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00:00:00If the version of the Yankees, who have played defensively for the last three weeks,
00:00:05show up at Tropicana Field and play that way these next four games,
00:00:11the Yankees will be humiliated.
00:00:15It's a drive by Derry Dawson, Josh Chisholm goes deep.
00:00:24Hello and welcome to the Pitchtripe Post. My name is Ryan Sampson, but he's the star of the show,
00:00:27Joel Sherman. Today is Monday, July 6th. The New York Yankees lost their first series at home
00:00:33against the Minnesota Twins since 2014. Well, that's where Joel was at that point in time.
00:00:38But before we get to any of that, as always on a Monday morning, Joel, how you doing, man?
00:00:43The answer is the same exact spot without the Pitchtripe Post covering it. Yeah.
00:00:51And probably writing some similar stuff about just how bad it looked and if they're going to get over
00:00:56the mountaintop or not. And I think that's where we are again. I do think that the Yankees have
00:01:05been a really good team for about 35 years now, going back to the early 90s, right? Like 90,
00:01:11they haven't had a losing record since 1992, you know, starting especially in 95. They make the
00:01:17playoffs almost every year. I will say there's a real difference. And the Yankees, if Aaron Boone is
00:01:23going to continue forward as manager, they're going to have to figure out, like, like, because
00:01:27you could go look at the worst periods in Yankees, like over the last 30, since they got good,
00:01:33right? Since they like, we're going to cut off, say, starting in 1993. And you start looking for
00:01:38periods of like, what's their worst record in 20 games? What's their worst record in 30 games?
00:01:44What's their worst record in 40? You'll find some other ones. 1995, the Yankees really struggled
00:01:50all year and only turned it on with the best September in their history at that point to get
00:01:54in the playoffs. In 2000, they kind of got a big lead going into September. They won a series against
00:02:02Boston. They were up like 10, 11 games. And then they kind of went to sleep and they almost blew
00:02:06the
00:02:06lead in September and they played terribly. I think they finished like three and 18 or something like
00:02:12that. That was under Torrey. You could find some Girardi ones. But the consistency of finding since
00:02:202018, especially since 2020, these last five years, the Yankees, I called it this on the show last week.
00:02:28I used it in my column today. They are team Anthony Volpe, which is they don't slump. They death spiral.
00:02:36Like they look as if they are never going to get out of something. Now we should, I know we're
00:02:42going
00:02:43to be very critical on this show as we should be. They almost always find a way out of this.
00:02:48The only
00:02:49year they didn't was the judge injury year in 23. And they write themselves. They hit some soft part of
00:02:56the schedule. They make the right trades in July. They get their injured guys back. Whatever that
00:03:00combination is under Boone, they get out of it. But like, I've got to say, uh, it is a real
00:03:08mark on
00:03:08the Boone era that during his time, this team falls apart for, for weeks at a time. Usually at about
00:03:19this time, I know people call it a June swoon, but like there's times it's been July. There's times
00:03:23it's been a, it's someplace in the mid season, usually around the all-star break. It's almost like
00:03:28they start reaching for the all-star break well beforehand, uh, as if like they're trying to
00:03:34finish a marathon. And, uh, I get it. They have some very, very important people injured. Uh,
00:03:42there was no forgiving the Mets earlier this season when it was Lindor and Soto and pitchers
00:03:47like this is part of the season. And even at least publicly, that's what Boone says. Like he keep
00:03:51pointing to all the lineup card and going, there's enough good names on this lineup card
00:03:55to win games. Uh, but right now they, they have a problem, Ryan. And I'm, again, I'm sure we're
00:04:03going to delve into all of this. I'm sorry to kind of like monologue here at the top, but, uh,
00:04:08they're
00:04:09bad at everything right now. Uh, they're bad at everything except for maybe a little starting
00:04:15pitching a little, not a lot and some bullpen, but not all of it. Uh, and so, uh, in order
00:04:25like
00:04:25their pitching is a problem right now, their defense, they're hitting and their baseball
00:04:31acumen, their IQ, their technique, whatever is F for three weeks. F F like as bad a failing
00:04:40grade as you could give for three weeks of baseball. The good news for them is they played
00:04:46exceptionally well, best record in the American league, third best record in, in the majors
00:04:51through June 17th. So they have some wiggle room and the American league is very forgiving.
00:04:58But again, I put this in the column that I wrote yesterday from the game and it's in a Monday's
00:05:03New York post and up online at nypost.com, which is this was the Mets last year. The Mets got
00:05:09to the middle of June and they had the best record in the major leagues through June 12th
00:05:15and they began to play poorly. They had injuries. They weren't technically playing well. And a
00:05:20lot of it was all right, this is a swoon, but they're going to get their act together. And
00:05:24by the way, the Yankees kind of mirrored them last year. They went through it at the same
00:05:27time. The Yankees got out of it. The Mets didn't. And so like, I had to keep an open mind
00:05:33that the Yankees of 2026 or some version of 2025 Mets, where maybe we're going to just
00:05:40keep saying the American league stinks, but so do the Yankees and they're going to play
00:05:44with their food and not get like they've at least opened that door. I still think that
00:05:48they'll probably find a way to keep their head above water, get their two main starting
00:05:53pitchers back in August. They'll hope to get judged back. Like in early August, hope to get
00:05:59judged back. It may be mid August, someplace that I'm just guessing at things. The Yankees
00:06:02would sooner tell me all of their social security numbers, then tell me about Aaron judge injuries,
00:06:08but like, and, and do some stuff at the trade deadline. And you know, if I was a betting man,
00:06:15I am not, I would bet that they figure a way out of it. I still think that they're the
00:06:20most talented
00:06:20team in the league, but none of that matters. They've spent three weeks, not bad, not very bad.
00:06:27And in a way, not even awful. They've spent three weeks atrocious where they're bad at everything.
00:06:34Right. And for the amount of talent that remains and for the history of the coaching staff to have
00:06:42been through these cycles to try to avoid them, this is not really pardonable to me. As I watch it,
00:06:50I think this is a real blight on everyone's resume who's involved in this because they've been through
00:06:56it before and they promised some stuff early in the season. Remember like, Oh, we're not just happy
00:07:01to win the first two games of a series. We're going for the sweep. We've learned our lessons
00:07:05from the past. Nope. They have not. And what I'll say about this Joel is, and look one to nine,
00:07:13the last 10, three out of the last three and four, three and 14 in the last 17. It's the
00:07:18worst in
00:07:18major league baseball over that stretch. You've talked about it. It's such a death spiral right now.
00:07:24And there has to be a, a deservedly. So point of criticism towards Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman
00:07:30for allowing this to continue again in the third year in a row, Joel, right? Cause we saw in 23,
00:07:36we saw in 24, we saw in 25, 26. Again, it's happening where this mid season slump has literally
00:07:44had fans questioning. Can this team get off the mat and show that they're the best team? Cause we saw
00:07:50it at the beginning of the season. Like you said, they look like one of the best teams in baseball,
00:07:53if not the best team in baseball. I understand Aaron judge is, is impossible to replicate what
00:08:00he does for your team, both on the field and clearly off the field leadership wise to it.
00:08:05But I'm, I'm curious because after we did our episode, Joel, we heard for the first time in a
00:08:12while, Aaron judge speak to reporters and give some comments about where he thought this team
00:08:16slump was. And he talked about the lack of focus. And this is something that you have brought up
00:08:21multiple times saying, Ryan, they don't do the routine. Well, they take, they make the routine
00:08:26play look like it's too difficult to make happen. And yet again, we've seen these mistakes happen
00:08:31over and over. You've talked about the unearned runs that the Yankees have given up because
00:08:35a play here by Anthony Volpe, a play there by jazz Chisholm, they can't turn a double play.
00:08:40And next thing you know, a sack fly happens, an unearned run happens. So what does that tell you?
00:08:47The fact that Aaron judge was critical of his own teammates and locker room saying that there's a
00:08:53lack of focus and that needs to be better. Does that tell you some warning signs here, Joel of
00:08:58red light, red light, there's something wrong here. Yeah, look, I I've been a broken record.
