Speaker 1: Wanted to cook at soul.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Welcome back. It is Tuesday, August eleventh,
Speaker 2: and the Yankees will open up a series with the
Speaker 2: Mariners tonight. Honestly, this episode might come off a little
Speaker 2: bit as negative. I want to get you guys a
Speaker 2: look at my hoodie right here. Summer of George.
Speaker 3: Summer of George.
Speaker 2: Anyway, this episode might come off a little bit as negative.
Speaker 2: Just from looking at my own notes, I was just like, man,
Speaker 2: that's pretty damn negative. But you know, whatever I think
Speaker 2: of and whatever you know comes in my head is
Speaker 2: what I talk to you guys about. And when the
Speaker 2: Titanic was sinking, you know, the band kept playing. They
Speaker 2: were pretty optimistic, right, or maybe they were just trying
Speaker 2: to entertain people. But I'm sure there were some people
Speaker 2: who were like, Ah, the band's playing, it can't be
Speaker 2: that bad. But I'm sure there are some people, and
Speaker 2: I would fall into this category, who are like, let
Speaker 2: me see if I can find something to float on,
Speaker 2: because this doesn't look good. And right now, even when
Speaker 2: the Yankees win a series, they are losing ground. And
Speaker 2: that's a sign that the team ahead of them is
Speaker 2: taking care of business. And that is the Tampa Bay Rays,
Speaker 2: who now lead the American League East by six games,
Speaker 2: and the Yankees have essentially been putting all of their
Speaker 2: energy and effort into staying above water, and by the
Speaker 2: time the SS judge arrives to pick up the lifeboats,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that there's gonna be much energy left.
Speaker 3: To fight for the division.
Speaker 2: And I don't know about you guys, but after that
Speaker 2: loss on Sunday, I think he's got one run in
Speaker 2: extra innings again. I just needed a break from the strikeouts.
Speaker 2: I was glad that we had the day off yesterday.
Speaker 2: It was a rare, just like a mental reset, and
Speaker 2: I watched the Rays game against the Athletics and they
Speaker 2: were down, I believe it was six to two in
Speaker 2: the eighth inning, and they scored eight runs in the
Speaker 2: eighth inning to come back and win. And when I
Speaker 2: saw that, I realized the Yankees don't have that fight
Speaker 2: in them. They can't compete with the Rays right now.
Speaker 2: They're not as good, just flat out not as good.
Speaker 2: They don't hit as good, they don't play defense as well,
Speaker 2: and if they match up in the playoffs, I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna go a lot like the series with the
Speaker 2: Blue Jays went last year. We're probably looking at a
Speaker 2: wild card series, and if the Yankees don't get right,
Speaker 2: they're probably looking at a wild card series on the
Speaker 2: road against the Red Sacks. Now, the reds or Red
Speaker 2: Sox have slowed down the last couple of days, they've
Speaker 2: lost a.
Speaker 3: Couple in a row. But Yanke's got to get their
Speaker 3: act together. So let's talk about the Rays and what they.
Speaker 2: Are proving, because it is, honestly, it's time to stop
Speaker 2: looking up at them in the standings and start paying
Speaker 2: attention to the wild card. It doesn't mean the season
Speaker 2: is over. The Yankees currently own the top wild card
Speaker 2: spot and they're like six and a half games from
Speaker 2: falling out of a playoff spot entirely, but we've seen
Speaker 2: it enough now to know plainly that without Aaron Judge
Speaker 2: and Cody Bellinger and to a certain degree John Carlos Stanton.
Speaker 2: They're used to playing without Stanton, but without their three
Speaker 2: big monsters, the lineup just is not good enough to
Speaker 2: win the American League East. I mean, and there's nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with just calling a spade a spade. It might
Speaker 2: be good enough to survive and win a wild card
Speaker 2: because of the Yankees pitching, but surviving and winning the
Speaker 2: division are different things, different things. Brian Cashman likes to
Speaker 2: say that pitching is the key, and he said that
Speaker 2: many times pitching is the key to winning, and he's
Speaker 2: not wrong. Pitching is very important, and the Yankees have
Speaker 2: the best era in baseball at three point three zero.
Speaker 2: But pitching isn't the only key. It's not a skeleton key.
Speaker 2: You also need an offense. More importantly, you need an
Speaker 2: offensive philosophy that continues to function when your best players disappear,
Speaker 2: even if they're out of the lineup for one day,
Speaker 2: you should be able to compete. This one doesn't judge
Speaker 2: got hurt. The Yankees are hitting two nineteen. They two
Speaker 2: eighty three on base percentage.
Speaker 3: Guys, that's pitiful. That is absolutely pitiful.
