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  • 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00Joel Sherman back with three things I'm thinking about.
00:04I'm going to do one and two on Francisco Alvarez and Anthony Volpe.
00:08I've tied these two players together for a bit.
00:11Here's a reason why I tie them together.
00:13They enter the 2023 spring training as pretty much consensus top 10 prospects in the sport.
00:20Fans are screaming, they must make the teams.
00:22The teams aren't serious if they don't put them on the teams.
00:26Their calling cards that year were supposed to be their bats.
00:30Their offense was their calling card.
00:32And actually, in that rookie season, you make a case that their defense was much better than their offense.
00:38I mean, Volpe won a gold glove as a rookie.
00:41That defense helped keep them in the batting order, even as their batting average sank, their strikeouts rose.
00:48They both hit homers that year.
00:51Again, the combination of defense and homers was kind of like good enough to get them through.
00:56Last year, kind of up and down for both guys.
01:01Still the problem with low batting average.
01:04Still some homers there.
01:06Still too many strikeouts, especially for Volpe.
01:09And then this year, you could argue that for a long period of time, this was their worst seasons.
01:14And maybe what we'll remember from their worst seasons is some toughness physically and some toughness mentally.
01:23Let's start, number one, with Volpe.
01:27It's well documented.
01:30He played terribly.
01:31He looked lost on both sides of the ball.
01:34And then in mid-September, he sat for six games.
01:38It was finally publicly revealed that he had a torn labrum in his left shoulder.
01:44He made a dive in May and got kind of caught his glove side.
01:52He sat.
01:53He got a cortisone shot.
01:55And again, it's six games, but it's hard to ignore that in the six games, he's eight for 20.
02:01He's got two doubles, two steals, and no errors.
02:04And he just looks calmer again.
02:10He looks like part of, you know, a winning formula.
02:15I would not ignore two factors here.
02:18Austin Wells, his buddy, has also gotten hot at about the same time.
02:23Last six games, eight for 17.
02:24Also a couple of doubles, a couple of walks.
02:26They were the two guys who started the rally on Tuesday night, single-single, that leads
02:33to two ninth-inning runs, and the Yankees win 3-2 and clinch.
02:38And the winning hit is by Jose Caballero, who was the guy who was playing shortstop when
02:44Volpe was out.
02:46I would think Aaron Boone thinks the Yankees are best when Volpe hits and plays and starts
02:54at shortstop, and Volpe and Wells helped make the bottom of the lineup strong.
02:58I think Ryan McMahon is just not going to hit.
03:02He's not going to hit good pitching in the postseason, but his glove keeps him in.
03:05You can't just have all outs at the bottom of the lineup.
03:08So Volpe and Wells are going to be important.
03:10And then Caballero can be used by Boone as a weapon in a variety of ways.
03:16If McMahon needs to be batted for, he could come in and play third base.
03:19He's obviously a base stealer.
03:21He could come in.
03:21He showed he had a great at-bat, nine-pitch at-bat, to win the game on Tuesday night.
03:27So I think that's one way that if Volpe can actually hold on.
03:32This is Volpe.
03:33And remember, he was one of their best players in the postseason last year.
03:37If he carries this through, it helps the Yankees a lot.
03:40Francisco Alvarez.
03:42I guess I could call him Mordecai Eightfingers Alvarez.
03:46He's playing with the torn ligament in his right thumb.
03:50He's got a fractured left pinky.
03:53He's down to eight healthy fingers.
03:57But look, let's point it out.
03:59Kodai Senga went to the minor leagues, and he hasn't figured his stuff out.
04:04Alvarez got sent to the minor leagues, and he's come back.
04:07And he's been what the Mets had hoped he'd be from the beginning.
04:10In those 37 games, 282, 936 OPS, 17 extra base hits, seven homers, none bigger than Tuesday night when he broke a tie, 7-7 tie at Wrigley Field.
04:24Two-run homer in the eighth inning is the winning homer.
04:26And gave him the lead.
04:29David Stearns, when Alvarez went down, said it would be fine if he took 72 hours to get down there.
04:36Alvarez got down there right away.
04:38When he hurt his hand, these injuries, Stearns said, the thumb, it's okay.
04:43It would be legitimate for him to have said, you know what, I'm going to go get the surgery.
04:47I'll see you in Port St. Lucie in February.
04:51You know, going to the minors, you know, not having the surgery, then hurting another finger, playing through it.
04:59Perhaps no Met in this period, this downturn, has done more for their reputation than Francisco Alvarez.
05:07So he's number two here.
05:08Number three, the winning homer in the game last night is by Brandon Nimmo.
05:13It's a three-run homer off of Taylor Rodgers.
05:16You know, he, I'm sorry, Alvarez, obviously, winning homer.
05:21Nimmo, just as important, tied the game in the fifth inning, three-run homer off of Taylor Rodgers.
05:26It's his career best 25th homer.
05:29He reminds me so much career arc of Brett Gardner.
05:33If you remember, Gardner faster, but Gardner starts center field, eventually moves to left field, starts as a guy who walks a lot, more of a basic guy, a hustle guy, who over the time learns how to pull the ball and hit homers.
05:47The homer is the 25th for Nimmo.
05:49It's his career best, just as important.
05:52It was his eighth homer off of a lefty pitcher this year.
05:55His best before this was five in 2022 and 234 plate appearances.
06:04This is eight in 194.
06:05I asked him about this the other day, and he said to me he wanted to be a regular player.
06:11He realized a couple of years ago that meant he's got to figure out a way to hit lefties a lot better.
06:15The Mets started to use a lefty batting practice pitcher a lot more often.
06:20And what Brandon would say to the pitcher is make it tough on me, come closer than 60 feet, throw as hard as you can, spin it.
06:28And this has been a progression to learn how to do some damage against lefty pitching.
06:33And as you know, if you've watched the Mets this year, teams are going to unleash lefty pitching, including the next two nights when the Cubs are starting Matt Boyd and Shota Imanaga.
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