00:09:04We've done the show for some parts of three years. I thought that the end of last year and the
00:09:09beginning of this year, while not becoming technically a, a plus that they had gotten a lot better,
00:09:16that they had gotten a lot better. But to me, there's a jazz Chisholm, Jose Caballera,
00:09:23Anthony Volpe in particular situation, somewhat when you put Rosario at third base stuff,
00:09:30the ball finds him Dominguez. Dominguez did something on Saturday. I'm sure I've seen it before,
00:09:37but I'm not sure I've seen it before, which is there was a fly ball to right field and he
00:09:43was
00:09:43reaching for the wall and he wasn't on the warning track yet. He's and I'm like hitting the wall.
00:09:49This guy. Yeah, I know. But the guy's baseball IQ spatial awareness on defense is atrocious. He
00:09:56had one last week where like Garrett Cole threw a ton of pitches in the inning and he swung at
00:10:01the
00:10:01first pitch in the next half inning. And I'm just like, come on, man. Like some of this is baseball
00:10:06one-on-one. We've got to, you got to do better. And I put it all at Boone's feet and
00:10:12his coaching
00:10:13staff that this has got to be better. There was a play in yesterday's game that I see as
00:10:20unforgivable. Jazz Chisholm show, it was the good and bad of Jazz Chisholm. Jazz Chisholm had the best
00:10:26at bat of the game by far against Joe Ryan, who's a very good starter. He goes three and two
00:10:30and fouls
00:10:31of four, three, two pitches, and then rockets a single to right field while on first base.
00:10:37He doesn't have, again, it's part of the Jazz Chisholm experience. He doesn't have just some
00:10:42oven mitt he puts on. He puts on some medieval contraption onto his hand. Well, he was doing
00:10:50that while the, the Ryan gets to the set and they probably had it set up like first pitch go.
00:10:58Yeah.
00:10:58Whatever Ryan does on his first pitch, maybe he doesn't like to throw, you know, the Yankees
00:11:02look for tendencies all over the place. I mean, he's throwing first pitch strikes all day yesterday
00:11:06too. Yes. So like, just, just go, go. And so he begins to go while playing with his glove. He
00:11:12doesn't, he kind of gets a stumbled start, ends up in a rundown, ends up tagged out. He said he
00:11:19hurt
00:11:19the toe running to first base. Boone said he hurt the toe in the rundown. And then Boone said,
00:11:26with the pitch clock, there isn't enough time to put on the glove. Okay. Like, so this is the point
00:11:32where I always say, would you like me to write about you tomorrow that you're lying to cover for
00:11:39the player or a fool, right? Because if you're lying to cover for the player, I think this player has
00:11:45lost the rights for you to lie publicly about him. If you think that, well, the pitch, tell me the
00:11:53other
00:11:53team this happens to tell me the other player that can't get his go. Like, and if it does happen,
00:12:00then don't run on that pit. Yep. Like you've got to, or tell the batter to use his time out
00:12:06and step
00:12:06out. Like there's a whole bunch of stuff that could go on there. The one thing you can't do is
00:12:12be
00:12:12fiddling with your glove and running. And that's what he did does. And it's just part of the jazz
00:12:18experience, which is he's good enough on a day. Joe Ryan was really on to have the best at bat
00:12:24on
00:12:25the team. And there's enough of this style over substance, extra stuff that he's, you know,
00:12:34the game was either a, was it a two nothing game at that point? It was one, nothing to two,
00:12:38nothing. I think it was, but it was still a game where it's like, I get it. You got, you
00:12:42know,
00:12:42like, uh, I think Volpe was a vote. No Caballero's up or Schumann's up. I think Schumann was up.
00:12:49And, and so, you know, like, even though Schumann hit a homer the day before, your most likely thing
00:12:54if he gets a hit is going to be a base hit. So I get it. You're trying to get
00:12:58Chisholm to second,
00:12:59maybe get an overthrow. Who knows what goes on? I get it. Chisholm's stolen bases are a part of the
00:13:04game. It's two out. You're having trouble against the Ryan. Let's see if you could do, take advantage of
00:13:11it and cut a two nothing lead to two one. And now you're in the game and maybe Minnesota is
00:13:15feeling
00:13:15the Minnesota of it all, which is they never beat the Yankees, especially in Yankee stadium.
00:13:21And instead you get like just a unprofessional moment here. And I think it's like, he ended up
00:13:29off the field anyway, because he had an injury, uh, or the Yankee said he had an injury said he
00:13:36had an
00:13:36injury. And so I'm not buying the injury, Joel, to be honest with you, I'm not buying it.
00:13:41injury. Like, well, I'll say this is he limped off the field. Like, like he, he limped off the
00:13:47field. Pride hurts, right? Pride hurts when you get caught. I get it. I never, I never want to say
00:13:53a player, you know, people once said something about J.R. Richardson, he ended up having a stroke
00:13:57or a heart attack. I forget which one. And so like, if a player tells me he's injured until proven,
00:14:02otherwise I'll take it at face value. There's a difference between minor injury and major injury.
00:14:07There's a difference between I'll usually play through it, but I'm embarrassed that whatever
00:14:10thing might be going on. But at some point you have to get the group's attention and there's too
00:14:19much clown stuff that happens for a team that should, you know, uh, Boone uses the term buttoned
00:14:27up a lot, but then his team isn't in these kinds of situations. And it's a small, to me,
00:14:32it's a very small group of players. Some of it feels like it's not rectifiable. Now. I just don't
00:14:39think Jason Dominguez is ever going to be a good outfielder. Forget about good. I don't think Jason
00:14:44Dominguez is ever going to be a slightly below average outfielder, which wouldn't make him
00:14:48acceptable out there. So there's that. I, I know Ahmad Rosario works his butt off to be as good as
00:14:56he
00:14:56possibly can. I just think he's not going to be a good third baseman. I just think that's physical.
00:15:00Like there's nothing a manager could do. And then you've got to decide, are we playing offense or
00:15:05defense? I will say this. The Yankees have four games coming up against the Rays, even in the best
00:15:11of times the Rays get under the Yankees skin, uh, in a bunch of different ways. No team strikes out
00:15:18at a lower percentage than the Rays. The ball is going to be in play. I think the Yankees should
00:15:23play
00:15:23their best defensive team for four straight games, whatever that is. And it's not that good.
00:15:28Their infield defense, even with their best guys on the field is not going to be good,
00:15:33but Goldschmidt should play first base for at least three of the four games.
00:15:38McMahon should play third base for all four games.
00:15:42How about Yarrow should play shortstop though? I'm not sure that's a giant advantage. Like again,
00:15:47it's better than Volpe. I'll tell you that right now.
00:15:49Well, it's certainly going to turn some double plays that Volpe doesn't.
00:15:52Uh, and you know, you live with jazz if he's healthy, but like jazz, his defense this year
00:15:58has been the worst since he's been a Yankee. Uh, also, uh, you play Bellinger Grisham and whoever
00:16:04you think is the best right fielder. Do you put Schumann in right field, right? Like do you,
00:16:10do you do that? Like maybe like I would just play defense, try to get a lead. And if you
00:16:15have a lead,
00:16:16you have your defense on the field. If you don't have a lead, then you can always bring Dominguez
00:16:19into the game as a pinch hitter for someone. If you want to pinch hit Rosario right against left,
00:16:25you can do it. But for the next few days, the Yankees should try to play because they will be,
00:16:32it will be worse at, at the trop, which is a tough field to play. As you know,
00:16:36there's all bounces around, you know, the roof, the catwalks, everything. You've got to have it.
00:16:43And by the way, I think you have to have a team meeting and say, the clown shit ends today.
00:16:50If it doesn't end today, I am pulling you from the game. And I'm not even going to say a
00:16:57name,
00:16:57but I might bring up an incident or two that shows what clown nonsense is and say, we can't.
00:17:05Because here's the thing. When Judge, Stanton, Fried, and Rodon are out, it accentuates the need to play
00:17:13clean because runs are going to be harder to come by. Absolutely. Runs are going to be harder to come
00:17:19by. And when you're just, yesterday's game, first run is about a wild pitch. The next run,
00:17:27I think, is it Grisham gets a terrible read, then coast back into the ball and the trail runner tags
00:17:34up from first to second, not just second to third. A Volpe era when he overrushes again,
00:17:40because he knows he has a bad arm and has to overrush, ends up being right. Like there was just
00:17:46too much stuff yesterday. On a day, they were going to have to really struggle their offense.
