Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 202 | Playoff Bubbles and Yankee Struggles

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

Jomboy, Jake, and Plouffe are talking about the potential playoff bubbles as we're starting to hear more information on them. The guys also share their frustrations with Trevor on what it is like to be a Yankee fan during perhaps the most frustrating run of baseball of their lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Next week. Welcome to talking baseball. It's the middle of the week episode, the tidbits episode. We're talking bubble. We're talking player of the week. We're talking Trevor Plouffe. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball.

My name's Jimmy. I'm sitting next to Jake who just heard himself during the intro song. Trevor Plouf is in California. And producer, Zach, is sub again for producer BPD. Today, as BBD finds the deadline on another. project. Wow, up against it. Coming live from the Roosevelt Studios here in the Bronx. Hope you're doing well. Trevor,

how are you? Doing great, Jim. Doing real great. I have a little weird thing going on with my computer. I search for something, I don't know, a week ago. And I get an ad for it every single day. Yeah?

It's weird. I don't like that. I was going to make a very crude joke. It's not porn related. I wasn't going to say that. I also just started recording right now, so. Nice. Give us a clap.

Don't worry about it. Content. It's a, look, I'll tell you what it is. It's like this jump. I was looking at these shoes, and then that brought me to a page with this jumpsuit. Now, I don't wear jumpsuits, but they're showing me jumpsuits. with the shoes every day. I don't want the shoes or the jumpsuit.

When are you making the change to jumpsuits? It's too hot. I thought maybe you were searching for the F-Me silly doll from Dave. Not a big, like, blow-up doll fan here, just not into it. Normal human. You'd be surprised by the feel. Jake, how are you? I could imagine.

I'm doing well. I bet you could imagine. I've heard you've done it, at least twice. At least twice. Happy birthday to your kids when their birthdays come up. I'm doing well. It's pretty Yankee focus, but maybe the only time I'll push the talking baseball people towards talking Yanks.

We just had a nice little interview pop up. Again, it's very Yankee-centric, so you'd have to really be looking for baseball content if you're not a Yanks fan. But I can tell them, right? That fuck. We just interviewed Randall, Randall, Randall Gruchick, and he was awesome.

It was more of a conversation than an interview. Cool guy. And he should be feeling pretty good because his Blue Jays are rolling right now. And what are the Yankees doing? They suck. Anti-rolling. Yes. Suck.

They were about to roll, and then the cops came through, and they took everything, and now they're just at a major laser concert. with X's on their hands. The baseball has been good. Yeah, baseball has been good. Trev, I have some, we have a big conversation. Trev put out some text and some feelers, and we will get to that. But I had a couple small questions for you, just, you know, you're our local expert.

I need to ask expert the questions. I'll try. I'll try. First question. You saw my breakdown with Neil Walker and Bryce Harper and Bryce Harper getting ejected. Best lip reading I've done. since ever, people are saying. It took me...

It was pretty good. It took me like all day. So hard. But I got it. That pop-up. Neil Walker catches it on his heels. For people that didn't see, Neil Walker catches on his heels.

Bryce Harper never charges it, never catches it at all. Todd Fraser actually really smartly tags up because he realizes that Neil is backing up as a second basement. Scores on it. You can see Neil look to the dugout or look back at Harper,

like what the hell man. Now both, broadcasts, the Mets broadcast, Keith Hernandez, where's like a gas? Like, where the hell is Harper? Why, he's got to catch that ball. The Phillies broadcast obviously tried to dial it back a little bit. Like, I don't know if Neil was mad at Harper or just mad at himself for not getting behind the ball. As a pro, he's played some infield, played some outfield.

What's your read on that situation? I just honestly want your opinion on it. Let me get serious real quick. Okay. Yeah, no. I actually appreciated that you kind of thought about that when you saw the play. It makes me happy that your baseball IQ is where it needs to be. Because that is a play that as an infielder, you dread that, almost more than anything,

is going back on fly balls in general. But specifically there, runner on third base, yes, you got to get behind the ball. So I could see both sides of it there. really he is just waiting and waiting for somebody to call him off. He doesn't care who it is. You know, whether it's Harper or the center fielder, somebody, he just is like standing like, I got it, but how about you guys come get this ball? It was up there for a long time. I don't know if Harper misjudged how high it was. He gave up on it like right away, it seemed. Neil was waving his hands, which is the universal, like get out of the way. But as an outfielder,

you've got to realize the situation there. I think mainly my stance on, on it is that Bryce needed to come in and get the ball. I think that's the obvious thing. But you could also say, yeah, Neil, like, as soon as you figured out that nobody was coming for you, you got to get behind that ball too, because he had also had time to do it. Yeah. So we're giving Todd a, you know, a plus for good base running there. I'm sure the third base coach was in his ear like, hey, like, if Neil catches this,

you're going, you know. So they're watching that intently. Todd's also an infielder and understands, you know, catching a ball like that is. tough to make a throw, but I thought you went over it pretty well when you talked about that play. It's definitely Harper's ball. Did you ever catch a pop-up and get tagged up on? I was pretty aware of those situations. I'm sure you could dig through the tape and find one, but I was a guy that, yeah, maybe not. I was a guy that always told the outfielders like, dude, call me off. Shortstop, call me off, left fielder, call me off. Like, I shouldn't be catching any

balls, like in the outfield. That's the truth, man. Yeah. Like, you got to be able to communicate with people. It's a tough angle. Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense. Next question I had during the pregame show today, you mentioned someone got player of the week. Tay Oscar.

