00:00We got to get to the big news of the week here at this point.
00:02We were wondering, is something wrong with Aaron Judge?
00:05What could it be?
00:05And if you watched anything from any of the postgame press conferences here,
00:09Aaron Boone, he's bewildered at the answers that he's having to give to the people,
00:14asking the questions only to find out, oh boy, Aaron Judge down possibly four to six weeks
00:19with a stress fracture on his first rib on his right side.
00:23Devastating news to Mr. MVP, Craig.
00:27Yeah, and it's devastating, but I think it sounds like it could have been worse,
00:31at least if you're a Yankees fan.
00:33It does appear that there were some at least things thrown out with the possibility of thoracic outlet surgery,
00:39which would mean Donahue would absolutely miss the year if that is the case.
00:42And by the way, I'm still not so sure that at the end of those four to six weeks,
00:46what will happen here because maybe there is more to it.
00:49It's impossible to speculate with injuries and stuff like this.
00:52And if I'm not mistaken, the injury diagnosis is to get more imaging after that time is over.
00:57And so that's not even a return to play.
00:59It's just that.
01:00I'm sure the Yankees, if you look at their squad, you look at their team,
01:04they're a team that obviously is built to win and get to the postseason.
01:07Their starting pitching is strong enough.
01:09That's a massive hole not having him there.
01:11Can they temporarily replace him with somebody via trade?
01:14I think the Yankees probably will explore that.
01:16But I think if you told the Yankees fans, Donnie, and you told the Yankees we'll get judged back in
01:22August or September for a postseason run,
01:25I think they would take it right now.
01:27I mean, I think that you should want to take it right now because it's sort of scary when you
01:30see an injury like this.
01:31Yeah, thinking about that same injury to what we saw in Zach Wheeler in Philadelphia last year,
01:35which wiped out the rest of his 2025.
01:37And to be quite frank, a lot of people were thinking that might be the end of his career.
01:40Now, he worked through it, pitched extremely well so far, and we'll see if that works out.
01:43But I think you're right about this one thing, Craig, where the information was floated.
01:47We don't really know what's wrong.
01:48And if it was the worst-case scenario, it's at the end of the season or maybe the end of
01:51the career for Aaron Judge.
01:52So I think most Yankees fans, you are correct, thinking like, wait a second.
01:55Ooh, we dodged a bullet here.
01:57Only a stress fracture in the rib cage four to six weeks.
01:59But also, Craig, like we see so many in pitchers like, hey, shoulders down.
02:03Well, sit out for a month.
02:05Like, you've got to ramp back up.
02:06Same thing with Aaron Judge.
02:07This is a guy that's big in the weight room here, taking your cuts every single day.
02:10And what are they telling him, Craig?
02:11Hey, we'll get back to you about a month.
02:13Don't do anything at this point.
02:14So there will be a ramp-up period as well.
02:17Yeah, that's why I just don't see this as a four- to six-week injury.
02:21And again, it's hard to speculate on some of this stuff, as we'll talk about with another injury to Scooble,
02:26who, you know, was supposed to be out a long period of time now.
02:28He's coming back maybe a little bit sooner.
02:30We really don't know.
02:31But that's just the thing, Donnie, with injury.
02:33So I think what you do is you check back after the All-Star game, honestly, and you see where
02:39Judge is at.
02:39And then if you find out that with any of the medical imaging that he's not ready to return, then
02:44I think the alarm at that point goes off.
02:47Because anything that doesn't heal right now that has to be done after these four to six weeks are over,
02:53I think that could be season-ending at that point.
02:55So I guess we'll just have to see.
02:57And we will have to see.
02:58And also, if you tell Yankees fans, like, okay, he is going to be back and he might not win
03:01the MVP, sure they're going to take that.
03:03Because the end, the ultimate here, is to win a World Series, have your players healthy and hitting well into
03:07the month of September.
03:08But also, Craig, you take a look at those odd shifts here.
03:11Yes, Aaron Judge, multi-time MVP, expected to be the MVP again this year.
03:15And he was the favorite before the rib injury.
03:17Now you see a John Ewing tweet here.
03:191-125, Craig, before the injury, 100-1 now if he does miss the month here.
03:25And that turns into the favorite, always creeping up top.
03:28There's Bobby Witt Jr. to plus 145.
03:29But I do find it so interesting right behind here on Live Odds.
03:33Yordan Alvarez also up there as one of the leaders to win the AL MVP, Craig.
03:38And the question is, is he even going to be in the American League by the time we get to
03:42that trading deadline?
03:43But understand this.
03:44They're only the Astros four and a half games back in the West.
03:47I don't know if they give up on the season just yet, Craig.
03:49Yeah, they've made a little run to kind of keep themselves in it.
03:52And that's despite all of the injuries that they have had with Correa and Altuve.
03:57And now we'll talk about Hayter and some others.
03:59You know, I get the sense if the Astros are going to do some sort of reset, Donnie, or some
04:05sort of rebuild, maybe it would make more sense for them to do this after the season.
04:09You know, even if they're not in it, because then what you're doing with a player like this, I don't
04:14know if you would call Alvarez a generational player.
04:16I know he had another grand slam over the weekend, too.
04:18But what you do is you're limiting yourself right now, Donnie, to about eight, ten teams that would take him
04:24on in the offseason.
04:25You're opening it up to like 25 and maybe some team that we don't even know about that wants to
04:29make a big push for next year.
04:30So if they were to do something like that, I would anticipate he's the kind of player that gets moved
04:35in an offseason.
04:36But certainly Witt is one of those guys for the MVP.
04:39Alvarez has to be, too.
04:40It's a wide open field right now for that award.
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