- 2 days ago
Who is UNTOUCHABLE? "What are you willing to part with?"
Lou Merloni: "I mean anything..." "Pick the 3-4 young guys that you want on a team, and surround the rest of them with veteran players that have been here before"
Lou Merloni: "I mean anything..." "Pick the 3-4 young guys that you want on a team, and surround the rest of them with veteran players that have been here before"
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00now the only socks insider that i listen to at any point that lou good morning well good morning
00:07everybody i hope everybody had a nice day i had a nice day away from it it was my wife's
00:11birthday
00:11i just got away from the game we had a beautiful day very nice did you uh did you make
00:16dinner for
00:16her or go out somewhere i actually made breakfast for about i don't know 12 and then we did a
00:22little
00:22we were down in your neck of the woods last night oh yeah yeah a little little early evening walk
00:27around the seaport beautiful day little davio's piece it was nice not bad very nice did you see
00:32aj brown down there by any chance i did not okay i did not see him but i heard he's
00:37looking for an
00:37apartment in one of the buildings that's just a rumor what about roman roman i did i did see a
00:42picture of him at the airport if that means anything yeah rent a car i saw that
00:48well lou i i was talking last week i was kind of getting pulled back in and now unfortunately i
00:55think i have to be out after this weekend yeah it's that was a tough weekend um in a lot
01:01of ways
01:01because it was like uh there was seems to be like a blueprint when they win and when they lose
01:06and
01:06this got turned upside down a little bit over the weekend right it was you know the bats woke up
01:11enough
01:11in two of the games and and then slayton goes out and then gives up runs for the first time
01:16all year
01:17i mean um whitlock comes in in the sixth inning and he gives up back-to-back hits and he
01:21kind of gives
01:22up the lead and it's just you knew something like that was going to happen eventually like
01:26chapman's going to blow a game whit whitlock is and slayton is it's just like gut punching right
01:33now because of the start that they got off to and it's like you just couldn't afford it it's going
01:38to happen it's just the timing of it was uh it's just not great lou you talk about the timing
01:43of it
01:43and like you say there's games that you're giving away you're up for nothing in the first and you
01:48ultimately lose that game when when does the organization um say we're we are no longer
01:57and we're out of it because the al is just like it's wide open but when does the organization go
02:03like all right there's no chance in hell no matter what we do we're going to be able to to
02:08continue
02:08to make a push for a playoff spot well that's like the weird spot as you mentioned the al is
02:13a mess
02:14i mean i do think you have to look internally and say yeah you know i know we're two and
02:17a half three
02:17games out we've been in this range for a while but realistically do we have enough you know um
02:22right now it's like you know you look at and say you're in the playoffs so they're not thinking that
02:26right now that they're out of it if they were seven eight games out of it that would be a
02:30different
02:30story so i still think you're a ways away from thinking that but i do think internally you have to
02:34look at yourself and say okay you know we need help you know i mean the infield right now you
02:40need help
02:40like you're outfield people talk about um you know roman coming back when he comes back he can't
02:45play the infield and you know like right now you've got five guys that you're rotating three infield
02:50spots and you're just trying to figure out which is the best based on matchups you know but you
02:55don't have like that everyday guy out there right now well we haven't talked to you since cora was
03:01fired i'm just curious you know you've been very close with him and interviewed him many years
03:05what were your thoughts on that do you think that the organization has been disappointed at the
03:10reaction to it in terms of on-field performance uh um well my reaction to it to be honest with
03:16you
03:17is i think that it just came to a crossroads i think for years i don't think cora wants to
03:22manage
03:22a young team i think he wants veteran players i think that's been pretty much pretty clear the last
03:27three or four years like you know he wants at the offseason he wants this player that player the
03:31trade deadline he wants this player that player and it's not never brought in here so um it's a young
03:36team you know the last four years basically you know 2021 you're in the alcs and it's kind of been
03:42a similar approach since you know it's like let's just see you know go to go young and see if
03:47the
03:47guys can play in the big leagues and you know some of these guys like you know rafael and abreu
03:52are
