• Kiri Oler looks at MLB’s need to market its stars internationally.
• Anthony DiComo looks at a vintage Verlander gem that has to make Mets fans happy.
• Karl Rasmussen wonders at what point we’re going to need to switch to robot umpires if human umps keep making such bad calls.
• Bradford Doolittle breaks down the Twins’ Bryon Buxton experiment.
• In a genuinely shocking move, the Yankees DFA’d Aaron Hicks. Story by Chris Kirschner. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Michael Baumann ranks sibling relievers.
• C. Trent Rosencrans reminds us that it’s never a good idea to pitch to Aaron Judge. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Not bad not bad, now imagine if he was a pitcher.

• Jay Jaffe looks at how poorly things are going for the Padres right now.
• Willy Adames does his best Randy Arozarena impression... in front of Randy. Story by Adam McCalvy.
• Tom Verducci looks at the reopening of Hinchliffe Stadium.
• Could the Rays be up for sale? Ken Rosenthal and Chandler Rome dig into some potential buyers, one of whom could see the Rays relocating. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Brent Maguire offers us five interesting matchups to watch for this week.
• Emma Baccellieri shares what Angels pitchers are learned from Shohei Ohtani.
• Who can blame them, seems like a nice place to watch the game.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.