I forget, I don't know who you said. Montes. Who? Montas. Montes got the first ever player of the week. My question for you about this is, do you know, like, okay, here's. Player of the week for me, the only time I ever find out who the player of the week was is if it's a Yankee and they say it on the Yankees broadcast. I don't know where it gets posted.

I don't know if there's actually honor or accolades to it. Like player of the month, maybe. If a teammate got player of the week, would you know about it? Would you celebrate with them? Would you congratulate? Is it anything more than just like a head nod? If someone on another team gets player of the week, do you have any idea? if someone else got Player of the Week while you're playing,

did you know who they were? Did they put it on a bulletin? What's Player of the Week? I don't know, man. You know, it gets posted on MLB's Instagram page. I think that's how I usually see it. Okay. So I think guys dig that.

You get a little bump in the following because they're tagging you. I think guys care about it. Why wouldn't you? It says you're the best player in the world for a week. But like as a player, if you're on the Twins, and the player of the week goes to the A's. Would you have any idea? Only if I saw it on Instagram.

Okay. They're not making announcements about that or anything like that. That's what I wanted to know. Like I wanted to know if there was like, what if your teammate gets it? Does the manager, does anyone in the club say, hey, Ploofy got Player of the Week this week. Everyone, give it up. The PR guy would tell you and you'd be happy about it, man. I think I've won it before.

I'm not trying to downplay it. I'm just trying to understand where it, like, in, you know, What attention it gets. You don't get anything for it, if that's what you're asking. And I think when you got Player of the Month, you used to get something for it, like a watch or something. And I don't know if they do that anymore either. But you definitely get a pat on the butt and an Instagram post,

and that's about it for Player of the Week. It's not bad. Instagram Post is pretty cool. All right. But it's fun, though. Like I said, it means that you're the best player in the world for a week. Do you have any thoughts on Player of the Week? You just bring it to the arbitration table.

and see if anybody bites on it. Yeah, it's just, it's fun. It's just another way to measure stuff. And I don't know, I bet there's probably some cool guys have some cool outliers about it. Like guy one player of the week, three different weeks throughout the year or something like that. I don't know. I'm not trying to knock it. It's not a brag award.

Just try by one player of the week, I think I have. I think it's a little, it's a pat on the ass. I think Trevor said it best there. It's a pat on the ass. Hey. Hell of a job, kid. That's what I thought. I would have been interested if the answer was like,

oh, no, if a guy wins player on your week, they're like, you know, it gets an announcement and the guy's clap before he's first at that. It's like high school, like the high school announcements, you know, as soon as you show up to school, it's like, you know, player of the week in the Yale. You don't have a lot of stuff like that, even player of the month.

I mean, again, it's more just like a congratulations. Maybe your manager will, like, do something and talk and be like, hey, this guy just won't player. the month or whatever but one i think the coolest thing if you're talking about recognition during the season and what guys pay attention to obviously the all-star team is important to guys and i always think that i always thought that was cool um getting together in the clubhouse uh announcing the the all-star from your team or the all-stars from your team and usually you know the organization does something nice for the guys gets them a bottle of champagne what have you and i always thought

that was that was really cool that special to people just because you can always say for the rest of your life like all-star major leaguer trev you got one player of the week august 24th 2014 i honestly don't even know what i did the two best third baseman in baseball nolan aranado and trevor ploof i don't know what i did that week i felt like i do you want to know what you did some better weeks than that but you batted 367 with a 387 on base percentage, 1.1.20 OPS. Give me three yakers. Two homers, 10 RBIs, five doubles.

And you did it all against division opponents. You did it all against the Royals, Indians, and Tigers. All right, man. Huge. You said those numbers, and I was like, that's not that good. I feel like, you know. Well, you ended it with a three-hit game, a three-hit game, and a two-hit game. So you ended the week hot.

Recency bias. All right. And you also got the international player of the week, April 11, 2011 for the Rochester Red Wings. Oh, hey, thanks. In 2007, Phoenix Desert Dogs, AFL, Rising Star Award. Yeah. Congrats. Chat's pretty happy for you right now, Triv.

And then with the Rock Cats, you got Eastern Association, Eastern Player of the week. June 4th. I remember the fall league. This is a fun little story. You guys will like this. We did the All-Star game for the Fall League.

