00:00All right, we had ourselves some exciting Easter Day baseball,
00:03but the Yankees weren't able to pull it off.
00:06Let's talk with Empire State Media content creator
00:09and, of course, host of Fireside Yankees podcast, Ryan Garcia.
00:14Ryan, my man, appreciate you hopping on with us this morning.
00:18I thought the Yankees were going to be able to pull away.
00:20Max Freed looked good at the mound.
00:23Were you surprised that Freed was able to get through some adversity
00:28but still keep the lead and hold them to only three runs before he was taken out?
00:34Mad Max was on fire for a little bit.
00:36Yeah, I mean, at this point, I'm not surprised.
00:39I mean, since signing his eight-year deal with the Yankees,
00:41he has the second most quality starts in baseball with 23.
00:45He's third in innings pitched.
00:46He has the seventh best ERA.
00:48He has the 14th most strikeouts, and he has the seventh most wins above replacement.
00:53In layman's terms, he has been an ace for the Yankees.
00:56He's been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
00:58So, really, every time he's out there on the mound,
01:00I expect him to give the Yankees a chance to win.
01:02And even though they didn't win yesterday, he certainly did just that.
01:06Yeah, he did just that.
01:08And, again, when he walked out, when he was taken from the game,
01:10they had the lead.
01:11It was, what, three runs that he had only given up,
01:14but then the bullpen kind of stepped in.
01:16And it wasn't what we want to see early in the season.
01:21Jason, which is more concerning to you early on right now?
01:26And I'm not trying to be a Yankees or baseball, Karen,
01:28but is the bottom of the lineup more of a concern or the back end of the bullpen?
01:34So, for me right now, I would say the bottom of the order,
01:37and the reason for that is the track record.
01:40Ryan McMahon is a career below average hitter.
01:42Jose Caballero is a career below average hitter.
01:44And Austin Wells is, after the last few weeks,
01:47become a career below average hitter.
01:50So, you're asking guys to reverse their career trends,
01:52whereas with the bullpen, there aren't a lot of great track records here,
01:56but there are guys who have been all-stars before.
01:58David Bettinar has been awesome with the Yankees.
02:01Camilo Duval has a track record of being a star-caliber pitcher.
02:04Fernando Cruz has been awesome with the Yankees.
02:06Tim Hill has been great with the Yankees.
02:08We've seen Brent Hedrick.
02:10His early career numbers look really strong.
02:13And I think the Yankees have something figured out with pitching
02:15where they're able to maximize value there.
02:17I'm not sure what they're going to do at third base
02:19with two years committed to Brian McMahon at $32 million total.
02:23I'm not sure what they're going to do at shortstop
02:24because I don't think George Lovar Jr. is going to be ready in the first half.
02:27So, that is way more concerning to me right now
02:30just because of the lack of guys to pivot to
02:32and some of the money you have tied up in that infield.
02:35Well, you saw Aaron Boone not what you call reverse
02:39or try and reverse that career trend.
02:42And we know this guy, his everything, every decision he makes
02:46whether it's a lineup decision or a decision to go with
02:48or take a guy from the bench and a pinch hit him or not
02:51that's going to be under a microscope.
02:53Everyone's talking this morning about how
02:55Jazz Chisholm Jr. gets the two-run double.
02:58They go down one.
02:59They intentionally walk Wells.
03:01The tying run is on first base.
03:03Caballero was up, but Boone decides to bench him
03:07and go with J.C. Estera.
03:08So, again, you talk about that bottom of the lineup
03:11and how that's very concerning early on.
03:15Do you call that â is that the right call by Boone,
03:19but bad result or just bad call no matter what?
03:23He should have went with Caballero in that moment.
03:26I think it was the right call, bad result,
03:28and the reason for that is the pitcher on the mound.
03:31And pitchers usually determine their splits,
03:33not the other way around.
03:35For Anthony Bender, I mean, against right-handed hitting
03:38in his career, he has held them to a 184 batting average,
03:42and he struck out 30% of the right-handed hitters he's faced.
03:45So, again, he's striking them out a lot.
03:47He's holding them to a low batting average.
03:48With two outs, you need a base hit.
03:50So, batting average is very important here,
03:52especially given the situation.
03:54Lefties have a career 266 average with a 17% strikeout rate.
