00:00Joel Sherman back with 3-Up.
00:03The Yankees are out 4-1.
00:05Very good start to this season.
00:07You can see the Blue Jays are probably going to be good again.
00:10They're also out 4-1.
00:11Obviously, it's very early.
00:14As one of their people said to me in the last few days,
00:18you don't want to leave wins on the table in this division.
00:21The example used was last year.
00:24The Yankees won 94 games.
00:25The Blue Jays won 94 games.
00:27That's one win short of winning the division.
00:30The Blue Jays won the tiebreaker.
00:33You want to win as many games as possible, obviously, every year.
00:37But wins will be precious in a division where we certainly forecast
00:42that four teams are going to be very good,
00:45though the Red Sox have gotten off poorly at 1-4 themselves.
00:48Again, it's very, very early in the season.
00:52Sample sizes are incredibly small.
00:56But why don't I detail three things about the Yankees' start?
01:01A little underlying stuff, maybe, that's pretty encouraging here early in the season.
01:08Number one, the most overt thing is how good their pitching has been.
01:14They got about a 0-6-8, something like that.
01:19ERA, the next best.
01:20And again, just to show how early this is,
01:23the next best belongs to the Braves at like 2-20.
01:26And the Braves' rotation is devastated.
01:29And I think over time, that will probably play poorly.
01:34Five games is a small sample, but for five games, obviously, the Yankee pitching's been great.
01:39We mentioned John Hammond and I do a podcast.
01:43We had Matt Blake, the Yankee pitching coach, as our guest this week.
01:46And we got to about the 25-minute mark.
01:50And I said, you know, for a guy who pitched great last year and is your ace,
01:55at least, until Cam Schlittler fully shows himself and or Garrett Cole gets back,
02:00we hardly ever talk about Max Freed.
02:02And we ended up talking a little bit about Max Freed.
02:04And then a couple hours later, Freed went out for the second time this year through shutout baseball.
02:10He hasn't given up a run in two starts.
02:13He was really precise and very good.
02:16But let's talk about the other side of this.
02:18I think we all expected the Yankee rotation to be pretty good this year,
02:22especially if they could get to full health with Rodon, Cole, etc.
02:26Their bullpen was the worry.
02:29And the proviso here is small, small, small sample sizes.
02:35But the question was, how are they going to get the ball to David Bednar?
02:40And so far, like, Tim Hill looks great.
02:44But the three key guys to me are number one, Duvall, number two, Jake Bird, number three, Hedrick, Brett Hedrick.
02:52Those three guys have combined to give up no runs so far this year.
02:58I think it's a combined 11 appearances.
03:01Again, small sample sizes.
03:03But here's something about Duvall.
03:05Nobody ever questions his stuff.
03:07His stuff is high end.
03:09He's faced eight batters.
03:11Not only has he not walked any, he's only gone to a three-ball count on one.
03:16Jake Bird was a significant guy that the Yankees traded for in July last year.
03:22This is part of their running it back.
03:25I never felt that this was really a running it back team because I included the July trades last year
03:31that carried over this year.
03:33Those players weren't on the team all of last season.
03:36And Jake Bird was on the team a couple of weeks before he got sent to the minor leagues because
03:41he was so bad.
03:42Well, he's been really, really good this year.
03:44And all offseason, if you asked Aaron Boone, tell us somebody who you're really curious about, who you think could
03:52help the team, who's a little bit off the beaten path.
03:54He kept coming back to the lefty, Brett Hedrick.
03:57He felt that Hedrick being able to be trained as a reliever would really, really help him.
04:05The question last year was they thought he lost his stuff when he pitched back-to-back.
04:12They thought by training as a reliever he'd be able to build up.
04:16And so far, they've got a power lefty to go with the finesse lefty in Hill in their bullpen.
04:24And the initial read of their setup, guys, is it's like old times in that the Yankees traditionally have, over,
04:33say, about the last 10 years, found answers in their pen, often in unexpected places.
04:38The Clay Holmes, the Luke Weavers, the Tim Hills.