I don't remember what it was called. It's like Rising Stars. I think you just said it. And the winning team, they gave $500 cash to each player. So you don't play on Sundays in the Fall League. So Saturday nights are big already. Like everyone's going out and having fun.

Then you give a bunch of like 19, 20-year-olds, $500, just cash? It was a fun night. Just cash in an envelope? Yeah, we gave back to the local economy that night. We really did. That's the best. We helped the needy that night.

That's how they do it. I wonder if they're just Venmo guys now. It was so funny, man. It was like, because I don't think we knew that we were going to get any money. We win the game. And then it's Saturday night and Scott Stale. T levels are hot.

Oh, yeah. Pretty sure I was single at the time. Got to check the timestamp on that. Yeah, we'll check the receipts. Man, there wasn't any money left that night. All the monies were spent in the local economy. It's good to give back, people. I tried to Google who votes on Player of the Week and nothing really key.

Yeah, that's, I don't know. It's an intern that brings it to do. Joe Torrey. I wish there were more awards, dude. Like, give me more awards. Like, pat people on the back more often. Taste me. Machado, back-to-back player of the week. He did.

See, I saw that because Yonder Alonzo posted on his Instagram. So basically, Instagram is where you find out all these things. I wonder if player of the month has ever come from a guy who didn't win a single week. You know, kind of like Olympic gymnastics. You win the all-around. For sure. Yeah, yeah, because you come in second every week and that's probably the best month. All right, moving on.

Trev, the bubble. The bubble. The bubbles. It's frustrating. The bubbly. Let's talk about the bubble. For a while, all we talked about was how are we going to get the season in. Is there going to be a bubble?

Where are they going to play? Are they going to play in spring training sites? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We were the best pod ever talking about what's going to happen. Number one. I do miss our labor dispute. I hope we do one soon. Oof, can't wait for that again.

Here's the clip I queued up about the bubble. The bubble. Now, this air bubble shoots around the heel and explodes towards your face while you drink it. In your face, it explodes. Okay. Done. Got it. Postseason's around the corner, Jim.

Real close. 16 teams make it. What I'm hearing around the league is a little different than I think what people are seeing out, I think Passon had an article on it a couple, maybe like a week and a half ago. And you know we have the NBA, they have a bubble. The NHL, they're doing their bubble. MLB realistically couldn't do a bubble for the regular season. But we know the one thing that owners want is the postseason.

So right now, I think the way they're queuing it up is the National League. would be in California. We would do L.A. And I don't know if we're only going to do Angels Dodgers or we're going to do Angels, Dodgers, San Diego. They're still talking about that. And then the American League would be in Houston and in Dallas. And they'd use those two facilities together.

The caveat that I'm hearing is that they're going to go ahead and do the first round at the Higher Seeds Home Park. park. I think there's just too many teams to go ahead and do that bubble, which I think is I think it's pretty cool. That's a great tidbit, Treb. I think that'd be a decent reward too. Yeah, I think that's cool.

And I think teams are really happy about that. I'm not sure guys want to get into the bubble right now. At least that's what I'm hearing, but they're going to have to. Because the bubble is going to be mandatory. Another thing that they're going to do is they do want to have family be allowed in the bubble. And this is where things get kind of funny, and we talk about, you know, where the priorities lie. Right now, if you want your family to come with you, they just come. You kind of got to roll the dice.

You know, if you want to bring your spouse in, you bring her in, you probably should have her tested and then get into your, little isolation, whatever you're going to do, but that's not even, you don't have to do that right now in the big leagues. You can have anyone come and go and there's really no checking on that. No one's making sure you're doing that. Well, in the bubble, you're going to have to do it. And what I'm hearing is they're going to make families come in and they're going to have to quarantine, but they're not going to let that happen until they get into the bubble, which would then put these families in. in a quarantine until the championship series.

So you might have a family member come out, get tested, quarantine, get ready to go in the bubble, and then you lose the divisional series. And then they just took a vacation to some random hotel room for 10 days, 14 days, and they get to go home. That would be very bad for a lot of people. So what we're seeing now is MLB not really caring about the regular season, but really caring about the playoffs because as we all know,

we talked about this a million times. That's where the money is and that's where they care about. It's kind of what I got on. Yeah, I mean, the family stuff is interesting. Family stuff is one thing. That's kind of weird to see how that plays out. The first tidbits, game changer.

It's really good. And, you know, might be smart. I don't know. Smart's the wrong word. I don't, I have no say if it's smart or not. But to give the number one seed's home field advantage for at least that round, seems pretty cool. I had a good mental chuckle thinking about potential bubbles. And if somehow, some way, the Houston Astros end up having home field advantage in the playoffs

because they're playing the AL bubble in Houston. Oh, my God, the manfred haters are going to go nuts. It's very true. I didn't really think about that. Like, the team's actually getting to get to play at home. that's a big deal. If the Houston Astros get to play their bubble playoff games in Houston, if they get there, I mean, people will go insane.

