Speaker 1: News Day Yankees beat writer Eric Boland is here. Eric,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us therapy session for many Yankee
Speaker 1: fans that tune into our show. So let's just start
Speaker 1: with a nice and simple how you doing and what
Speaker 1: is wrong with the Bronx Bombers right now?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Hi, Scott Todd Cameron covered two
Speaker 2: of you guys in your brief time with the Yankees,
Speaker 2: so good to see you in this context.
Speaker 3: And yeah, if.
Speaker 2: It's a therapy session, I'm not sure that I have
Speaker 2: much to offer in the way of silver lining. I
Speaker 2: guess there's a few things, but you know, they're they're
Speaker 2: they're an unmitigated mess. Right now, we can just start.
Speaker 1: There, Okay, elaborate for us on what you're seeing that
Speaker 1: is the biggest concern with the ball club. As I know,
Speaker 1: you know Judges making his way back. We'll see what
Speaker 1: he looks like. But I mean, let's start with what
Speaker 1: stands out on a national level. Sloppy play. You you
Speaker 1: watch them every day, you cover this team at day,
Speaker 1: do you feel that when you're seeing this team because
Speaker 1: sometimes statistically, I think this weekend it was pointed out
Speaker 1: how they don't run into that many outs on the
Speaker 1: basis compared to other teams, and I'm like, well, they're
Speaker 1: either getting a ton of attention or the ones that
Speaker 1: they are running into are really glaring and costing them.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing of it is, you know, the
Speaker 2: Yankees love to quote their internal numbers to you, and
Speaker 2: so they'll tell you that their internal numbers that they're
Speaker 2: really not that bad when it comes to some of
Speaker 2: that stuff. But I always feel with so many of
Speaker 2: those numbers, you can make them do for you exactly
Speaker 2: what you want them to do. I remember a few
Speaker 2: years ago when they had Isaiah Connor fileffa at shortstop
Speaker 2: and he was just having a terrible year there, and Isaiah,
Speaker 2: it would be the first one to tell you that
Speaker 2: he wasn't very good. And the Yankees kept telling us
Speaker 2: about their internal numbers showing that he was a top five,
Speaker 2: top to ten shortstop in the league. And I remember
Speaker 2: talking to analytics people with other teams and they said, yeah,
Speaker 2: we find that laughable.
Speaker 3: That's certainly not what our numbers show.
Speaker 2: But I do feel the Yankees, you know, excel in
Speaker 2: you know, quoting their own numbers. They don't show us
Speaker 2: those numbers, but say, you know, basically don't believe your
Speaker 2: your lion eyes.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Look, I think we can almost start with what Derek
Speaker 2: Jeter and Alex Rodriguez said over the weekend on the
Speaker 2: Fox pregame show before the Speedway Classic about, you know,
Speaker 2: the very little accountability sloppiness, and you've seen it repeatedly
Speaker 2: and it didn't start in the fifth inning, which of
Speaker 2: last year's Game five of the World Series. We saw
Speaker 2: that disastrous inning when the Yankees coughed up the five
Speaker 2: nothing lead.
Speaker 3: But look, the.
Speaker 2: Bottom line on this is the Yankees have been a
Speaker 2: poor fundamental team for a number of years now. And
Speaker 2: this is an organizational problem. It's not an Aaron Boone problem.
Speaker 2: And I've talked to scouts that are assigned to the
Speaker 2: Yankees minor league system for years about this, and they've
Speaker 2: talked about how from the bottom levels all the way
Speaker 2: up through Triple A, fundamentals are not stressed. It's all
Speaker 2: about exit velocity, spin rate, drive lined, you know, all
Speaker 2: of the things that have become a big part of
Speaker 2: the sport in the last decade.
Speaker 3: And there's a place for all of that.