04:41That didn't happen last year, and it was their worst bullpen in quite a while.
04:46A lot of untrustworthy spots.
04:48So far, early this year, there's a lot of places that Aaron Boone can go to spread out the workload
04:55and to get results.
04:58It does make you curious if this continues for a while or all year,
05:04because it would solve what was the biggest worry about them coming into the season.
05:11Number two, why don't we talk about Ben Rice a little bit?
05:14You always want to see somebody who is still a relatively young player add good on good.
05:20And I think the question about his offense was always rather minimal, that he'd hit, and he's hit the ball
05:27very, very hard early this season.
05:29He's just lookedâwe're doing small things today.
05:31He's just looked much better at first base.
05:34I don't think anybody should clear room on his shelf for a gold glove.
05:40But the question is, can he be major league average or better?
05:44And this is a guy who is a worker.
05:47That's how he got himself drafted.
05:49That's how he got himself through the Yankee organization and to the majors and began to make some impact.
05:54And now it looks like he's put in the work at first base to be much, much more competent there
06:01than he looked last season when it was a relatively new position for him.
06:06Again, think about the advantages.
06:08If he doesn't have to be defended for late in the game by Paul Goldschmidt, it's extra at-bats.
06:13As the season goes along, it's justâhe doesn't bail against lefty pitching.
06:21There's justâI wonder if the Paul Goldschmidt spot becomes a bit of a wasted time and effort for the Yankees
06:29in that I'm not sure how much you want to rest Ben Rice even against lefty pitching.
06:35And Paul Goldschmidt's history, including last year, was he was exceptional against lefty pitching.
06:40But if Ben Rice is going to hit it and field at least major league average and destroy righty pitching,
06:47then he becomes an everyday player.
06:50And that was kind of the idea in spring anyway.
06:53Boone and his staff had talked about the idea that a lefty pitcher doesn't automatically take Ben Rice off the
07:00field.
07:00So I am something to monitor over the coming weeks how much Rice and all the other lefties play against
07:06lefties.
07:06And that gets us to number three, another lefty, which is Trent Grisham.
07:11I think Yankee fans at a pretty large number hated that the Yankees offered the qualifyingâmade the qualifying offer to
07:21Trent Grisham.
07:21And that Trent Grisham accepted the qualifying offer, $22.05 million.
07:27I was always under the belief that a big marketâthat if Trent Grisham had hit 34 homers and had the
07:33year he had for another team, and the Yankees signed him as a free agent for one year at $22
07:39million, everyone would be going,
07:41Oh, that's a good sign.
07:42Only one year, the guy, 34 homers.
07:46Is it possible that it's fluky?
07:48It is, but I think you're a big market team playing for it all.
07:51You've got to at leastâyou've got to bring him back if he wants to come back for one year.
07:57And maybe a slight overpay, but not an overpay at all if he's the guy last year.
08:02And the at-bats have been good again this year, but what stands outâagain, we're doing little things todayâis he's
08:08just moving so much better in center field.
08:10The theory was, at least what the Yankees offered last year, was Grisham was protecting his hamstrings because they were
08:19not in great shape last year.
08:22And when he didn't have to bust it, he wasn't busting it, both on the bases but specifically in the
08:27outfield.
08:28He's moving much better, and Grisham has been a Gold Glove-level center fielder in the past.
08:34So, again, even if the number falls down to, say, 20 to 25 homers, but lots of walks, 20 to
08:4225 homers, and above-average center field, that's worth $22 million.
08:49And no cares about what that might have done to Jason Dominguez.
08:54The Yankees have to win this year, and center field's a hard, hard spot to find.
08:59Cody Bellinger is a good center fielder, but he's not as good as Grisham on two good Grisham legs.
09:07And so, to me, an early good sign is that Grisham is moving well.
09:13So there's a couple of these underlying things thatâit's five games and 162-game seasons,
09:20but you'd rather see someâif you're the Yankees or their fan base, you'd rather see some good stuff early.
09:26And obviously, there's been a lot of good stuff, including some of this underlying stuff.
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