00:17:52They're in a bad spot. In mid-June, I think Ben Rice is top five for AL MVP and Cody
00:17:59Bellinger's top
00:17:5910. And Paul Goldschmidt might get some votes on a 10-person ballot, but certainly is going to get
00:18:06lots of recognition for All-Star Game or whatever. Those three guys are their weightlifters while the
00:18:12others are out. They are all in it right now. They are all struggling. Austin Wells has become just
00:18:18about unplayable offensively, though. The first two at-bats yesterday were really good.
00:18:24And so, you know, who knows what that means? Joel, he has a WRC plus. That's one of the worst
00:18:28all-time in baseball. I get it. I get it. But against the pitcher who nobody hit, he had good,
00:18:32he had better at-bats. I get it. I'm saying he's, I think I just used the tone. No, I'm
00:18:36playable.
00:18:37But I think it's, it needs to be said, he should not be in the lineup every day. Like if
00:18:41you're Aaron Boone
00:18:42and you're grasping at straws at this point, like you're saying, and you're saying, let's end the
00:18:46clown shit. How about let's end the clown shit with the lineup that you're putting out there?
00:18:50Stop putting Austin Wells in the lineup every day. Stop putting Anthony Volpe in the lineup every day.
00:18:54Those two guys are killing your team offensively and defensively. They're not good. And I want the
00:19:00Yankees front office to finally admit we screwed up both first round picks. And I know what you're
00:19:05going to say, Ryan, it's so hard to draft these guys late in the first round. I get it. But
00:19:09Joel,
00:19:10stop force feeding us fans and having to watch the crap that these guys are because it's been years
00:19:15now of both of these players regressing and turning into really below average baseball players that we
00:19:22all know cannot help you win these games. And I don't give me the crap of, listen, the lineup is
00:19:27what it is because we're dealing with injuries. Call up anyone else, call up any other warm bodies
00:19:32because they will give you more offense than what Austin Wells has given you at the catcher position.
00:19:37It is so bad. It is all time bad. And Anthony Volpe, we all know the shortstop position is the
00:19:43most
00:19:43defensive is the most important defensive position on the field. And he has and center field, but he
00:19:48has butchered almost every game, a player too, which has led to unearned runs, which has led to
00:19:54momentum killing, not get turning the double play. It feels like these guys are so privileged because
00:20:00Aaron Booms pencils them in every day. And I don't understand how we, the fans, you, the writer can see
00:20:06this
00:20:06every day and be like, yeah, they can't win with those guys, but they keep putting them out there
00:20:11every day. It doesn't make sense to me anymore, Joel. It doesn't. I would argue, I would argue
00:20:17catcher is the most important defensive position on the field. And the problem is, I think it started
00:20:21to affect Wells is catching a little bit also, like as it naturally would. I, I think Wells is a,
00:20:27for the two things the Yankees care about framing and pitch calling, he's good, but the ball's gotten
00:20:32by him a little more. The stolen base has been a big, a bigger issue. Uh, I just think as
00:20:38it would,
00:20:39it would wear people down as far as the draft picks. They're not bad draft picks. Cause again,
00:20:44you have to, you can only live in the world of who was available and they're kind of major leaguers.
00:20:48And most guys drafted in that area don't turn out to be that. And there've been moments where
00:20:52they're good major leaguers. The problem has been sticking with them through things. Uh, I think at
00:20:57this point, again, if you want to get a lot of people's attention, uh, you say, just bring up
00:21:02a warm body. Well, they brought up the, the one body for Anthony Volpe would be Oswaldo Cabrera.
00:21:08We have Jose Caballero. Why aren't you playing him at shortstop every day?
00:21:11But the rules are going to be, you're still got to put 26 men on the field on the roster.
00:21:16So the
00:21:16one body who will have to play some is Oswaldo Cabrera, who I think again, like the, the bigger
00:21:23problem for the Yankees is it's been going and, and maybe this is a place where we are myopic.
00:21:29Maybe every team goes through this because I do think offense has never been tougher in the major
00:21:34leagues, but the Yankees regression on position players, you know, the Andrew har, uh, Greg bird,
00:21:44uh, Clint Frazier, you know, like, like Gary Sanchez, if your name is an Aaron judge and we'll see on
00:21:51Ben rice, Aaron judge or Ben rice, there has been this moment of, Oh, I think they're going to be
00:21:56good. I mean, I don't think you have to go back too far to find a moment where Austin Wells
00:22:03looked
00:22:04like he was going to be a really good hitting catcher. Right. And so I'm, I'm sure the Yankee,
00:22:10I know because I keep asking the questions when I'm there are kind of like flummox, but I do think
00:22:16now that it's all weighing on Wells, the weight of the world. Like I do think Wells wants to win
00:22:23once a big, like, I don't think this is about want. And I think he would probably, I think at
00:22:28this
00:22:28point, if you're going to get something out of Duval, Wells and Volpe, I would just send them to
00:22:35the minor leagues, uh, and see if I can reclaim them. Now Volpe seemed to take this bad, badly when
00:22:44they did this initially, but like, Hey man, you ain't Prince of the city. If you ever were,
00:22:50and you've got to get over yourself. You've got to like, like, and by the way, he would play second
00:22:55base in the minor leagues for me next to George Lombard, because I just do not. I know the Yankees
00:23:03have analytics that show that Volpe is a good shortstop, but I am currently watching the game
00:23:10and I don't see it. I, I, I think the routine is messed up too much because he plays too
00:23:17quick
00:23:17with a bad arm. And so you, you talk about what you see, but you talk about what you see
00:23:23for a long
00:23:24time. No, I know, but, but his arm velocity, I know, but his throws the first, I talked about
00:23:29this a couple of weeks ago that he was 36 out of 40 shortstops in both highest velocity and average
00:23:36velocity. There's like, so I think the numbers are there. I think there's outs left on the table.
00:23:40The Yankees are the highest ground ball staff in the sport. You're, you've got to convert double
00:23:45plays. You've got to convert the one. I I'm going to go back to this. You've got to make the
00:23:51plays,
00:23:52especially when your best hitters are out. You've got to make the, I love like to me,
00:23:58I think they have a Caballero problem also because Caballero again, a ball, I was smoked,
00:24:02but a ball got through him at third base again yesterday. Like, like he said, like,
00:24:07if you want to say he's a shortstop, A, I don't buy it, but B, his value was supposed to
00:24:12be moving
00:24:12him around. And all I've watched is him mess up in left field, right field, center field, shortstop,
00:24:18third base in second. So can I, can I, and the question is, and I've said this, Ryan, this is
00:24:23like one of those problems where I think we do this false flag thing. Cause you want to argue.
00:24:26I would play Caballero over Volpe. I'm going to repeat that. So it's hurt. I would play Caballero
00:24:34at shortstop over Volpe, but I do not think Caballero is a good everyday shortstop. And
00:24:40that's one of the places also where early in the year, the analytics said he was,
00:24:44and I was watching and saying, is he? Because to me, you need, the routine has to be pretty close
00:24:52to
00:24:52a hundred percent. And the routine does not get done close to a hundred percent. Having said that
00:24:57it is far better when he plays short than Volpe. They better pray that George Lombard can play in
00:25:07the major leagues at some point this year. And is the defender, every scout who watches him tells me
00:25:13he is because I think they're going to have huge issues. If one of the two guys who are currently
00:25:19there has to be the shortstop. I understand what you're saying, Joel, but drastically,
00:25:23they were the best team in baseball defensively. They were really sharp, even though you were
00:25:28saying, well, I'm watching it and I don't think it was there. They turned double plays with Caballero
00:25:32at shortstop. And I also think there's a mental aspect to this all talking about when Volpe was
00:25:37quote unquote, sent down to the minors after he finished his rehab assignment, where Caballero was
00:25:42given and Boone said it out loud to you guys. Cabby's the shortstop and he's going to continue to be
00:25:47the shortstop every day. But then because of injuries, cause Caballero gets hurt, Volpe gets
00:25:51called up. And then all of a sudden, now we're back to Volpe. The golden boy is now the shortstop
00:25:56every day. Mind you, I don't think let's be, let's be fair, but I'm talking about the mental
00:26:00aspect for Caballero coming back from the injury. He's now saying I have to go to left to center,
00:26:04to right third. I'm never playing short ever again. And now I'm seeing it. And he's been a lot.