Speaker 2: And over their last forty four games they're hitting two
Speaker 2: oh three. I'm gonna repeat that, over their last forty
Speaker 2: four games, the Yankees are hitting two oh three.
Speaker 3: As a team.
Speaker 2: If an individual player hits two oh three, the fans
Speaker 2: want that player demoted. They want that player traded shipped
Speaker 2: to space, launched into the sun. Pick your metaphor. But
Speaker 2: if the whole team hits two hundred for a month
Speaker 2: and a half. You just sit there and take it
Speaker 2: and be grumpy. There's nothing you can do. This is
Speaker 2: a lineup constructed to hit the ball over the fence,
Speaker 2: and when home runs disappear, the entire operation shuts down.
Speaker 2: They don't string together hits, they don't consistently take the
Speaker 2: extra base, they don't manufacture enough runs. They wait for
Speaker 2: somebody to hit a three run home erw and half
Speaker 2: the time there aren't even two runners on base anyway.
Speaker 2: The irony is that the Yankees last sustained championship run.
Speaker 2: The last time the Yankees were really successful and had
Speaker 2: a sustained championship run, it was because they were a
Speaker 2: complete team. They were built by Gene Michael, and they
Speaker 2: can beat you in every conceivable way. They would take
Speaker 2: advantage of errors and mistakes. They played tight defense, they
Speaker 2: stole bases, they hit with runners in scoring position. They
Speaker 2: still hit home runs, but they weren't dependent on them.
Speaker 2: The ninety eight Yankees, best team in my lifetime, had
Speaker 2: ten players reached double digits in homers, but nobody hit
Speaker 2: more than twenty eight. Tino led that team with twenty
Speaker 2: eight home runs. They also hit to eighty eight as
Speaker 2: a team, and they led baseball with a three to
Speaker 2: sixty four on base percentage and constantly forced pitchers to work.
Speaker 2: You get guys on base, you knock them in. Now,
Speaker 2: maybe the Yankees of the modern era, we'll look at
Speaker 2: velocity and shifting and specialized bullpens and all of the
Speaker 2: other difficulties in generating offense, and they'll say, the path
Speaker 2: of least resistance is power. You can hit the ball
Speaker 2: over everyone and skip all of that. And so they
Speaker 2: think that if you collect enough home run hitters and
Speaker 2: pair it up with a good pitching staff, you can
Speaker 2: do damage and you can win, and it will usually
Speaker 2: get you to the playoffs if everyone's healthy. And then
Speaker 2: it's a crap shoot, right, That's what Cashman and company
Speaker 2: like to say. It's crapshoot. I disagree. I reject that premise,
Speaker 2: that premise completely. The Astros proved it wasn't by having
Speaker 2: repeated and sustained success. The Dodgers have proved it isn't.
Speaker 2: And when your power gets limited and your offense disappears,
Speaker 2: it taxes you're pitching. That's the thing that nobody talks about,
Speaker 2: that nobody looks at. Every base runner becomes an emergency.
Speaker 2: Every mistake can lose you in the game, and that
Speaker 2: wears down your pitcher more than pitch counts and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. The stress. Every pitching coach will tell you that.
Speaker 2: So let's take a look at what the Rays are doing.
Speaker 2: Because they lead the American League handily. They are hitting
Speaker 2: two fifty nine as a team, that is second and
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball. They've got a three point seven zero
Speaker 2: ERA that's.
Speaker 3: Sixth the in baseball.
Speaker 2: They have created a team that can win baseball games
Speaker 2: in more than one way. They have four qualified hitters
Speaker 2: that are batting at least two to seventy seven. Chandler
Speaker 2: Simpson's at three h five, Yanni Diez is at three
Speaker 2: h two, Jonathan rond is at two eighty eight, and
Speaker 2: junior cameronero is at two to seventy seven. Liam Hicks
Speaker 2: not gonna recount him because he came in from a trade,
Speaker 2: but he's hitting over to eighty. Also, the Yankees have
Speaker 2: one player on their active roster hitting that well for
Speaker 2: the season, Luis Garcia Junior two seventy nine, and he's
Speaker 2: only been on the team for five minutes. The only
Speaker 2: qualified hits which is three point one played appearances per game,
Speaker 2: per team game that are hitting above two forty two
Speaker 2: are Cody Balinger, who is on the injured list, and
Speaker 2: ben Rice Ballenger's hitting two fifty nine. Rice is hitting
Speaker 2: two fifty seven now. Batting average has been treated like
Speaker 2: an embarrassing stat for about fifteen years, and I'm sick
Speaker 2: of it. I'm sick of it. You mentioned it around
Speaker 2: the analytics guys and they act like you're trying to
Speaker 2: show them highlights on a VCR, right, they laugh at you.