03:52kind of like turning a corner right now and having very good years but it's just been young and i
03:57think
03:57that kind of after a while i just think it got to a manager that kind of wants a veteran
04:01team to win a
04:02world series and the constant you know young players coming up teaching the game i think is
04:07done not just in this organization in every organization of young players not just like
04:12learn how to play in the big leagues but learn how to play the game is is more prevalent and
04:16i just i
04:17don't know i just feel like it came to a head and i think you know they just sort of
04:21they made the
04:21change they went with the you know an interim manager and tracy and then just a younger staff to
04:27go with a younger team and yeah i think they are hoping that they would play better baseball and
04:31right now they're still sitting around 500 since that move lou quickly on that does that explain the
04:37real frustration regarding bregman where like he represented a guy that would help alleviate the
04:42burden of managing young players for cora yeah i would think i mean it's just the reality of every
04:47single manager in the big leagues you know i mean if you take a job say in like minnesota like
04:52derrick shulton we just saw or in pittsburgh you sort of realize that you're going to come here
04:56you're going to get some young players and you know all these guys on your wish list you may not
05:00get and everything else but i just feel like he felt like he would get more guys on his wish
05:05list
05:05you know and um it was a lot of it and i think that was i heard you guys talking
05:09about the the
05:10ken rosenthal comment you know he just said like it changes the dynamic you know a lot of people ran
05:15with that i don't think core was crazy about the interpretation of rosenthal but the reality is is
05:21that around the league there's a lot of young guys that come up to the big leagues and it used
05:24to be
05:25like it's hard it's hard to get there it's even harder to stay but with the big contracts that
05:30have been given out to kids it's there's no going back there is hey listen we paid this guy we
05:36think
05:36this is who he is you turn him into that player and if you don't we're going to fire a
05:41department
05:42you know if he's not the hitter that we think he should be you're all gone so there seems to
05:46be
05:47like this teach him how to play the game he's not going back down we've already you know we've
05:51established that we paid him the money he's going to stay here so it's up to you now to turn
05:54him
05:55into the player we think we are he is and that's across the league that's not just here that's across
06:00the league so i think that's that's the dynamic that when i see it it's sort of it's changed a
06:06little
06:06bit over the last i don't know five years six years eight years whatever it may be if they have
06:10a belief lou that this is still a playoff team and they need to go get a bat or two
06:16or whatever
06:16what are you willing to part with what i mean anything listen i i you know i hear people i
06:26see
06:26people tweet about like this guy's in the minor leagues he's you know untouchable there's i'm so
06:31we're still there i mean are we still there like untouchable like like pick pick the three or four
06:37young guys that you want on a team and surround the rest of them with veteran players that have been
06:41here before like to me that's still the key of winning baseball games in the major league level
06:45so you know we can start wherever the problem is is that we can talk about adding a bat now
06:51and
06:51people you know talking about this guy and this guy and everything else the reality is what you're
06:56going to start hearing is the asking price is is ridiculous and we're not going to give that up
07:02to get this player because that's major league baseball trade that trades in may in june even in
07:09july the asking prices are high that's just the way it is which is why you take care of business
07:16in
07:16the winter so you don't lose three or four prospects trying to fix a hole well one of the things
07:23that
07:23you know curtis and i we went back and forth about you know roman anthony and what's going on with
07:28him
07:28i guess i know thank god for wiggy well i appreciate you're you're down sorry curtis it's all right
07:34you're down there you're down there all the time yeah what do you think the issue is with him and
07:42what's kind of going on and then when we when he comes back what should we expect well i would
07:50start
07:50with this like first off i know you guys are talking about that comment and chris i was going you
07:56you were
07:57saying that he was enabled and choosing not to play because they got he's got money and tampa's a
08:03good team so he decided to go on the il because he's tapping out like that was like that's where
08:11i
08:11and wiki kind of fought that and that's where i was just like come on dude like like you know
08:15i don't
08:16think he's not playing baseball because he has money and tampa's a good pitching staff and he's just