00:26:09I've seen him on camera, shake his head after Volpe makes a terrible play in the field.
00:26:13They cut to him and literally he's like, I would have made that play. I've seen it. I've seen it
00:26:18on camera. That's, that's being a bad teammate. I hear you, but like, okay, don't you agree? Like
00:26:23I, it was my position and I just lost it. Right. I get it. I get it. I don't think
00:26:30I'm being heard.
00:26:31Caballero should be the shortstop. Do you hear me say that? Yes. I just, I'm talking about,
00:26:37I'm saying that Caballero should be the shortstop. Yeah. Okay. So you're fighting with me when I
00:26:43agree with you. I'm not fighting. I think Caballero should be the shortstop. Okay.
00:26:49They've had injuries. One of Caballero's skill sets is supposed to be maneuverability. So when you
00:26:57don't want to, like you're hoping, God damn it. Dominguez is terrible in right field. And I don't
00:27:02think Spencer Jones could hit this guy. So can I put Caballero and right? And like, again,
00:27:08to their mistake, they feel like Volpe can cover shortstop. Okay. Like they feel they're probably
00:27:15better defensively. Dominguez off the field, Caballero and right and Volpe and short and
00:27:20Caballero would shorten Dominguez. This is a jigsaw puzzle of bad options. And so he's trying to play
00:27:26multiple options while also believing that like historically, even when he was bad, Volpe hit
00:27:32lefty pitching. So there's times I want to play both guys. My best defensive team in my mind
00:27:38is Caballero is better at short, but I might be better Volpe at short and Caballero someplace else
00:27:43than Dominguez there or Rosario, who's a bad third baseman. So, and I don't want to play a
00:27:49man against the lefty. That's why I'm saying these next four days, I don't care if it's lefty, righty,
00:27:55if they throw with their forehead, I would play my best defense against a team that puts the ball in
00:27:59play and bothers the Yankees as much as the Rays. And I would just try to defend the hell out
00:28:03of it
00:28:03in a neutral world. I think Caballero should be the shortstop. I don't think Caballero is an
00:28:11everyday shortstop. Both things could be true. He can be better, better than Volpe. And if you give
00:28:17me the team as his whole possible where I don't feel like, okay, I'll take Volpe at short and Caballero
00:28:24someplace else, because that's still better than Caballero would shorten somebody else. Like,
00:28:29because here's the thing. I would defend it short as well as possible over in right field as well
00:28:34as possible. I agree. Because, you know, and I'll just have to live with it. And the other thing is
00:28:39Dominguez might be a major league hitter. That might be true. And I'll take some shots. And I've lost
00:28:47faith. I, I watch him play and I feel he's regressing as an outfielder. So they've got a lot
00:28:55of leaks defensively, but the playing with their hair on fire and making mental mistakes is beyond
00:29:03that. And, uh, I think again, like it's a lot to put on a 21 year old. And my suspicion
00:29:10is he can't
00:29:10and think about how much we talked about, Oh, Carlos Ogran. Hey, we'll help Carlos Ogran.
00:29:14My suspicion is he might not even pitch again this year. So like he's off. So it's a lot to
00:29:19say
00:29:19George Lombard Jr. will help George Lombard Jr. But George Lombard Jr.'s skill set as a minor
00:29:25leaguer, his skill set as a minor leaguer based on non Yankee personnel is high end defense,
00:29:34heady, excellent base running headiness in general, and a pretty good hitting eye.
00:29:41The Yankees need all of it. If, if it, if, if, if that translates to the major leagues,
00:29:48they, they have to do that. And then they have to do something probably to address
00:29:55particularly the catcher, because like, if like, I'll accept a dead spot at the bottom
00:30:00of the lineup with George Lombard, if he actually gives me the defense and the base running and the
00:30:04high baseball IQ, but then I can't just have Austin Wells hitting 150, hitting eight. And then
00:30:10Ryan McMahon hitting whatever he hits seven. And then like, I have this chain reaction of stuff. So
00:30:16to me, uh, and it, all of this feels a lot better. If judge was in the lineup covering up
00:30:23for it.
00:30:24And Ryan, we did this. I wrote about this. I we've talked about it on multiple shows.
00:30:29I'll believe Aaron judge is playing major league baseball when Aaron judge is playing major league
00:30:34baseball. Part of this job is detective work, right? They told us judge would be, be imaged four
00:30:43to six weeks. We had four weeks and they made, made it clear. It's going to be six weeks. I
00:30:49personally
00:30:49asked judge about seven to 10 days ago about his pain level. And he said, I'm not going to talk
00:30:55about
00:30:55my pain level. The group asked him like 72 hours ago, a couple of days ago about it. He said,
00:31:01we'll
00:31:01talk about it at the end. I'll say this, if he had no pain, and again, maybe he just doesn't
00:31:08want to
00:31:08talk about it. But my suspicion is if he had no pain, he'd be willing to talk about no pain,
00:31:14maybe. And if
00:31:15he had no pain, he'd be imaged now, right? Because in other words, now it's asymptomatic. So let's go
00:31:22take another look. Hey, he's not experiencing pain. Let's see the healing. If he's experiencing pain,
00:31:28it would suggest there's not enough healing yet. I'm just, this is just educated guesswork. So like
00:31:38if you still experience pain, we're going to get the back end of this six weeks. Now I say this
00:31:42again,
00:31:42I was at the ballpark yesterday and I asked anybody I could, is Aaron judge playing again
00:31:47this year? And everyone said, yeah, he's playing. And looked at me like, yeah, he's playing.
00:31:50But when you're going this bad, there's a difference between him playing August 1st
00:31:54or August 15th or September 1st or September 15th. And we see that when he doesn't play.
00:32:03Oh, since in 2019, they overcame it. Well, the ball flew and every Mike Ford and
00:32:12Cameron may have been hit the hell out of it. And they hit a ton of home runs and it
00:32:16covered up for
00:32:17missing judge. And I thought in the Boone years, I actually thought the 2019 Yankees were the best
00:32:23Yankees he's had better than the 2024 AL champions. I agree. I thought that was the best team they had
00:32:29in the, in, in the Boone years. Uh, so I have no idea when judge is coming back. I think
00:32:36they're
00:32:36very optimistic within that. They're both elbow situations that they're going to get
00:32:42Freed and Rodon back by like early August, even Rodon. Like that sounded scary. The fact that
00:32:49it's, yeah, no, I think that, that I think again, it's early, it's early. Yeah. But they were surprised
00:32:56in the first 48, 72 hours, how asymptomatic it had become. Okay. And so like, if he can,
00:33:03I heard it's not on, it's not impossible that he could be throwing a ball in the next week within
00:33:09the next week and he would not need a giant buildup cause he was built up. Uh, so if we
00:33:16put both guys roughly, let's say August 1st to August 7th, like right around the trade deadline,
00:33:22which is the third, that would be something. Cause I think they also think Clark Schmidt has like one
00:33:27more bullpen. And then the thing they're going to be able to do with Clark Schmidt is if they feel
00:33:32good about Rodon Freed, they might shorten Schmidt to just get to 40 to 50 pitches,
00:33:38and then you'll come here as a hybrid guy. Kind of like if they don't. Yeah. If they don't,
00:33:45they probably have to, uh, elongate Schmidt to become a full 90 pitch guy, which will take another
00:33:53three-ish weeks or so. So like, like, I think he's sitting out there also, but as we've seen with,
00:33:59with, uh, Cole, you gotta be careful what you think you're getting off of a guy from Tommy John's
00:34:04surgery, that there is this grace and growth period out of it. Uh, look at how badly like Shane Bieber
00:34:11is struggling up in Toronto. Uh, you know, and so, uh, and Corbin Burns hasn't come back yet this year
00:34:21and hadn't suffered a relapse. Like, like doing it in 14 months, like Cole is really now the aggressive
00:34:27side of this. And I probably still believe in Garrett Cole, that he will build towards something.