Dodgers, same thing. Padre, same thing, possibly. At least it feels like the Dodgers would have earned it. They've earned it, yeah. Why would the Houston get to play at home? Treve just said the A.L. bubble would be Houston, Dallas. I don't like that. Yeah, no. I don't like that. It'd be a lot easier for their families.

and for them, obviously, although I do believe they're going to make guys go into hotels and absolutely bubbleize them. You have to. The whole point is, you know, credit to the MLB, the season's been going, and we've hit a lot of bumps in the road,

but teams are still playing, and you had the time to push the Cardinals aside, push to Phillies aside, push to Miami aside, let him get test next. negative and then play double hudders and make up for it. In the playoffs, you can't have any bumps.

So they have to fully bubble. I thought it was smart to do AL in an NL stadium and AL, you know, the opposite. So, yeah, it doesn't seem right to do the other way. I haven't heard of any fans being allowed. We're seeing in college football limited capacity going into certain places. I don't think it's going to be that way in California. Texas, on the other hand, I don't know, man. Texas forever, my friend.

They kind of, you know, they kind of do whatever they want in Texas. There is a way to do limited fans. I totally agree. I think families right now should be able to go to the field. I mean, there's a lot of space. You could really socially distance everybody. You just drive people nuts. You drive the fans insane.

I mean, you drive you've been welcome to it. You see Yankee Twitter. I mean, there's people that they're love. revolves around going to Yankee games. And there's some people that have been, you know, kind of devastated by the season. So if they start letting anyone in that building, and they're fans that have gone to Yankee games for, you know, two decades, they're saying, hey, why the hell don't we have any right to be there?

So you open up by letting anyone in, you open up a whole can of worms. And Treb, I'd like to ask you. You've got two kids. I mentioned how you made them earlier in the broadcast. Wife. Let's say you're on these Dodgers and you're, you know, World Series contender, serious, serious favorites. I mean, are you having, would you want them to bubble?

I mean, you know, I don't want to compare it to normally a long road trip, a 12-day road trip or something, but I don't know. I mean, it feels like I've never been in the situation. I couldn't tell you any idea how my heart would lie. I'm sure I would want my family there, but also there's a lot going on in the world. I mean, as someone with kids and a pro, I also haven't been in the situation.

But Trev has. I think, honestly, I wouldn't have them quarantine or bubble with me. I mean, I have two small kids. The idea of having them in a hotel for that long, unless there were some really cool setup where they were like at Disneyland and there was shit for them to do. awesome pool i just think about them being in a hotel room me coming back to that hotel room and like i i just don't think it's worth it i know you're

going to miss your family but i i do believe we're going to see a lot of guys be like no family in the postseason um let me let's just get to work it's only it's only a month at at most which is a long time to be without your family but i think these guys are willing to you know make that sacrifice so they can really just get in and and focus on the games. So do you think we should get into the family Linux and see which team has the most players without kids? And they'll probably perform best in the bubble playoffs? Probably. It's a theory. I think I would go with that. I think guys, the team with the most single dudes who's in the bubble is probably going to play the best. Do you think, I could see that being a storyline. Like one,

one team says no families. We're here as one. Yeah. We are our family. Yeah, like now that the more and more I think about it, like there's just no way. You know, I get it. You want them to be with you and be able to like celebrate and stuff with you, but. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. I don't want to say, risky is the wrong word because risk lies in the serious stuff.

But I mean, okay, I use the Dodgers as the example. What if it's, I mean, there's so many tweener teams. this year? What if the Phillies make it? Like, I don't know. To have your spouse potentially quarantine and then they got to go or whatever happens. I don't know. It seems like a nice concept, but it also just seems a little bizarre. Yeah, so I'm looking at the NHO, the way they do families is they need to come in. They quarantine in their own room. So you can't stay with the person that you see right, that you're coming to see right away. And then they need four negative tests over a span of five days or something like that.

So I don't know if Emily would follow that guideline specifically. But the tall ask for your family too. Yeah. You know, it's an interesting caveat into an interesting season that I think this has been the most, there's so many storylines for 2020. It's been difficult for us to cover. There's just been so much going on. Good drama. Good drama. A lot of drama. On-field drama, which has been good. Good and bad.

I mean, you got me worried about the Yankees being the eight-seat and having to play that first round in the TROP against the race. Historically, are they tough not play well in the TROP? Yes. They play awful. I think that's a lot of people. They play awful at the Trap. Yes. Yeah. We talk in Yanks? Trev, I know you had some questions for it.

Oh, yeah, you said you had questions for us as Yankee fans. Why don't you ask us as baseball experts? Football is back, Trev. And it's time to celebrate. That's right. Football is here. To kick off football's 100 and first season, Draft King's Sportsbook America's top-rated sportsbook app is giving all users a no-brainer to start the season.