Speaker 2: Oh yea unk boomer, all that shit. Walks are valuable.
Speaker 2: On base percentage is valuable. Nobody is saying they're not.
Speaker 2: But a hit can score somebody from second, It can
Speaker 2: send somebody first to third. It could force the defense
Speaker 2: to make a play, to make a throw, to execute
Speaker 2: under pressure. And we've seen in an era built around
Speaker 2: exit velocity and all that stuff that a lot of
Speaker 2: teams struggle with fundamentals and defense. So the Yankees have
Speaker 2: valued on base percentage for a long time because it
Speaker 2: helps you when you hit the ball out of the ballpark,
Speaker 2: But it only helps if you do something with it,
Speaker 2: and when you're not hitting the ball out of the ballpark,
Speaker 2: you end up stranding a lot of runners because you
Speaker 2: walk or you get one hit four bats, five at
Speaker 2: bats and you leave them on base. The Rays also
Speaker 2: close games. They have a major league best forty eight saves.
Speaker 2: And then there's the question that nobody wants to talk about,
Speaker 2: and that is the money question. The Yankees are carrying
Speaker 2: a pay roll over three hundred million dollars. Tampa Bay
Speaker 2: is roughly a third of that. And I don't believe
Speaker 2: that being wealthy inherently makes someone lazy or automatically makes
Speaker 2: them stop trying. But there's something something too guaranteed money,
Speaker 2: in my opinion that I don't know. It disrupts things, right,
Speaker 2: Guaranteed money and guaranteed status can kind of create less competition.
Speaker 2: Guys become comfortable. It's like, well, I'm struggling, but they're
Speaker 2: not going to get rid of me because I'm making
Speaker 2: ten million dollars like Jazz Chisholm making eleven million dollars.
Speaker 2: He doesn't give a shit about baseball right now, The
Speaker 2: Rais can't afford to operate that way. Their players are
Speaker 2: constantly fighting for roles, playing time, and their next contract.
Speaker 2: And maybe that urgency matter is just as much as
Speaker 2: batting average does so we take a look at the
Speaker 2: division snapshot. Yankees now six games back in the American
Speaker 2: League East, two games ahead of the Boston Red Sox.
Speaker 3: Will take a look, now uncomfortably at the wild card.
Speaker 2: Let's see here, we pull that up and we can
Speaker 2: take a closer look at how the wild card standings
Speaker 2: are going. American League Wildcard Yankees are currently holding the
Speaker 2: top spot, the Boston Red Sox the number two spot,
Speaker 2: Texas Rangers, the number three spot, Twins number four.
Speaker 3: So the Yankees are in.
Speaker 2: A good position to make the playoffs and maybe that's
Speaker 2: all they care about, getting a couple of you know, revenues,
Speaker 2: revenue gates from the postseason, but not gonna work out
Speaker 2: if you have two games in Boston and you're going home,
Speaker 2: all right. So tonight the Yankees will take on the
Speaker 2: Seattle Mariners. Ryan weathers on the mound. He's been throwing
Speaker 2: the ball exceptionally well. You would think his record would
Speaker 2: be five and seven, but better than five and seven
Speaker 2: with a three point seven to nine er, but it
Speaker 2: is what it is. Brian Will one of my favorite
Speaker 2: pitchers to watch. Not having a great year, but he
Speaker 2: pitches the exact way that the Braves pitcher pitched on
Speaker 2: Sunday that shut them down, mixes pitches, spots his pitches,
Speaker 2: throws a lot of breaking balls, got a good fastball too,
Speaker 2: and so tonight it's gonna be difficult for the Yankees.
Speaker 2: Although Seattle has lost four straight and they're fifty six
Speaker 2: and sixty three, they I think their urgency is out
Speaker 2: the door a little bit, but anyway, we'll see.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look at what to watch.
Speaker 2: Grisham has been swinging the bat slowly, a little bit better.
Speaker 2: He had a home run on Sunday, a couple of
Speaker 2: hits a day before that. Austin Wells has gotten it
Speaker 2: going a little bit over the last ten games to
Speaker 2: ninety two average, nine to twelve ops in the last
Speaker 2: ten games.
Speaker 3: And Jazz Chisholm.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've seen worst body language on
Speaker 2: a player since Aaron Hicks right before he got released.
Speaker 2: It's pitiful to watch, all right, So let's do our
Speaker 2: nostra Derek prediction. I'm taking Ben Rice and I am
Speaker 2: taking Austin Wells. How about that. I picked Austin Wells
Speaker 2: once this year and he came through with a home run.