00:34:34Uh, but who knows? They got some issues. They've got some stuff going on in the middle of this feels
00:34:41so much like the Mets last year to me in the middle of June. You could convince me I was
00:34:46watching the
00:34:46world series champions. And a few weeks later, I was like, wow, they've sprung a lot of leaks here.
00:34:52And keeping in mind that we're doing pinch strike post, but like, there's a lot of leaks all over
00:34:59the sport. Uh, I was looking at some of the blue J stuff, the blue J the blue J scored
00:35:04two runs over
00:35:05the weekend. Those are the defending AL champions. They're like, like six, seven games under 500.
00:35:09Uh, they got shut out on Saturday and Sunday. Uh, there, and some of the quotes didn't sound great
00:35:15coming out of there, uh, about their inability to hit fastballs and where their heads are at and
00:35:21things like that. So like the American league is going to be somewhat forgiving to forgiving,
00:35:26but it's not going to be forgiving enough. If the Yankees keep playing how they have for the last three
00:35:30weeks, because at some point you'll just blow all of the 18 over 500 you got. Uh, if you keep
00:35:37playing
00:35:38like this, I still think there's a much better version of the Yankees in there someplace, but the
00:35:44manager's got to get the attention of this team to stop playing. You're, you're not going to win
00:35:49without four significant weightlifters. If you play as technically awful as they've played for
00:35:56three weeks. Can I ask you a question? Uh, let's say the Yankees, it goes horribly wrong and they
00:36:01continue to play bad baseball in Tampa Bay. They get swept four games here. I mean, is there legitimate
00:36:09like thought of Aaron Boone could be out of a job or is that too crazy to think right now?
00:36:15Yeah. I don't think that that's a Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman thing. Um, and, uh,
00:36:22you know, like if, if the answer is then like the most obvious thing is you would name Brad
00:36:29Osmus, the manager, he's been the bench coach. He's a former major league manager. He's standing next
00:36:34to Boone. Like, I don't know that. I think he has a lot of respect for Boone. I don't think
00:36:40he would do things markedly different. Uh, I think it's probably a little too late for this kind of
00:36:45team as insular as the Yankees are in particular as the Yankees are to just be like, we're going to
00:36:49bring in somebody from the outside. I'm not even sure who that would be. So I think, and, and, and
00:36:54I
00:36:54think, well, that I do think I, what I do think is, you know, if you crash and burn, it's
00:37:02hard to
00:37:03believe. Like, look, I, I know fans think that everyone with the Yankees has a job forever. Uh,
00:37:10I think that they believe that one of the reasons they've had success for 35 years is stability,
00:37:15uh, including in the manager's office where they've only had four managers. I think the Mets
00:37:20have been badly hurt by how much changeover they have in their front office and then
00:37:24manager and coaches constantly. But this is a, again, cause I want to make sure I'm heard.
00:37:30These last three weeks are terrible, terrible reflection on Aaron Boone and his coaching staff.
00:37:36Terrible, terrible. And the fact that they go through it for about the last four or five years now,
00:37:42and that they talked about this in spring training, they talked about this early in the season when they
00:37:50were so proud when they were sweeping series. And like, we know now how to make sure we finish
00:37:56the meal we started. This is a bad, bad, every team, including very, very good ones are going to
00:38:04have bad stretches. And I go back to, there's a difference between bad stretches and death spirals
00:38:10and what the Yankees have gone through for three weeks, which is failure in every phase at the highest
00:38:18levels and then throw on dumb play on top of it. The dumb play is always a reflection of the
00:38:26manager
00:38:26and the coaching staff. Which has been a consistency now with Boone for a couple of years now.
00:38:30Yes. Yes. This is, and, and some of it, uh, I don't count errors. Like a ball is going to
00:38:37get by
00:38:37Adam on Rosario. I don't, unless you say, well, Boone should just never play Rosario in the field.
00:38:43He should just be a pinch hitter. And maybe like you put them in the field out of desperation,
00:38:47but don't ever start up. Like, I don't like, if you have Ahmed Rosario on the team, you're going to
00:38:51try to put them at third or against lefty pitching and get three or four bats and get them out
00:38:56of the
00:38:56game. If you're winning. Uh, but I don't see that as a manager problem. That is, if you want Ahmed
00:39:02Rosario, part of the package is he's going to have trouble on defense. Uh, um, but you have him for
00:39:08his
00:39:08bat, which he's actually been okay for them this year offensively. And he's giving you some pot
00:39:13that they need clubhouse guy. Like he brings real stuff to the, to the party. So the reason I ask
00:39:19about that, they have not, they have not gotten like jazz Chisholm's attention. They haven't gotten
00:39:24Caballero's attention. Was judge calling out jazz Chisholm with the focus thing? I, I have no idea
00:39:30because Aaron judge, uh, that was about as far as he'll go. And I mean, he'd never going to whatever
00:39:36or if, but I'll say that I think Aaron judge knows the difference between playing baseball
00:39:41correctly and incorrectly. And I'll put it at his feet and the other leaders also, like at some
00:39:48point you've got to, you know, like, like one of the things we just saw with, uh, there was finally
00:39:54a championship in the four major, you know, historic sports in New York with the Knicks winning a
00:40:00championship. And one of the things we heard a lot, and we've even heard some of the kind of open
00:40:06mic stuff is how much the Knicks were coaching themselves, uh, and self-correcting along the way.
00:40:17And, you know, maybe the answer is if you have Trey young on your team, I don't care if you
00:40:23also have
00:40:24Jalen Brunson and Landry Shamad and Jordan Clark, like seems some of the adults that seemed in the
00:40:30room from a distance, Mikkel Bridger, like whoever you think the adults were, they're going to play
00:40:34how they're going to play. And maybe that's just jazz. Maybe that's just, maybe they're just,
00:40:38and the fault then lies with the front office continuing to be like, Oh, we're going to have
00:40:44this undisciplined player who is going to cost us at the worst pot. Like, like this is three weeks.
00:40:50Like we're talking about a lot of our conversation in spring training and early in the season. Uh,
00:40:56we had a lot of conversations about the free agency of jazz Chisholm. Sure. You know how jazz Chisholm
00:41:02could have really improved this free agency by playing great while other guys are out and proving
00:41:10you're the kind of guy who money could be given to because you're trustworthy, because you're rising
00:41:17to the moment when this is going on. And instead, I think he might have the Gleyber Torres come to
00:41:25reality moment where it's like, I think there was probably a moment a couple of years ago where Gleyber
00:41:29thought I'm going to get a big multi-year deal. And then it was like the industry said, nah, we've
00:41:35watched you play. We'll watch you play. There's just too much undisciplined stuff. There's too much
00:41:42empty calories here. And by the way, like, like, like jazz, I mean, Gleyber has real talent. I mean,
00:41:49Gleyber's ball to bat to ball skills are elite. His ability to read a ball from a strike, his,
00:41:55his, uh, fearlessness to hit in a big spot, including playoff spots. I mean, those are high level.
00:42:01And yet he ended up taking the qualifying offer because him and his agency probably were like,
00:42:07yeah, you might have to do this a year at a time now to try to get to wherever you
00:42:11want to go.
00:42:11Right. And I just wonder like, if, if, if that's the fate that the jazz is heading towards where the
00:42:18industry just says we get how talent, this is not a talent issue. This is just not a talent issue.
00:42:26This is a, if you believe in the idea of winning players and not winning players, are you a winning
00:42:32player? Is Caballero a winning player? Is Volpe a winning player? As well as a winning player.
00:42:41So I think Wells is a winning player. Who's like broken down offensively. All right.
00:42:47All right. I think they got to the world series with well, and I know you could say that would
00:42:51Volpe as their shortstop. I think Wells, I think catching has never come close to being as hard as
00:42:57it is right now. And I think Wells does winning things as a catcher while agreeing that it's been
00:43:04a little worse. He's less. I just think the offense is now in his head. I wouldn't confuse
00:43:09offense with what a guy's temperament is like. Wells doesn't play stupid. Wells has just stopped
00:43:15hitting. He has stopped hitting. He's become unplayable, but I don't watch Wells and go,
00:43:21there goes a guy who does dumb things over and over on the baseball field. I understand. Yeah.