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I forgot to do that in the middle of the show. So a production note, we got to chop that up at the beginning. I think Yankees are the biggest disappointment right now. A cross-up. It's interesting. Well, because I talk to you guys all the time, I just feel like I see your emotions and I can read your vibe. And a lot of it has to do with how the Yankees are playing. And I feel like that's like a little microcosm of Yankees.

What does it call? Yankees universe? Yeah. What's it called? No, no, no, no, no. What are they? Yankees. I like universe.

No, there is a, is it universe? Like the actual, like, their, like, fan club is like Yankees universe. Yankees universe, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Red Sox Nation, Yankees universe. Yeah. Of course it would be.

Of course it would be. Oh, my God. Yes. Oh, okay. So I also follow some people on Yankees Twitter. I see it all the time. It seems right now everyone is just down. They couldn't, they can't take it.

But for you guys who watch a lot of baseball. Mm-hmm. Scale of one to 10, what are your New York Yankees deep run in the playoffs chances? Be realistic. Out of 10? Yeah. What do you mean by deep run?

Get to the LCS? Championship series, chance to go to the World Series. Two out of 10. Two. Right now. I think it can change in two weeks, but a lot needs to happen. So it's a two right now for me. Yeah, this is always the tricky game that me and Jimmy play because it's, I mean, as of right now,

They're playing awful baseball. I think they're 5 and 15 in their last 20. So, like, if the playoffs started right now, I would tell you, yeah, one or two. You're praying, Colt gets hot, and Tanaka can drop D. It's, I like to have the glass half full, and I know baseball is a crazy sport. Like, there is a world where in two weeks the Yankees are the hottest team. And it would be really cool if that world happens. but right now they're a disaster, Treff.

Ten run inning. They saved their bullpen for that appearance. And that's the result of it. And it just seems like one thing goes wrong. And I don't know, man. You just see a lot of magical baseball teams like the 2018 Red Sox, man. Like when that top of the lineup came up or the opponent did one mistake, it could have been a drop foul pop up.

And it was like, there is blood in the water. The Aanks just have none of that right now. And I really do think, and it's one of those dumb baseball things that normally I'd yell at someone for having this take. I think it's all eyes on Big Aaron Judge. Like, he's supposed to be the leader. He's supposed to be the best player on the team. He's supposed to be, you know, a face of baseball. And it just feels like they're waiting on him.

And maybe that's even rude to Giancarlo Stanton, a guy who's won an MVP. But the way they are playing, it looks like they're looking for leadership. It looks like they're looking for actual baseball help. And so I don't know, man. I really do hope the story changes, and it really can. And I think that's almost, it's a little bit of the frustrating part on me and Jim Zangle, because I'd like to talk more about how bad they are being. But I also know baseball can turn around.

But right now, oh my God. It just seems like it happens so fast with everybody. Like at the beginning of this stretch, said they're five and 15 in their last 20 games. Is that accurate? It's around there. I thought it was 5 and 14 yesterday, so doing quick math. I mean, that's 20.

We're talking three weeks. Right. The first two weeks, the talk was, man, we just need to get healthy. Six and 14. We just need to get healthy. Six and 14. So the first two weeks, that's all it was. Like, man, Judge is coming back.

You know, we'll get Giancarlo back. And now it just seems like that additional week really has turned the corner for you guys and for the rest of Yankees' Twitter. And I just have never seen the highs and lows. This is the worst three-week stretch of Yankees baseball I've ever seen in my entire life. It's not hyperboably. I did all the number crunching. It's the worst.

So maybe that explains it. It's just to me, like as an observer of baseball fans, like I'm really getting into it with you guys now, I just have never seen that flip like that. So there's also a lot of moving parts of the dynamic of, Yankees baseball. And if that sentence on dushy, cool, but I'm about to put us down a little bit. It's Trevor, I love sports. AOL screen name, sports Jake. And I don't care who knows. Nationals last year, 19 and 31. You know, a football team that makes a run. Like all of it. I love the beauty

of sports. Nick Foles, what the hell was that? Ooh, love that. What the hell was that? That's part of the reason I love sports. Kind of anything can really happen. It's the original. It's the original reality TV. So like there's a world where the Yankees figure it out. Garrett Cole's awesome. That bullpen locks in. They get healthy and they give grueling, tough at bats. And they can play like the New York Yankees. But New York Yankee fans have never seen that. We saw the dynasty teams be the dynasty. You know, even the one year where their record wasn't good. I forget if it was 99. I think they had like 88 wins. It was still the same dudes. You still believed in Jeter, Posada, Bernie, all those guys.

09, when they won. I mean, they went out and they made big ads before the season. And it was like, all right, let's go. We're the Yankees. We're back. And so I think that's the other reason that Yankee fans get this down because you don't, A, they've never really seen a streak like this unless you were alive during the 80s. And then B, it's just not part of the Yankee script. Like, this isn't how a Yankee team does it. We bludgeon. We are the best.