03:58Now, I know that J.C. Estera struck out anyways,
04:01but just kind of looking at Anthony Bender's career norms,
04:04he is more likely to strike out the right-handed hitter
04:06with two outs, two on, and a one-run game.
04:10You want the guy up to put the ball in play.
04:13A strikeout has a 0% chance of being a hit.
04:15A ball in play has a greater than 0% chance of being a hit.
04:18So, your best bet at contact was with the lefty.
04:20Your best bet at a hit was with the lefty,
04:22even if the left-handed hitter and J.C. Estera isn't one
04:25who is known for hitting very well at the Major Leagues.
04:28Yeah, it's one of those situations where the X's and O's was there,
04:31but the Jimmy and Joe didn't execute.
04:34So, I mean, Boone's going to take a hit for it,
04:36but at the end of the day, it's on Estera
04:38to kind of put that ball into play, like you said.
04:41And I know I mentioned Jazz Chisholm Jr. earlier.
04:44Let's stay on him because he had that mental gaffe on Saturday
04:48where it should have been a routine grounder,
04:50but it turned into a single at the top of the ninth.
04:53Boone had a little chat with him about it,
04:56and he was back in the lineup on Sunday.
04:58Again, he had that two-run double in the ninth.
05:01Knowing how Aaron Boone managed teams suffer from mental gaffe
05:05after mental gaffe in recent years,
05:09was Boone right to kind of pull Jazz to the side,
05:12or you think it's too early of the season for him to have these chats?
05:18No, I think it was the right time, and I'll be frank.
05:20That can't happen on the baseball field, right?
05:22You're struggling offensively.
05:24Your team picks you up while you're struggling,
05:26and they're coming up with big hits while you're not coming up with big hits.
05:29Your clothes are on the bump.
05:30Let's go make a play.
05:32And it costs Bednar a lot of pitches.
05:35He threw a ton of pitches in that inning.
05:36I know Bednar's had issues putting guys away consistently.
05:39He's gotten the saves, but there have been some extracurriculars
05:42that you don't love from your closer in that situation.
05:44As a second baseman, you've got to read the room.
05:47Your closer's had issues keeping guys off the bases.
05:49He's had some long saves.
05:51Your team rallies, and you're not part of that rally.
05:53You're not contributing with the bat, and you're in a contract year.
05:56You know, Jazz's been in this league for, I mean, he debuted in 2020.
05:59This is his seventh year in the league.
06:01You kind of have to have the veteran-ness to go out there
06:04and show a good effort even when you're not struggling.
06:07The bat can't slump with the defense slumping, too.
06:10It can't happen at the same time.
06:11And look, teams and GMs are looking at that, right?
06:13They have that film out there.
06:15When you're going to go into free agency,
06:17and you're sitting down with the GM, they're going to ask you,
06:19hey, what was that?
06:20Is that going to happen when we have you making hundreds of millions of dollars
06:24guaranteed with no worry about your performance, messing up that money?
06:27So I think that can't happen.
06:29But I don't think it's going to keep happening.
06:31I think Jazz is going to pick it up.
06:32He's going to get the bat going, and he'll help this team a lot this year.
06:34Yeah, because I was going to have to push back on that a little bit
06:37because we saw Francisco Lindor kind of have the same mental gaffe
06:41a couple of games ago.
06:43So you're chalking that up as something where it's just like,
06:46all right, early season blunder,
06:49that's not something that we should go to expect from Jazz
06:52throughout the course of the season.
06:54Yeah, I don't think Jazz is a guy who you're going to have to keep
06:57checking him hopefully on that.
06:59Look, he's been in the league for seven years for a reason.
07:01He's an all-star for a reason.
07:02I think he's a very good baseball player.
07:04But in that situation, right,
07:05you just got to pull the guy to the side and talk with him.
07:08It's going to happen.
07:08There are, I mean, you mentioned Lindor.
07:10There are a plethora of very good baseball players
07:12who have had some pretty low moments.
07:14I mean, you can think about A-Rod and Jeter staring at each other
07:16on that fly ball.
07:17Those are two of the best players I've ever seen put on the pinstripe.
07:20So it happens.
07:21Right.
07:22They'll be back in action pretty soon.
07:23Ryan Garcia, appreciate you hopping on with us
07:25early this Monday morning, man.
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