00:43:27Watch Volpe. And I'm like, Volpe is playing too fast for his skillset because he's trying to cover
00:43:33up a bad arm. And then I think like he did something yesterday that I was just, again, like if
00:43:38I'm Aaron
00:43:38judge or somebody now, maybe we've done this show long enough. So I hope you know this. I am generally,
00:43:44Hey, if you hit the ball over the fence and you want a bad foot, like, like if the ball's
00:43:48not in play,
00:43:49if the game's not going on, I don't care if you crawl around the bases. I'd rather you didn't.
00:43:54It doesn't look great to me, but like I may, the ball's in play. I need a certain kind of
00:44:00play.
00:44:01You got to be serious about everything. The Yankees are losing six to nothing yesterday.
00:44:05There's a runner on first. I think it's the ninth. Is it the ninth inning? Maybe when they scored the
00:44:11run. Volpe got a call turned around that would have struck him out. It was the eighth or ninth inning.
00:44:16Uh, I think it was the eighth inning that would have struck him out and it got turned around.
00:44:21And so instead of, uh, being struck out, the count went to three and two. I think he might've
00:44:25felled off a pitch and then he walked and he back flipped the walk. And I was just like,
00:44:33really? You're down six, nothing here. You're down six. Now, are you upset because the umpire,
00:44:41there's a rule. You overturned it. You overturned it. Good for you. Like was the right time to use
00:44:46that call. And you did it. And he bad flipped a walk down six, nothing. And if I were Garrett
00:44:53Cole
00:44:53or Aaron judge or John Carlos Stanton or his friend, Austin Wells, I just say, come on,
00:45:03come on. Like, what is that? Yeah. Uh, like, like, like it's, you know, guys who put on whatever
00:45:12the Homer stuff is down 11 to he like, you know, have some sense of the moment. I have a
00:45:19sense of
00:45:19the moment. And I just think that they have three play Ryan. I've done this for a lot of weeks
00:45:24on the
00:45:25show. I think I was way ahead of the curve of people who cover the team regularly where I just
00:45:29kept saying, I don't think they have a championship shortstop on the team, on the major league team.
00:45:37I'm not sure they have a championship middle infield. If these are the three guys who are
00:45:42involved in it most often, it's going to this stuff. If you don't take care of the, the cross
00:45:48the T's dot the I's routine stuff debt and baseball is such a day after day. Got to do it.
00:45:54Right. Got to do
00:45:56it. Right. Thing. And I get it. He's a first ballot, all but one stupid vote hall of famer,
00:46:05but like Derek Jeter success was built on taking nothing for granted and playing the same way with
00:46:12the same temperament every day. And it could really spoil you when you watch it and you watch a player
00:46:19who's like big at bat, small at bat, April, October. He's the same guy you're getting. He's
00:46:26not trying. He's not look at me. He's not like Derek Jeter. You looked at Derek Jeter just because
00:46:32he, you couldn't take your eyes off him because he was a good baseball player, you know, who was doing
00:46:36things well over and over and over again. And really the dynasty Yankees were essentially that
00:46:42they were like, they just were good at baseball every day. And that like, I think in the sport
00:46:53it's more important than the spectacular. Yeah. It's just like all the ground balls have to be
00:46:58converted into outs. All the double plays that should be made have to be made all the fly balls
00:47:03to the outfield. Like you can't, like you can't not get behind the ball and let a runner take 90
00:47:09feet
00:47:10on you. No, get the cutoff man. Not let the trail runner advance to the next base. Like this is,
00:47:14I agree. I get how boring it is. I get how man on the lawn it is. I get it.
00:47:19But I actually think
00:47:21the, if you go to any metric, like the best defensive team in the majors is the Dodgers.
00:47:27Like the Dodgers, you watch the Dodgers play. They kind of have all the spectacular also, but
00:47:35it's just buttoned up. They just, it's a poor reflection. Like you said, all the coaching
00:47:40staff and Aaron Boone, it's a poor reflection on them. The Dodgers are going to win a ton of games
00:47:45on talent and they're not going to lose games because of themselves. If you're going to beat
00:47:50the Dodgers and think about how tough this will be in a three out of five or four game series,
00:47:54you have to win the game. You have to win the game. And you know, like we, we, we, on
00:48:03some level,
00:48:04we see the difference between the Knicks winning a championship or not is like, like ultimately the
00:48:09Knicks ended up very injured last year, but like when they blow the big lead against Indiana by not
00:48:14finishing out strong in game one of the Eastern conference finals last year, like you can't leave
00:48:21stuff on that. Like, like the other teams are too good. They have to beat you. You can't beat you.
00:48:27You can't beat you. You got to make sure they win that you don't lose. Part of these last 17
00:48:33games are
00:48:35the Yankees are also losing the game. Like Minnesota, even with this version of the Yankees
00:48:41shouldn't beat the Yankees. Like they did the two games decisively, decisively. You want to tell me
00:48:46it's a four, three game and you don't have Aaron judge to turn it around. Okay. But this is what
00:48:50they weren't Aaron judge away from winning the two games. They lost to Minnesota. They were blown
00:48:55out. And part of the reason they were blown out was not only did Minnesota play well enough to win
00:49:01starting pitching was bad and they played bad. The Yankees lost the game. Yankees lost the games.
00:49:08You've got to make, especially when your best players are out, you've got to make the other team
00:49:14win the game. Make them win. Take care. I keep referencing other thoughts. Bill Belichick,
00:49:21just do your job. It's amazing what would happen if you just did your job. If you got behind every
00:49:28fly ball, it wasn't about coasting and looking good, but you got behind every fly ball and 90 feet is
00:49:34precious. And you just didn't cavalierly let somebody else get 90 feet.
00:49:40Yankees have allowed 29 hundred runs the last 15 games. That's the most by any Yankees team in a 15
00:49:45game span since 1935. In case fans were watching this point out one thing about this. Yeah, just
00:49:50it. Yeah. I think I said the defense would get an F for the last three weeks. Some of that
00:49:55is a
00:49:56little stilted because of course, when you go to extra innings, the first run is unearned because of
00:50:01the ghost runner. And I think they've had a couple of extra inning games where they've given up runs.
00:50:04So some of it a little is not apple completely apples to apples with history because some of
00:50:12the unearned runs against them are ghost runner runs. Having said that their defense, if I were
00:50:18ranking as bad as their offense has been and their offense is an F, if there was an F minus,
00:50:24it's their
00:50:25defense. Yeah, I agree. They just have those two areas. The pitching has been bad, but the offense
00:50:31and the defense has been unacceptable. It's atrocious. Like I think the pitching is, was
00:50:36due for a lull because probably some guys pitched over their head a little bit. Absolutely.
00:50:43Defense should just be an everyday thing. Baseball IQ should be an everyday thing.
00:50:47The everyday thing. And I think there's, it's a terrible reflection on the manager and the coaching
00:50:52staff. When the cross the T's dot the I stuff is continuously this bad. When you, when you've lived
00:51:02through this before, when you should have been preparing for this, Oh, this is tornado. This is
00:51:08tornado season for the Yankees, right? Like this time of year is when, so you got to make sure, do
00:51:14we
00:51:14have our provisions and you know, what's our, you know, get into the basement plan and all this stuff
00:51:20because the tornado it's tornado season. It might not hit, but we have to prepare as if it's going
00:51:24to hit. The Yankees had to be preparing for this moment because they've lived through it the last
00:51:29four years. You would think. And to see them go through it again is, is not, should not be
00:51:39acceptable from Hal Steinbrenner day. It's mind numbing for us as the fans, but like you said,
00:51:44how does Hal feel about this? You talked about, I asked you before, would boom be in danger,
00:51:48especially if they have a really bad series down in Tampa, you're saying they don't like to change.
00:51:52I guess my question for you, Joel, just to really finish up this whole discussion is,
00:51:56and also they've pulled out of it with boom, right? But like, and so I think that if you change,
00:52:03you're like not giving, you know, like, like I do think the best Yankee team was 19. I think the
00:52:09best version of the Yankees for a long, long time, and nobody will believe this because Toronto
00:52:14kicked their ass in the division series was the last two months of last season.