We are the Yankees. You fear us. If you're up four runs in the ninth, that's not enough. Yankees right now are on the other side of the script. The bullpen comes out. The other team starts salivating, which when you pay Chapman, Britain, Ottavino, and some of those guys, the money you do,

I mean, you're, those guys' contracts are other teams' payrolls, like as a whole? So that's kind of the tweets you're seeing. If we did a side-by-side screenshot of two weeks ago and then today, you're going to see a joyous Jim, a joyous Jake. And now we're looking Jim's got a mustache and Jake has two slits in his eyes. There's not a better representation of like the change in attitude than that. Well, yeah, it's also, and I think no one cares on this podcast with the Yankees as much.

But they just did this last year, Trev. Like they're going to try and say like, you know, Judge will come back with two weeks left. Last year, Gary came back and played two games. Edwin didn't even play a game in the last two months. Stan came back just for the playoffs. Severino came back, made two starts just for the playoffs. And it was like, oh, we're getting all this help right at the end. And I bought into it.

I was like, yes. Now they want me to buy into that again. And it's like, no. Like, Judge isn't going to come back, play two weeks of baseball. Judge actually may. Actually, he's the only one because whenever he's healthy, he performs. but like stand come back and just go in and then even the guys that are healthy right now aren't playing good it's void and DJ and Clint like glaber's been bad all year Gary's benched

because he's the worst catcher in all of baseball the worst uh he's the worst hitter in all of baseball right now and then all the platoon players are got it's just you know they're just bad I mean no one cry for Yankees fans because we've had a pretty good run uh so they're they're pretty awful right now I would never say this usually because I don't necessarily believe in it. But where is Boone's role in all this? It seems like the culture there is no good right now. Is he on the hot seat?

Or is this just like anomaly because it's 2020 and we've had some guys hurt? Anomily and injuries will save the way. His job is to be the everything's all right. This isn't who we are. This team gets through tough times. It's interesting because that doesn't seem like a New York manager to me either. or at least a person that New Yorkers would want.

Yeah, he's a California guy. He's a Californian. Running the Yinks. His first season in 2018, I think, every, every, like, other series we were like, what the fuck is this vibe? And then in 2019, we kind of accepted it because they were really good. And it worked with all the replacement players and everyone coming up. But, yeah, no, that's like his mood.

Managers, I mean, what do they really do nowadays? You know, I think you're either too high on Boone or you're too low on Boone. You know, on a given day, I think the lineup card gets handed to him. So when DJ LaMayhew's not in it, I think Boone's job is to say, yeah, you know, we really want to give him rest during this stretch. I don't think he did. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, your job is trying to keep the morale up, and he kind of hasn't cracked, which has, I don't know, is almost a good thing and a bad thing. He visually cracked during the 10-run inning last night,

but he still came out in the press conference and said, I believe in these guys, and, you know, baseball's a grind, and you've got to get through it. So I don't know, man. I just think, and again, ad for the Gritchick interview that'll be on the talking Yanks feed, he asked us, he said, what's going on over there? We're like, dude, can we ask you questions? Like, have you been, like, mandated an off day?

he was like, not to give too much away, but he's like, Montoya told me a couple times like, hey, we're going to sit you tomorrow. And I said, no. And that was kind of the end of the conversation. And then he said, then I went into a slump and my name wasn't in there one day. But did the Yankees operate like they are this different dominant team that everything is built up for October 1st? And it's like, well, it hasn't worked in the past decade. And why are we the most hurt team in baseball the past two years. Yeah, that's, I think. The rest doesn't seem to be working.

I think that's the crazy thing. Hold on. We can hear. They can hear you. Hello? We got you. What are you saying? I think that's the craziest thing is the amount of injuries. Like, I don't understand where it goes, like in why and how and what do you do to fix it? Because no team is built to sustain that.

Yeah, they did last year, but that was now we're seeing probably a lot of, luck. Can't do it two years in a row, can't do it three years in a row. So whatever, I mean, well, the guys, like, you know, Gio was a replacement and he's a starter now. A lot of that stuff. But the Yankees believe that there's an on-off switch. They believe they can, they can, we're not going to use our bullpen today and we'll just win with whatever we have. And then, okay, this game, we're going to try our hardest to win. And they think there's an on-off switch. And I think that's a bad way to play the regular season because you should just be on all the time.

Well, yeah, especially in the 60 games set. Especially in a 60 games. And last year, I mean, the Yanx were great. They won what, 103? And then they signed Garrett Cole this offseason, so it's easy to get on the hype train. But also, and I hope this doesn't sound two Yankees because it's honestly what it was. I mean, the Yankees were winning a lot of series. So when if it was the third game and getaway day, you were like, okay, if we got to use the bad bullpen today, we already run the set.