08:21like i'm out you know so i didn't agree with that now we're at a point where he's tried to
08:26swing a bat in kansas city and felt something and then friday was supposed to swing a bat and and
08:32you know and it is dry swings and still feel something today we're gonna have another one
08:36of those days where he gets to the field swings the bat and hopefully doesn't feel anything now
08:41i felt like from day one they've they've made a mistake by putting a timeline on it they made a
08:48mistake downplaying it saying you know that basically like we don't need surgery we dodged a
08:53bullet now we're just day to day well that's the reality of it but that to me is downplaying a
08:59hand
08:59injury or wrist injury for a hitter because you have no idea until he puts a bat and i said
09:05it from
09:05the very beginning when people like this sounds good and i'm like you have no idea until a hitter
09:10puts a bat in his hand and tries to hit 95 then you'll find out how the hand reacts so
09:16is that doing
09:17him a disservice the organization doing yeah i didn't like but i mean he's young player too like he came
09:23out
09:23and said i'll be ready in 10 days and everyone's like okay boom they put it in their calendar 10
09:26days from now ask roman anthony why he's not playing you know i mean this is like you always
09:31say like don't put a timeline on injuries well you got a young staff coaching staff you got a young
09:35player and whether you think he's a young gm or not whatever coming out publicly and saying his day
09:40to day he's fine like there's the wording i don't think did anybody a favor here but so to me
09:47hopefully he comes out and swings it now is he a young player that's scared that all the hitters are
09:52like when it comes to their hands and he feels a little something he's like oh i'm done and they're
09:56like okay let's try swinging through it but i feel something well let's try swinging through it for a
10:00couple days and see what it feels like i don't know what's going on there you know but um i
10:06know he
10:06wants to play he's just maybe a little scared that his hand hurts and that's every hitter's money
10:10i saw it with nomar like it rattled him dude when he hurt his hand he had that sheath injury
10:16he came
10:17back and would hit a ball to the track come in the dugout and be like dude my wrist ain't
10:21right
10:21that ball's gone usually i got problems you know like i i can't hit anymore and it's just your hands
10:27mess with you as a hitter and we'll just i don't know it's up to him we'll see gets in
10:32there swings
10:32it hopefully he feels better and and then then we're still probably if he feels great today we're
10:38still probably five six days away lou my thing and i no offense taken you're you're the baseball guy
10:45in town i take a back seat to everything you say i would say simply yeah the organization on friday
10:51when greg hears what he heard about the the tent that the ring finger and sam kennedy going out of
10:57his way to correct greg or to restate the organization's position which is it's not a tear
11:06it's a sprain which to me if i'm roman anthony and i'm everything you just described that bothers me
11:13no yeah i could see that i think it's semantics i heard you guys have this debate personally i've
11:19always felt like there's first degree second degree third degree sprains you know second degree may
11:26be more of a tear first degree is still a tear it's just like micro tears um so to me
11:32that's just
11:32sort of semantics like well you're describing curtis i went through my rookie year um i ran dove into
11:39the stands for a foul ball i hurt my shin they said it was a bone bruise i was supposed
11:45to run in two
11:46weeks i couldn't run we took an x-ray and the white line was there and it was like an
11:50actual fracture
11:52and uh i'm a rookie and everybody's like why aren't you playing and i'm like well i don't have a
11:57i don't
11:57have a bone bruise bro i have a fracture and i had to go like publicly i had to go
12:01to the doctors
12:02i'm a rookie and i had to go to like dr pappas and be like you keep calling it a
12:05bruise i look i
12:07look i don't look good it's a fracture like when are we going to correct this you know like you
12:11know
12:12so um i but i i just think that's semantics you know when it comes to a sprain and a
12:17tear
12:18people saying the same thing to me when i didn't run the 5k in december i was saying that about
12:22you
12:23i said hey i got a bone bruise
12:27no one of the other things that we talked about and and and curtis had brought this up and it's
12:33kind of like trade deadline if you become sellers and one of the things are if you're still in it
12:39is there any thought on maybe chapman becoming available and if you're the red socks is that
12:45something that you have to kind of entertain and and the fact of you might want to move on from
12:50a guy
12:51like him because he probably can get you a lot yeah yeah and i think again you're a ways away