00:52:18I thought they were really good at baseball for the last two months of last year. Like once they
00:52:23integrated their trade deadline guys who were going to be helpful, which was mainly Bednar,
00:52:29Caballero, and McMahon defensively, that they were the best version of themselves, including the
00:52:362024 AL champions. So like, and, and they went through about a six, seven week period in the middle
00:52:43of the season that kind of looked like this. I think that these three weeks have been worse than
00:52:48anything they did in the seven weeks last year, but the seven weeks, like I don't want to have
00:52:53recency bias. We did shows last year and those weeks we were killing them and it was terrible.
00:53:00And you were asking the same question. Does Boone have to go and Boone aside from 23,
00:53:04when judge was hurt, the team has ultimately come around under Boone and played better and gotten in.
00:53:10And then we'll have the playoff conversation. If they get there again about should Boone be fired?
00:53:15Cause he's not getting them through to a parade and we'll talk about it. And I do think that
00:53:21there's probably at some point, Hal's going to have to say, I like Boone, but I went through the
00:53:27swoon again and we blew up in the playoffs. If that's where they're heading, I think it is.
00:53:31I think because they've gone through the cycle enough that they have come out of it with Aaron
00:53:36Boone as their manager every year, except for one, they're going to give them the chance to see if
00:53:41they come out of it. You don't take anything. What about the Phillies did it right? They know they
00:53:46did it early, but so did Boston and the Mets. Right. Right. But the Phil, so I guess one out
00:53:51of
00:53:52three, it did work. The other two, obviously it didn't work. I don't know, but I guess for you,
00:53:58is there, but the question is always let's fire them. Who's the manager? I mean, I would,
00:54:03I would assume it's Brad Ausmus unless they wanted to fire him. Brad Ausmus is, was a wholly
00:54:08unsuccessful major league manager in the way that Andy Green was a wholly unsuccessful. I'm not saying
00:54:13he's the answer, by the way. I'm just saying that's what I would assume would be the, but in
00:54:16other words, like we can't just fire him cause their fans are angry. You're angry. Well, I mean,
00:54:20got to know that someone else is going to step in and you think it will be better. I think
00:54:26that
00:54:26Ausmus is just a version of Boone. Okay. I think the two work very, very well together. Like
00:54:33did it work out for the Phillies because Mattingly came from outside the organization
00:54:37worked out for the Phillies because Zach Wheeler got healthy and their offense started to hit.
00:54:43And I think that there probably would have been something that looks a lot like this under Rob
00:54:47Thompson though. And the other thing was, and I love Thompson, but I do think Thompson gotten
00:54:53tired of it all. Like the constant Philadelphia, like what we're doing with Boone was every day for
00:54:59him. And really it was one of the most successful periods in the history of 125 year old franchise is
00:55:06what they did on the Thompson. I think the Phillies have only won two world series in their 125 ish
00:55:11year
00:55:11history. So like making the playoffs every year and even getting to a world series is a period of
00:55:17time that the Phillies had like in the seventies they had in the aughts and they had these last
00:55:24few years, but there's not a lot of that in their history. So they'd been incredibly successful under
00:55:29Rob Thompson comparatively to their history. And I think he just kind of like after a while was like,
00:55:36I can't wait. I like, I, I felt it was a little bit like Mendoza. And I know that Cone
00:55:41made a little
00:55:41bit of news when he did the podcast with John Heyman and myself, where he said, uh, you know,
00:55:47it was a little bit of a mercy shot, mercy shot, right. Uh, or for, uh, Carlos, I think this
00:55:52was a
00:55:52little bit of a mercy shot for Rob Thompson. Uh, I don't think that it would be a mercy shot
00:55:58like for
00:55:58Boone. If you were removing Boone, the reason to do it. And I think you'd probably say yes,
00:56:06would be the voices in shape. Isn't the voice. Yeah. They're not recognizing the voice. Right.
00:56:13Either. He isn't saying the right thing because he goes through it all the time and we don't believe
00:56:18they're going to come out on the other side of it. Like they did last year and the year before
00:56:23and in 2022, but not 23, like they've gone through something that looks like this in three of the
00:56:29last four years. And they've come out on the other side of it. Well, do you think they'd come out
00:56:34on
00:56:35the other side of it? Well, if you made Brad Ausmus, the manager, I think Brad Ausmus is probably
00:56:41a lot temperamentally like Aaron Boone, but then again, so Don Manning was very temperamentally
00:56:45like Thompson. I just think that if the Yankees come out of it, it will be for the same reason
00:56:51the Phillies came out of it. We got healthy guys back, a lot of good players and they'll,
00:56:56they'll do it. I, I think that there is a totally, if we're heading into deja Yankees
00:57:06to the finish line, which is some playoff loss where you go, come on, man. Like again,
00:57:14let's have a very, very legitimate conversation about Boone. I just don't, I think managerial
00:57:22changes, coaching changes, make fans feel good for 24 to 48 hours. And then you're still
00:57:29the Boston Red Sox, or you're still the New York Mets, or you're the Phillies and you are
00:57:33probably coming up like, like the history is like people will go, well, what about Jack
00:57:36McKeon? And I'm like, right. You remember Jack McKeon because one out of every 10 of these
00:57:41work at that kind of level. They'd actually don't. And the one thing I do know is the team
00:57:46has come out of it with Boone as the manager. And I do think that there is, but you, you
00:57:53know,
00:57:53the thing, I think there, there's a moment they might get healthy and be able to, like, it was
00:57:58interesting. I asked an executive from another team in the last week, what do you think of the
00:58:03Yankees? And he goes, I'm not, not concerned, but he goes, I also think it's really within their
00:58:13power to run off like a 40 and 20 over 60 games because they're very, very talented and
00:58:20their starting pitching is very, very good. And he goes like, I think that's more probable
00:58:27than the concern. I would say the same thing, but these three weeks, because it's been failure
00:58:38at the highest level and it's been failure of the tactical stuff that they should just have
00:58:44dealt with by now gives me greater pause. I sit here today and still think relatively healthy.
00:58:54They're the most talented team in the American league and that they'll do some stuff, the trade
00:58:59deadline to potentially bolster that further. If anyone actually becomes a seller or any of the sellers
00:59:05have stuff that would be useful, but you can't watch these three weeks and act like they are not
00:59:15happening because there are underlying stuff there that can undermine them at any moment. And part of
00:59:25that is they, and they, they're probably right about talent. They know Wells, Volpe and Duval have talent
00:59:33and they want to try to extra, like they want to believe in their soul that we have the coaches,
00:59:40the
00:59:40infrastructure to pull out talent. Uh, I think Duval is like relief Frankie Montas, which is there's
00:59:51underlying stuff that lots of organizations are going to like until everyone realized the underlying things
00:59:57things are very, very useful and helpful. But at some point, the game you're watching is the game you're watching
01:00:03and the stuff he can't do kills you. The stuff he can't do kills you. And you have to deal
01:00:12with that. The stuff that
01:00:14Volpe can't do. I know we could do some stuff, but I don't think it's a short stuff and I'm
01:00:21not sure it's in New York.
01:00:24And Wells is need needs a mental reset to me. I still think like I've, I've lost faith that he
01:00:30will be this
01:00:31guy. At least some of the faith. I thought Wells was going to be a very good major league player,
01:00:35a two-way
01:00:36catcher, which is about the most like what Dylan Dingler was just in with the Tigers. You watch a two
01:00:41-way
01:00:41catcher, the impact, the difference between, if you have a two-way catcher, there's no greater gap in the game.
01:00:46Now there's no greater gap. The fact that the Tigers have been a bad team this year and they've had
01:00:51him
01:00:51and Kevin McGonigal, like an impact 21-year-old rookie who's helping you with short and third
01:00:57and a two-way catcher. That's really in a bad division. Now they're starting to inch back towards
01:01:03it, but how badly they've played with some of that stuff has surprised me. But I think Wells,
01:01:09we talked about a mercy shot. I would give Wells a mercy shot for a few weeks in the minors.
01:01:16But will they?