Like, let's keep it moving. And honestly, I think the numbers showed that. I think they were 27 straight series at home. They hadn't lost or something like that. So I don't know. Here's dumb Jake phrase. Winning cures everything. If the Yankees win some goddamn games over the next two weeks

and a couple guys get healthy, I mean, I think we'll be ending sentences with like, watch out for them, Yanks, though. I'm fully expecting that to come back. I think it's really funny that Gritchick asked you guys the same thing. What's going on in Yankeesville? That's how I feel. right now. It's a weird time to be a Yankee fan.

I feel like I believe in them more than you guys do. You know I always believe. It's probably because I'm not as in-depth. Like, they've been really bad. So as I'm on the surface level of it, I guess I don't go down into the trenches enough. Trev, if they were 8-1 playoff series with the race tomorrow, I'd be going, Cole sneaks it out, Tanaka's playoff numbers. Tanaka playoffs. Davey Garcia is about to announce himself to the world. That's exactly what I'd be doing.

And I'm a human idiot. Yeah, you can be. Can be. You can be. It's coming down to it, man. Like, the playoff picture is, it's shaping up, but there's still a lot to go on in the next three weeks. How many games are left?

18 games are left, ish. Trev, do you believe in line-up balance? This is one thing. thing that I tear myself apart with, too, just about this Yankees team and comparing it to Yankees teams of old. We did an episode with Katie Sharp, who's awesome, follow her, just for good baseball stuff, mostly analytically driven. But the Yankees are heavy right-handed, but a lot of their guys are kind of split-proof. But at the same time, I'm telling myself, if I'm a pitcher and say I'm a right-handed pitcher and my numbers are better against righties, I don't care that you're split-proof.

I care that I'm better against Ritey's. And I don't know, man, it just drives me up a wall. So I don't know if there was ever like a twins team where you had a good lefty-righty balance, but I don't know, man. Like, say these Yankees ran into Beaver. They're going to be running out eight right-handed hitters and Hicks. I think really what you do when you're trying to set a lineup,

and this is before the computers put them out. I think a lot of the thought process was not necessarily against the starter, although you could stack lefties against a right-hander if he did have bad splits. I think really what it was about getting the lineup balanced was for later in the game. So if you had a wipe-out right-handed reliever, he's not going to face three right-handers in a row, at least give him a one look at a left-e or something like that. I know the analytics doesn't favor doing that, and really all it says is to put your best hitters at the beginning of the lineup so they get more opportunities.

But, you know, there is, there's still some part of baseball that, God, and I sound like a boomer right now. Yeah. Let it out. I'm a millennial. I found that out. I never knew. I googled it this morning. I'm a millennial.

Hot. Are we all millennials? I think we are. Espo? Espo? I'm right on the borderline of millennial Gen Z. You're with us today. Some websites that fall into one, another side comes to the other.

Okay. that's another problem in America where are you getting your news huh could be a boomer or you could be a millennial or a gen z just depends on the site go off king anyways as it sounds boomer of me but I do believe in having some line-up protection and again I know that the data does not necessarily support this but I'm telling you as a confidence factor you know where you hitting the lineup matters you know i i think that's why you'll see guys like who are struggling just get the bump and say hey you're leading off today or you're hitting third today you're hitting second today it's almost like

an affirmation of like you can do it like let's go we're counting on you and i think that the mental part of that doesn't get um because you can't track it they don't talk about that a lot but i always felt like i wanted to be in the middle of the lineup but i needed someone behind me i wanted the lefty behind me because I didn't want to have up there I didn't want to be up there thinking this guy doesn't have to throw me strikes if he doesn't want to that's a horrible feeling to have as a hitter going up there being like even if I get ahead in the count is he going to come at me or do I have to think too well I might see his third pitch here and get me over so a lot of that goes into and I think I think pitchers as analytically driven as they've become they still treat it that way

too you'll see them all the time you're like because the catcher you look at the pitcher when there's an open base, they always look who's on deck. And whether or not that factors in, it definitely factors in mentally for everybody. And I just, to Jimmy's point that he had on Twitter, too, talking about Cleveland and having their set lineup, there's something about that too, man.

I was just going to ask you that. Peter Moyland responded and said, like, your brain works different. I didn't know if he was compliment him you're insulting me. He had a rough night. on Twitter. I think he was just commenting on the way you like broke it down. Oh. Because the concept, I think we all

kind of agree on like there's something to that. Like these are our dudes. The Indians show up and they know the top four hitters and they don't have to look at the lineup say, who am I hitting? Who's hitting behind me? Who's hitting in front of me? Do I have to worry about the things Trev's talking

about? No. It's just like this is in and out. I was just pulling up 2014 twins. wins. It was Dozier-Mauer ploof for the start of the season. And then Santana got hot. And then there was Santana, Dozier, Maurer. You know, and then, you know, how much does that affect? Like, if you're the one through four-hitter, should you just be the one-through-four hitter? The Yankees rotate their three-hitter, whether everyone's healthy or whether they're injuries. They have, the last three years, like 10 guys, bat third. They just rotate it nonstop.