12:57from
12:57it but i don't think you're you're doing your job if you're craig breslow if you're not sitting there
13:02looking at every single scenario you know hopefully you know i think everybody wants his team to
13:08you know stay in this thing or start getting hot and start swinging the bats and every you know
13:13winning ball games but the reality is you have to at least at some point take a step back and
13:18say
13:18okay well listen if we have another bad 10 15 game run and we're six games out of it and
13:23there's
13:23six games in front six teams in front of us then we have to start looking at aroldis chapman we
13:30have
13:30to start looking at sonny gray we have to start looking at our roster and start thinking about
13:35moving on from these guys it's just it's the reality it's not the reality everybody wants
13:39but i i think you have to you know be flexible enough to in a month start looking at these
13:45things
13:47what about jaron duran yeah another one you know again like you know listen no one's off the table
13:55to me you know and and i hope they turn this thing around and i hope he's here for the
13:59next couple of
13:59years you know um the reality is is that you know right now duran's out there every day and you
14:06got your sheet of de-aging or mickey gasper de-aging because of an injury to roman anthony
14:10but eventually roman anthony comes back and chad tracy is still going to face the same issue like
14:14like it doesn't help anything you know i mean the only answer is is a guy like say don going
14:21to second
14:22base and and being able to play everybody you know and i don't think that's ideal in any by any
14:27means
14:27but um you know in a month if you're losing a ton of baseball games i think everybody's on the
14:32table
14:33it's just a reality of major league baseball if you're not in it at the deadline you trade
14:37people away curtis was asking earlier why wait so long when it comes to marcello meyer and and
14:43shortstop um what they oh they waited i don't know like six days right a week and i get it
14:48but
14:49there is i know he's basically born it on at shortstop you know like his mom actually gave birth
14:55popped right out of shortstop and he's a shortstop from day one but like there is a little
15:01transition especially from second base maybe not so much as third base because of the throwing
15:06aspect of it like there's a sense of urgency that he needs to play with it short that may be
15:11a touch
15:11less at second base right the throwing he catches the ground ball at first and he just sort of flips
15:16it over there well now he's got to kind of always be aggressive always moving in you got to work
15:20at
15:20angles right angles left you got to catch a routine ground ball you got to get your throwing down
15:24because now you're airing it out you know i'm on a lot of the throws so there was just a
15:29week they
15:29didn't want to put him in a bad spot and just defensively um so they just gave him you know
15:34a
15:34week or so so i think now he's settled in there and and hopefully he can kind of oh i'm
15:39hoping that
15:40like going to shortstop unlocks him offensively and i did think he looked a little bit better the
15:44other day hit a few couple at bats had a good couple at bats but you know offensively is still
15:49yeah he can go out there and play short every day but he's he's still trying to figure out who
15:53he is
15:53you know in this league as well when it comes to off speed breaking pitches young player
15:58but defensively it's i think it's time to just see what he can do now lou is craig breslow safe
16:04for good like it for the remainder of this season yeah i don't know really i i don't like i
16:11don't know
16:11what's in john henry's mind i don't know if he's looking at this and saying yes this was the old
16:16staff not meshing with a young group or this old hitting department and now it's sort of like well
16:21it is a tough spot because we brought in all new hitting guys that these guys really maybe they've
16:27worked with in a ball but they're working on different things or they've worked with them in
16:30double a but they're working on different things they're working on climbing the ladder and learning
16:34things as a minor leaguer now are we teaching the major league game at the communications there so
16:38is the whole process setting these guys up to be successful so it's and whose fault is that right
16:43like i i don't know where he's at with it all um and the other thing too is that this
16:49conversation's internally like hey this is going to happen that's going to happen
16:52um and when it doesn't who's who's to blame so i i i don't know and i always hate kind
16:58of like
16:58talking about i don't know the guy should be gone or not no it's a tough position i just for
17:03me lou
17:03like i heard from everybody that knew what they were talking about that said cora was safe as long
17:09as he wanted the job and it was just shocking and i guess what you described is maybe he just