Speaker 2: But what you're seeing is is there's not an emphasis
Speaker 2: on actually playing the game well. Playing the game instinctually,
Speaker 2: and you can't measure that stuff, but you know when
Speaker 2: you see it or when you don't see it. And
Speaker 2: I still remember when did grigoris guy player you guys
Speaker 2: are very familiar with, when he rehabbed for a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks back in twenty nineteen in the minor leagues,
Speaker 2: coming back for an injury, and he came back to
Speaker 2: the big league clubhouse and told several of his teammates, quote,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't believe some of the shit going on in
Speaker 2: our minor leagues. And he was talking about what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about, where all of the emphasis was on again
Speaker 2: exit velocity, hitting home runs, spin rate for pitchers, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And there wasn't a lot getting done in terms of
Speaker 2: making sure the guys actually play the game in a
Speaker 2: competent way. So I don't know why people are suddenly
Speaker 2: shocked there's gambling going on in the casino, if you will,
Speaker 2: when they you see at the big league level, it's
Speaker 2: the exact same thing. But again, Aaron Boone is the
Speaker 2: face man for a lot of this in terms of
Speaker 2: the slings and arrows coming from the from the fan
Speaker 2: base and a lot of the media but I'm telling
Speaker 2: you this is a top to bottom organizational issue, and
Speaker 2: it has been for.
Speaker 3: A while now.
Speaker 5: I love everything about I don't love it because you know,
Speaker 5: you want them to win. We all want them to win.
Speaker 5: But you've hit pretty much everything right right on the
Speaker 5: head there of all the question I had. But the
Speaker 5: other question I had, you're in the clubhouse pretty much
Speaker 5: every day. How is it in there? I mean, is
Speaker 5: there is there people?
Speaker 4: You know? Not?
Speaker 5: Is it one side here, one side there? I mean,
Speaker 5: there's gotta be some dissension in there. Something's going on
Speaker 5: because they don't look like they're loving the game of
Speaker 5: baseball as much. And when you're in the clubhouse, you've
Speaker 5: got to have that love, that energy. Is there anything
Speaker 5: going on in that clubhouse where you're like up, same day,
Speaker 5: here they go again, you know, like nobody seems to be,
Speaker 5: you know, either root for each other, wanting to be
Speaker 5: around each other.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think Todd, it's a relatively close, you
Speaker 2: know group, And I spend as much time as I
Speaker 2: can in the in the clubhouse just talking to guys,
Speaker 2: not usually with a notebook or a recorder, but just
Speaker 2: you know, talking about a variety of things. Sometimes baseball,
Speaker 2: a lot of times not baseball related, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's a professional clubhouse, and I can tell you that
Speaker 2: the preparation is the exact same, the desire to win
Speaker 2: is the exact same as it was when when this
Speaker 2: team in the middle of June had the second best
Speaker 2: record in the American League.
Speaker 3: I haven't picked up on.
Speaker 2: Any dissension or anything like that, but I don't think
Speaker 2: there's any question that the way things have been going,
Speaker 2: and this period of poor play has been going on
Speaker 2: for nearly two months now, that it is wearing on
Speaker 2: guys somewhat. And I believe that they're feeling the pressure.
Speaker 2: And you know, you guys put on the pinstripes and
Speaker 2: you can speak to this certainly better than I can.
Speaker 2: Reggie Jackson, legendary Yankee, always had a quote that the
Speaker 2: pin stripes are heavy, and he talked about not everybody
Speaker 2: can handle the pressure that comes with putting on a
Speaker 2: Yankee uniform, and they can excel elsewhere, but then they
Speaker 2: come here and it's a little bit more difficult because
Speaker 2: every single game gets treated. To quote Brian Cashman, the
Speaker 2: longtime general manager, every game is a one game season
Speaker 2: based the way that's treated by the media and the
Speaker 2: fan base, and not every player can handle that. We
Speaker 2: saw it with Sonny Gray when he was here, he
Speaker 2: was an all He's been an all Star, I think
Speaker 2: at every stop he's been other than New York. We
Speaker 2: saw the disastrous Joey Gallo trade from from a few
Speaker 2: years ago, and we don't know what the new.
Speaker 3: Guys exactly how they're going to handle it. It's too
Speaker 3: small of of a sample size.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the clubhouse and the professionalism and
Speaker 2: the preparation and guys getting along, the chemistry is fine
Speaker 2: in the in the clubhouse, and it's just it's not
Speaker 2: it's not translating into the field the way that it
Speaker 2: was the first two and a half months of the season.
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Speaker 5: Foul.
Speaker 6: Okay, Eric, this is this, This is me ripped. This
Speaker 6: is me ripping up my questions. I don't thought all
Speaker 6: was out in the chain because you said some things.
Speaker 4: That that that worried me and I tweeted this the
Speaker 4: other day.