01:01:17Because I think, because I would like to try to, I have real questions. I don't think Duvall
01:01:22could be reclaimed as a Yankee. I doubt that Volpe could be reclaimed as even a Yankee second
01:01:29baseman, but I think Wells might be able to be reclaimed. I think, I think he, I think he's putting
01:01:37the weight of the world on every at bat now. And as I told someone who I think is close
01:01:43to him about
01:01:44two weeks ago, I said, his chances of having good numbers this year are now gone. What he has to
01:01:50do
01:01:50is impact winning from here to the end of the year. And there's like, I go, if you, Paul O
01:01:56'Neill said
01:01:56something during the dynasty that has always stuck with me, Ryan. And it was when you win a championship,
01:02:04everyone had a good year. And it was his way of saying, when you win a championship, then you look
01:02:08back and even the guy who hit 220, you go, yeah, but you remember that game he won in Boston
01:02:13when
01:02:13it looked like we were going to get swept and he hit the three run homer. And that guy did
01:02:17that.
01:02:18Like, like champions look back and remember fondly what you do well. And I said, I think it's
01:02:22Wells's job from here to the finish line is to be like, yeah, I hit, get 150 to 190.
01:02:30Like, but those 40 points of improving the batting average helps win games. He parks a couple of
01:02:37homers into the short porch, which he has, like, if I would have told you even in a bad year,
01:02:42Austin
01:02:42Wells, isn't going to park some balls into the short porch. Like that would have felt like, come on,
01:02:48man, he's got to do that. And he hasn't. So like, I would have to believe he's completely fallen
01:02:55apart in his, what should be his prime. Or I think that it's all weighing on him now and he
01:03:02needs a
01:03:02deep breath and the Yankees need a different catcher who isn't in their organization right
01:03:08now to help them. And good luck finding that unless it's the guy everybody has talked about.
01:03:17We'll see who's not in the major leagues, didn't play against them this weekend.
01:03:21We'll see, Joel. Uh, they got four games set here against the Rays. Then they got three against the
01:03:26Nationals. It's a bad place for them to be playing the Rays. Yep. And then they got, there's a moment
01:03:31of truth. It's like, this division could get away from them this week. It's all I'm going to say.
01:03:34Like it could get, I mean, they may, they would, they were down. I wrote about this in the paper.
01:03:38They were down three and a half in, or four and a half in mid-May. And they were up
01:03:42four and a half
01:03:43in mid-June. Like, like you can turn it around. What you can't turn around is you have to play
01:03:48better. They have not played close to even a C game. They're playing terribly. It's just terrible
01:03:58baseball. And if they play terrible baseball, the Rays have the ability to embarrass the Yankees
01:04:04when the Yankees are playing well. There's something about the Rays that gets the Rays
01:04:09and the Alex Cora Red Sox had a way of getting under the Yankees skin and bothering them. Alex Cora
01:04:16is
01:04:16gone. The Rays are still here. The Rays put the ball in play. The Yankees have to be clean
01:04:22in a, against a team that puts the ball in play in a stadium where they have by far the
01:04:28best home
01:04:28record in the majors this year, including three and O already against the Yankees on, on a turf and
01:04:34with a roof and catwalks that are tough to play. If you're the visitor, if the version of the Yankees
01:04:41who have played defensively for the last three weeks, show up at Tropicana field and play that
01:04:48way, this, these next four games, the Yankees will be humiliated.
01:04:56They've got to play better baseball. You don't think going eight games back this late in the
01:05:04year or this midway point of the season that it wouldn't be like, how do they come back from
01:05:09that? In my opinion, like, especially lots of teams have come back with judge not look probably
01:05:12not coming back till end of August. Like, I mean, the question is, are they going to play well or
01:05:17not
01:05:17and have the 40 and 20 that the executive from another team talked about? If they do, they'll
01:05:23probably win the division. Like the Rays have not had a significant injury. Maybe they will go this
01:05:28season without having a significant injury to any of their, their versions of, you know, like
01:05:35if Aranda, Yandy Diaz and Caminero and McClanahan, who's coming back from missing two years and
01:05:42Rasmussen, who's had three Tommy John surgeries and Nick Martinez and, and like all the, if
01:05:49like they've stayed healthy, like their, their best version has stayed healthy and to their credit
01:05:54have played great. Like they have three offensive players who are defying current baseball because
01:06:00those guys do not strike out a ton and they hit the ball hard consistently. Uh, this is the team
01:06:07that puts the ball in play. And so if they, if they never, if the Yankees play like this, it
01:06:13really
01:06:13doesn't matter what the gap is. Like, like the gap is going to be like, oh my God, they're only
01:06:19four
01:06:20and a half up on a, on a wild card spot, which is actually true or five. I think it
01:06:25might be five
01:06:25and a half. They're up on a wild card spot. That's going to start to go away. Like this has
01:06:30got to
01:06:30for the next little period of time between here. And certainly they all start breaking probably the
01:06:35trade deadline. The Yankees have to play better. I think if the Yankees play to the capability of
01:06:41their skill, they'll make up a distance on the raise. There was the, the, the Blue Jays both in
01:06:492015, I think it was with the Yankees and last year had a nice sizable gap from the Yankees and
01:06:56just started playing much better and blew by the Yankees in 15 and got far enough ahead and then
01:07:02play, you know, to win the division last year when the Yankees played well late,
01:07:07the Rays held on, they won the same amount of the Jays held on and they won the same amount
01:07:11of games
01:07:12gap. Like, like four or five games can go like that. Like it's the, you go one in six,
01:07:17the other team goes six and one in a week. It happens all the time. A lot of a lead
01:07:22goes away
01:07:22and then you have whatever season is left. Again, the Yankees made up four games already
01:07:27and turned it into a four game lead in a month. So like, could they do that from August 1st
01:07:33to
01:07:33September 1st? If they're a, you know, like that's an eight game change in a month. Yeah.
01:07:39There's enough time, but the Yankees aren't playing well, Ryan. Like to me, it isn't about the
01:07:44games. Like they're just not playing well. The Rays are playing probably as well as they can,
01:07:49though. They lost the last two games in Houston. Uh, and that's another thing. The Yankees have,
01:07:55the Yankees want plenty of sellers in this market by playing like crap against Boston,
01:08:01by playing like crap against Minnesota, by playing crap against Detroit. They've kept those teams from
01:08:08like completely gone. Now I think Boston probably, even though they've won like eight out of 10,
01:08:14like they probably are going to end up having to try to sell. I think Minnesota is not a good
01:08:18team,
01:08:19but they're, the thing is you wanted to kill shot them. You're trying to get their catcher maybe,
01:08:26right? Uh, because the new head owner of the team, the, the other son, the other Polad son who took
01:08:33over from his brother at his press conferences, like I'm not selling, I don't want to sell.
01:08:38And he's kind of like kept that theme. Yankees helped them keep that theme this weekend.
01:08:43Like that's the other thing that's happened in this little period is some of these pseudo
01:08:47contenders in the AL have beat up on the Yankees. And they're like, well, if the Yankees are the
01:08:51best team in the league and we just took two out of three or three out of three against them,
01:08:54well, in Boston's case, four out of four, why should we sell? Like maybe we'll have our run and
01:08:59the Yankees will come back to us and the wild card this year will actually be 81 wins. And we
01:09:04can get
01:09:04there. And Yankees have done favors for some of those teams and disfavors for themselves. The
01:09:10Yankees are in a terrible spot right now. I mean, better than most because they played well enough
01:09:16early that they're still nine over 500, but they got key guys injured and they're just playing terribly
01:09:22at everything. And the stuff that's unforgivable. And I mean, unforgivable Ryan.
01:09:30Because they've been through it before. And these are veteran players. These aren't the kids.
01:09:36Like Andy Volpe isn't a kid anymore. Jazz Chisholm isn't a kid.
01:09:41Caballero isn't a kid. Grisham isn't a kid. Like, like some of the stuff that's being done out there
01:09:48that should be unacceptable from Hal Steinbrenner down is undermining them at a time where they
01:09:54have to play clean. Joel Sherman, we appreciate you as always hopping on here, uh, giving us your,
01:10:01your, your analysis, your criticism, everything. Uh, we're looking forward to your coverage throughout
01:10:05the rest of this week. We'll see how this series go against, uh, the Rays and the Nationals before
01:10:09they head into the all-star break. Uh, and then we'll catch up with you next week. We appreciate
01:10:12you always, man. And we'll catch up with you soon. All right, Ryan. Thanks.
01:10:17All right, Ryan. Thanks.