17:14was
17:14it was sort of an understanding that he didn't like the direction of the team and the team didn't like
17:19the direction of him not so much as we don't like alex cora anymore well i mean the only thing
17:23you
17:23could say like when you fire cora you lose your buffer right like yep it's sort of like you could
17:30see down the i mean after at the end of the month you was just or at least a month
17:34into the season 20
17:35games in the season you could see that you're like wow something could happen here right whether
17:40it's core whether it's the hitting department whether it's something because it's just it was kind
17:45of off to that bad of a start where i think people thought expectations were that you were a playoff
17:50team competing for a division it just wasn't happening so um yeah i don't i don't i don't know
17:57but when you fire the manager and now it's sort of like okay it's now it's on me you know
18:02i mean
18:02that's just the reality of sports it's so um i don't know we'll see how this year ends up and
18:07like
18:08i said i'm not in john's head or anybody else's head or what was told what was promised or what
18:12was
18:12anything so we'll see all right so lou you're still in what do you mean you're in on these
18:18guys oh yeah i'm in on these listen every time i do a game the record's oh no like i
18:22just like
18:23this weekend for example i'm walking i get pissed like i really get pissed you know i'm leaving the
18:27ballpark i get pissed when they lose the ball game like i you know whatever i drive home i have
18:32my 45
18:33minutes to just sort of talk to myself and listen to something whatever and i get i get pissed but
18:37i
18:37would say like as far as my job goes like i it was like three fun games like they were
18:42good
18:42baseball games there were chances late they just can't finish it off and win them so i get pissed
18:46off and i show up the next day and the record's oh no this is we got monster week i'm
18:50up in the
18:50green monster here today with dave o'brien we're gonna throw jemai around all over the ballpark like
18:55we did with tc we so it's like it's like a fun week like i still have a blast going
19:00it's just that
19:01when the game is over and they lose i just want to freaking throw something out the window when
19:04i'm driving down 93 maybe myself lou how how much patience does we talk about patience you talk
19:11about the offense but to kind of get in the mind a little bit because it's going to be interesting
19:15how much patience does roman anthony have to have with himself when he comes back to not force
19:23to being like the savior of this offense yeah it's the same feeling he had maybe on opening day
19:33um maybe this break kind of mentally helps him a little bit um but you know he's been up for
19:38a
19:39while like personally i'd like to see him go down to triple a and have two or three games down
19:44there
19:44and just give him six nine meaningless stress-free no pressure at bats to try to get a feel for
19:52what he
19:53wants in the batter's box so um but yeah he's he's when he comes back yeah he's gonna feel like
20:00he
20:00needs a little boost you know i mean he's he's been but the thing is like he's been gone so
20:04who's
20:04getting more playing time it's sort of like yoshida and gasper and the two of them have been swinging
20:09it too right so this is why it's like you got to get him back i heard people say you
20:14got it you know
20:14i know you're don alvarez and i'm like that's great but he can't play the infield like he can dh
20:20you know um same thing with roman so it's sort of to me that's where you look at like second
20:25third
20:25and short and they're like 29 30th in ops like around the league you know and they got guys there
20:30that can help they're big leaguers and and you know they're really good players and trust me i have
20:34utility love because i love those guys to death but um but hopefully when he comes back he can relax
20:40and just kind of find and try to have a strong year the rest i i hope that we sit
20:44there and we're
20:45talking about roman anthony like we did maybe with like trevor story like from june on this is who he
20:51was and he can just sort of find himself in this league lou as always an absolute pleasure i thank
20:56you so much for giving us the time this you guys rock i hope you enjoyed the weekend did you
21:00hit on
21:00yeho down in falmouth um we had a blast and uh we did not go there i've heard that place
21:05is
21:05unbelievable what's awesome it's fantastic we had a blast we were at the flying bridge on friday it was
21:11awesome trading post lounge on thursday night so listen you're always invited to any road show
21:16i love it be our guest i love it and check it out we've got monster week last year in
21:20the monster
21:20week is when they took off that was like a little 10 game span so maybe we can uh sweep
21:25the atlanta
21:26braves that'd be a nice little comeback turnaround starts today don't let us win tonight
Comments