Speaker 6: You know, it's beautiful to start off how the yankee
Speaker 6: started off high, and this is why it's so imperative
Speaker 6: to start off really really well.
Speaker 4: Uh but you.
Speaker 6: Said something that that kind of that kind of bothers
Speaker 6: me or words me let me say when you say
Speaker 6: the routine hasn't changed.
Speaker 4: I was around Dave Winfield and San Diego, and one thing.
Speaker 6: That he really always talked to me about as a
Speaker 6: player was you can't be afraid to try something different. Well,
Speaker 6: you know, the Yankees have not played good baseball for
Speaker 6: the past few months, not consistent quality baseball. Do you
Speaker 6: in your opinion or you know or or is there
Speaker 6: anything that they're changing in the routine.
Speaker 4: Prior to the game, Because something has to change.
Speaker 6: You can't just continue to do play the same way
Speaker 6: and then continue to prepare the same way and expect
Speaker 6: to get different results. So I'm curious on on your
Speaker 6: and as you watch and foll these guys, do you
Speaker 6: think there's something that they need to concentrate more on
Speaker 6: and is there or also too, are the Yankees just
Speaker 6: who they're showing us that they are right now because
Speaker 6: you get to a certain point of season where you
Speaker 6: are who you are, I believe.
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a multi layered question, camera, and
Speaker 2: I let me turn that around the first part of
Speaker 2: your question to you, both you and Todd as former
Speaker 2: big leaguers, you know what is the line we all
Speaker 2: know about the grind of one hundred.
Speaker 3: And sixty two game season.
Speaker 2: You guys obviously went through it for a very long
Speaker 2: time in the big leagues when things aren't going well.
Speaker 2: What is the point where you suddenly change things up
Speaker 2: and what are those things?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for me, I'll answer it side. I'll go first.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 4: You know, when I'm watching the games.
Speaker 6: I think guys, and we talked about Milwaukee Brewers, guys
Speaker 6: not understanding who they are, right.
Speaker 4: We could plain about Anthony Vopi.
Speaker 6: You know, he's gonna you're gonn struggle at times on defense,
Speaker 6: but offensively, you know. And I watch him and I
Speaker 6: watch Jazz, and I watch some of these guys that
Speaker 6: should be table setters. It's the same swing. It's a
Speaker 6: feaster famous swing. It's swinging for the defense, whether you're
Speaker 6: at home or you're on the road, where it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, the old school back through the middle, low
Speaker 6: line drives. Reggie Jackson told me, Hey, when I first
Speaker 6: came to the New York Yankees, Hey, Cam, collect your hits, like,
Speaker 6: get your hits first. Then once you start feeling good,
Speaker 6: then you could do a little bit more. For me,
Speaker 6: it's just what kind of conversations are they having with
Speaker 6: guys like Jazz, who I know you have seventeen eighteen homers,
Speaker 6: but you need to be getting on base. You need
Speaker 6: to be stealing. Jason Deminguez force the issue. Let's create
Speaker 6: some havoc on the basis. For me, those would be
Speaker 6: things and then that start to VP and ty can
Speaker 6: can follow up off this. Some of those guys say,
Speaker 6: let's shorten up. You know, I watch Aaron Judges Mike
Speaker 6: and excuse me not Mike stand.
Speaker 4: I still call him Big Mike. John Carlos stand.
Speaker 6: I watched these guys hit hard ground balls and line
Speaker 6: drives early in VP rounds. They're not trying to hit homers.
Speaker 6: So you know, understanding who you are at the big
Speaker 6: league levels and poor and I think you know that's
Speaker 6: a part of the changes that need to be made.
Speaker 5: What kind of role are you? What role player are you?
Speaker 5: I think that's the biggest adjustment some guys got to make.
Speaker 5: They come up there thinking, oh, I got to be
Speaker 5: somebody different. No, if you be you and control your controls,
Speaker 5: you're going to be just fine. If you're a leadoff guy,
Speaker 5: get on base. If you're one of those guys that
Speaker 5: are in a three to seven hole, time to bop
Speaker 5: some RBIs and forget about the paperwork in the TV.
Speaker 5: What is he throwing He had two seamers running in
Speaker 5: a little bit slider away, Like, you don't need any
Speaker 5: more else than that. Percentages throw them out the window.