Speaker 2: So we're going for we're going for a second time.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take some voicemails here, John from Florida.
Speaker 4: Hey, Derrek, John from Florida's got a question. Yeah, he's
Speaker 4: looking like they're doing for a wildcard spot. Based on
Speaker 4: how the Red Sox are playing, and based on how there,
Speaker 4: he's probably already put this thing away. In the two
Speaker 4: game set, we know Splitzler's going game one. Who would
Speaker 4: you have go go game two? Would you have Cole?
Speaker 4: Or would you have free go to game two?
Speaker 1: So you got you got Splitler?
Speaker 4: Who else would you have for that wildcard game?
Speaker 2: Me on, that's a great question. I mean, there's no question.
Speaker 2: If you're going three games, those are your three guys.
Speaker 2: And I think the number two, honestly, I think the
Speaker 2: number two honestly might be Schlitler because he's going to
Speaker 2: be tired by that point. You know, he's never thrown
Speaker 2: this deep into a season before, especially at the major
Speaker 2: league level. I think that Freed and Cole are both
Speaker 2: going to be a lot more fresh. I think one
Speaker 2: of them might get the game when start, So I
Speaker 2: think you go with whoever's throwing the ball. Well, you
Speaker 2: go with Cam in the pivotal game too. And hope
Speaker 2: that you have a third ace in waiting to go
Speaker 2: in in game three or in game one of the
Speaker 2: following series.
Speaker 3: But that's a great question. Here's Tabor talk.
Speaker 5: Hey, Derek cow are you Tavorite talk from the Tascos
Speaker 5: Yankees all today they took two out of three from Atlanta,
Speaker 5: both as we all know, wasted pitching. What a gym
Speaker 5: by Schlickler. The Yankees are not scoring the last what
Speaker 5: is it twenty game for something averaging under three runs
Speaker 5: a game. It's really pathetic. Anyway, I'm listening to the
Speaker 5: Michael Kay Show. I catch his show every day, and
Speaker 5: a lot of calls about how the Oldzheimer's Day was
Speaker 5: not good, kind of the blackluster, like like twenty thousand
Speaker 5: people half the stadium was empty during the also a game,
Speaker 5: a lot of guys didn't show up. Andy pettit wasn't there.
Speaker 5: Gooding wasn't there, Strawberry, A bunch of other guys didn'tows.
Speaker 5: Dereck Cheeter wasn't there. Michael Kay said that was one
Speaker 5: of his favorite as growing up as a kid, the
Speaker 5: old Teimer's Day, And he says nostalgia. I'm the opposite,
Speaker 5: and I think you agree with me. I don't like
Speaker 5: it at all. It's very depressed. Even as a kid,
Speaker 5: I didn't like it. It's just seeing these great athletes
Speaker 5: who could barely run and throw the boy It's like,
Speaker 5: it's like it just reminds me of death. I'm sorry that.
Speaker 2: I appreciate the call reminds you of death.
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to say anymore. Willie called
Speaker 3: in about the same topics.
Speaker 2: I want to let Willy have this moment that I'll
Speaker 2: address it.
Speaker 1: Hey, Derek talking about Old time as Day? What happened
Speaker 1: to Sabati, the Sina, will Petty Cleming, Jeeter good Strawberry?
Speaker 1: What what?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 1: What happened to all them players? How come they was
Speaker 1: the old time game? That's pub with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I were the Yankees, I would feel embarrassed
Speaker 2: about that. I think it has something to do with Cashman. Cashman,
Speaker 2: the Ruins a lot of relationships with people. We've heard
Speaker 2: a lot of players talk about this. They just don't
Speaker 2: like the guy, okay, and I don't blame them, and
Speaker 2: so they're not inclined to go worship this organization. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty years ago when you were having Old
Speaker 2: Timers Day, you.
Speaker 3: Were getting.
Speaker 2: You know, championship teams from the seventies, right, and then
Speaker 2: now you're getting those early two thousands teams that didn't
Speaker 2: win anything. They won a couple of penance one to
Speaker 2: oh three, but nine their only championship. You really should
Speaker 2: have better representation from the nine team. You really should
Speaker 2: have CC there. And look Jeter not being there as
Speaker 2: just it's like if Joe Tomagio Mickey Mannel didn't show up.
Speaker 2: It just didn't happen. Okay, maddeningly still managing. So I
Speaker 2: agree with you. It is lackluster and it reminds us
Speaker 2: of death. All right, guys, I'll see you after the
Speaker 2: game tonight.
Speaker 3: Enjoy your day. I'll see you next time. Hey, thanks
Speaker 3: for watching.
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