Speaker 5: When you're struggling, come together as a unit and communicate.
Speaker 5: I do see the Yankees doing that a lot. But
Speaker 5: at the same time, how much are they taking that
Speaker 5: intake in and bringing it to the field.
Speaker 2: And Cameron, you know, to add on to that, I
Speaker 2: guess a little bit when you talk about changing things up.
Speaker 2: But one of the things that drives me nuts in
Speaker 2: this sport and actually all professional sports. You've heard this
Speaker 2: phrase more and more over the years, and the Yankees
Speaker 2: certainly will make you nauseous with it is they talk about, well,
Speaker 2: the process is sound, and if it's not working, then
Speaker 2: you've got to change the process. But you know, the
Speaker 2: Yankees internally in the organization and this is not one
Speaker 2: of my anti analytics screens. And I get so tired
Speaker 2: of arguing with people in the Yankees front office about this,
Speaker 2: or they say, well, when you criticize that, you're just
Speaker 2: anti analytics, and I'm like, well, some of mys sources
Speaker 2: are actually analytics guys with other teams. So I'm not
Speaker 2: anti analytics by any stretch, but sometimes you have to
Speaker 2: look inward and say and evaluate everything and say, you know,
Speaker 2: what we're doing is not working. It's not translating to
Speaker 2: the big league level. Maybe we need to simplify some things.
Speaker 2: Maybe we don't need to constantly have the iPads out
Speaker 2: and constantly looking at you know, again, you know all
Speaker 2: of the metric numbers. One person the organization that I
Speaker 2: was talking to a couple of days ago and said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we're just the stat cast kings. That seems
Speaker 2: to be all that we that we care about. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that's necessarily what the play is first
Speaker 2: and foremost in their mind, but if you come up
Speaker 2: through the minor league system with that, then then maybe
Speaker 2: that's what you think is most important. I remember talking
Speaker 2: to a scout as a Yankees minor league system from
Speaker 2: another team about two weeks ago, and he had seen
Speaker 2: the system from the lower level low A ball all
Speaker 2: the way up to Triple A and he said, he said,
Speaker 2: it drives me crazy. He goes you watch batting practice.
Speaker 2: He said, it's like softball banning practice. It's just uppercut,
Speaker 2: swing as hard as you can and see how many
Speaker 2: balls go over the fence.
Speaker 4: Well, that's kind of not what.
Speaker 2: You guys are describing in terms of how big leaguers
Speaker 2: should prepare to hit. And you you mentioned Judge, and
Speaker 2: you mentioned Stanton, and they have their own routines, and
Speaker 2: those are routines that have been honed over, you know,
Speaker 2: many years in the major leagues. I just think that organizationally,
Speaker 2: and I said this two years ago when they won
Speaker 2: eighty two to eighty and missed the playoffs in the season,
Speaker 2: just careened into a ditch in the second half, is
Speaker 2: that when that season ended, that they needed to internally
Speaker 2: as an organization ask themselves some very difficult questions about
Speaker 2: their methodology and in their minds what they believe is
Speaker 2: unassailable methodology because they nobody's more sensitive than the analytics
Speaker 2: guys when you criticize them. I can tell you that
Speaker 2: from first hand experience over the years. You know, the
Speaker 2: pro scouts, they've got to sign their names to all
Speaker 2: of their reports and they have to live with that,
Speaker 2: good or bad. The analytics guys, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of times hide behind their computers and they say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, the process is there. It should have worked out,
Speaker 2: and you know, if it didn't work out, it's on
Speaker 2: somebody else, But it's not on us. That's a whole
Speaker 2: nother I guess tangent there. But Cameron, your second question
Speaker 2: is this who they are? I mean, it's been a
Speaker 2: jeckle in a high season. I mean they were seventeen
Speaker 2: games over five hundred after they swept the Royals on
Speaker 2: June twelfth in Kansas City, and then since then they
Speaker 2: got they went into Fenway Park, got swept by the
Speaker 2: Red Sox and they've been you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: now twenty eight out of forty six games since then
Speaker 2: that they've lost. So, you know, when they built the
Speaker 2: record to seventeen games over five hundred, they had one
Speaker 2: of the best starting rotations in the game, they had
Speaker 2: one of the best bullpens, and their offense was leading
Speaker 2: in pretty much every category. And almost none of those
Speaker 2: things have been the case the last almost two months now.
Speaker 2: And then you throw in the consistent sloppy play, bad
Speaker 2: base running, et cetera. Mental brain freezes physical mistakes all
Speaker 2: of the above, and you get you know, where they are?
Speaker 2: So who are they exactly? I think that's who they are.
Speaker 2: And when you look at the September schedule where they
Speaker 2: get a healthy dose of a couple of series against
Speaker 2: the Orioles, the Twins, who you know, since two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, I think they've won seventy five or eighty
Speaker 2: percent of their games against the Twins. And that's actually
Speaker 2: not you know, hyperbole, that's pretty accurate. And the White
Speaker 2: Sox are thrown in there. You know, this team certainly
Speaker 2: has the capabilities of getting hot in September, but they
Speaker 2: have not shown any indications that they're capable of doing that.
Speaker 5: Last question here.
Speaker 4: Ahead, go ahead ahead.
Speaker 5: Last question for me. Jake Bird to innings, seven runs
Speaker 5: is the guy they were looking for important innings coming
Speaker 5: in here and it just didn't have it coming from Colorado.
Speaker 5: Talk a little bit about that, and you know, just
Speaker 5: another another one to write off right now. He's got
Speaker 5: to he's got to find himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And I don't know Jake well, and
Speaker 2: this is not a shot I got him by any
Speaker 2: stretch of imagination. But as as you guys know, there
Speaker 2: were probably twenty teams looking for bullpen help before the
Speaker 2: trade deadline. The Yankees certainly were pretty high on that
Speaker 2: list and talking to scouts from other teams that were
Speaker 2: looking for bullpen help and that had scouted Jake Bird.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of concern from those guys that
Speaker 2: Bird had been basically run into the ground first few
Speaker 2: months in Colorado. And you look at it, he had
Speaker 2: forty five appearances with the Yes at the time that
Speaker 2: the Yankees traded for him, and he had a really
Speaker 2: bad July, which obviously is the time leading up to
Speaker 2: the to the trade deadline, and there were quite a
Speaker 2: few teams that backed off of him for that reason. Uh.
Speaker 2: And I suspect just a suspicion, because I've seen this
Speaker 2: with with the Yankees and trade deadline acquisitions in the past.
Speaker 2: Started Joey Gallows a good example where uh, you know
Speaker 2: their analytics wings decided, well, we'll fix them. We've we've
Speaker 2: got all the answers, we've got our pitching lab, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody likes to pat themselves on the back
Speaker 2: more for being cutting edge, uh than that the Yankees do.
Speaker 2: And that that they ignored basically the fact that there
Speaker 2: were some concerns industry wide about Bird, not that he
Speaker 2: was injured or anything like that, but just basically that
Speaker 2: he might you know, have been you know, overused a
Speaker 2: bit with Colorado, and his numbers did show that in
Speaker 2: uh in July with with the Rockies before the deadline.
Speaker 2: I think he had five v R A or something
Speaker 2: like that in the month of July before the trades.
Speaker 2: So you know, look, I mean, he's certainly is a
Speaker 2: capable guy. He has shown that before. Maybe he gets
Speaker 2: himself right in a triple A. That move was made
Speaker 2: because Mark Lighter Junior is coming off the il before
Speaker 2: tonight's game, So you know, there's still a decent chance
Speaker 2: that we see Bird at some point back here in
Speaker 2: the big leagues, but again in the industry because there
Speaker 2: were so many teams looking for relievers. That's one thing
Speaker 2: that I heard from scouts from other teams about Bird
Speaker 2: that there was just a little bit of worry that
Speaker 2: maybe he had been overly text by the Rockies before
Speaker 2: the deadline.
Speaker 1: Well, now let's send him down to get a little
Speaker 1: break and we'll see what happens. They've done a nice
Speaker 1: job getting some bullpen guys together and obviously shining Luke
Speaker 1: Weavers a shiny story. But yes, I'm with you, they
Speaker 1: probably got a great deal because his stock was low
Speaker 1: and you know again run off.
Speaker 4: His loves that Eric, this was great.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate you and
Speaker 1: everyone check out Eric's work both on Twitter and of
Speaker 1: course Newsday.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Eric, Scott, Todd Cameron.
Speaker 2: Look forward to seeing you guys down the road.