I really think that's important to have at least one guy that's like, this is our guy. Like if you have that, I think it really helps, you know, lock a team in, anchor them, if you will. I remember in 2017, I signed with the A's, go have an unbelievable spring training. I don't even know what I hit. It was really good. Like almost probably 400 or some shit like that, dude. And I'm like, man, our lineup looks good. Like, all through spring training, I'm hitting like four.

five, sometimes second. And opening night comes, I'm like, all right, let's see what we got. Let's see what we got. Where am I hitting? And boom, I look. And I'm like, okay, not second, not third. And I just had to keep going down, down, down, down. And I hit seventh and I was pissed.

I was like, this is fucking bullshit. And so anybody that tells you it doesn't matter, they don't know. It matters. The guys want to be there. If they feel like they deserve to be somewhere in the order, order, you know, I think a lot of that is a lot of the lineup making, the feel for how guys, how they're feeling, you know, what could help them get going is kind of lost now. There's no soul in that computer, man.

I think I definitely sound like an old baseball player. I love it. I really believe in those aspects of the game, too, the feel aspect. And you ask any baseball player, they'll say the same thing. Well, the lineup thing just seems crazy that, like, you have to, like, not having to pay attention. There's something called decision fatigue. And it's the reason why billionaires wear the same clothes every single day and eat the same thing for breakfast every single day. And, you know, you know what Bill Gates is going to wear.

You knew what Steve Jobs were. You knew what Mark Zucker were. It's the least amount of things you have to think about before the main thing, the better. So if you wake up and you, I put my black, you know, I put my black. sweatshirt on in my jeans and I eat an apple and coffee and you don't have to think about anything before you get to your desk and then you then all your thinking goes to work like that's there that's a lot of really smart people believe in decision fatigue so if you just ease a player's mind about everything up until game time pretty pretty easier and I think that there might be just so much

information being thrown at these guys there's a lot and you know all It also goes into court cases. You don't want to be in early. You don't want to see the judge in their first hour. You want to see them in their last hour. Studies show they're much more lenient because they have decision fatigue and they're like, ah, fuck it. I like that. I'm going to keep that in mind because I have a few outstanding tickets right now.

But what I was going to say is teams preach routine. Get into a routine, find what works for you, and stick to it. and then when you get a lineup card that shuffles every day and you don't know if you need to be ready for the first inning the second inning if you're leading off that day I mean those are wrenching to guys routines so I think we've talked about it on this show before there is a happy medium

with the numbers and the analytics and a little bit of old school baseball feel I don't think we're there yet I think we're heavily leaning analytics right now and that's okay because I think we're getting a bearing on what they mean, what their true value is. Can we analyze the analytics?

You know what I mean? There needs to be time. There hasn't been this amount of information for too long. How long do you think the information age has been around for? Maybe four years, maybe less. That's why Mariana was so good, man. Zero decisions. I'll throw that one pitch.

Hunter. Throw that one pitch. That one pitch has to be really good and work. Trevor's 2017 spring training, 370 batting average, 420 on base percentage. 6.52 slugging, 1.72 OPS. That got me a seventh batting order position in the opener right there. Let me fifth, Skip.

Who batted ahead of you? Davis, Joyce, Healy, Davis, Voight, Lowry. Shad. I think we had Yonder was like behind me. He was pissed about that too. We would be both like, what the fuck, man? The pissed second half. Rajay leading off's okay.

Trev Noah, maybe we'll do. We'll have to find someone analytically driven to find out the quote-unquote non-analytically driven players on the winning teams over the past few years and why they worked. I don't know what, hold on. You don't have to explain that one to me.

So. Couldn't follow that. On the winning teams over the past four or five years, since analytics have become hardcore, find the players that the analytics don't love for whatever reasons, whether maybe it's defensive range or on-based stuff or whatever it is, and find out how they did impact it because they were doing good things, but the current numbers don't measure it.

Well, the Nationals last year, Turner Eaton-Rondone Soto. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Right, but even that was a, a little not Turner Eaton is almost controversial because a lot of lineups would have Soto 2. It's old school. And Rendon 3. So I'm saying, aren't you going for

anti-analytic? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Added to the study. Yeah. Yeah, the whole Eaton 2, that's such an old school thing. Like, can you move the runner over? Can you put the ball in play? Guess what he did? He did. He's a stud. There is something about the gamesmanship, okay? If you have you expect your lead off hitter to get on base, right? Sure.

It's a goal. Guess what he has to do? He has to be held on. So now there's a hole. So do the analytics support having a left-handed contact hitter in the two-spot? No, they don't. Yeah. But is that going to win you some games because he can just turn, you can roll one over?

Yeah, it is. So like I said, I'm interested to see where, where's the, where's the plateau? Like we're heavily, heavily analytically driven. If you talk about any old school baseball, now people talk about you like you're a fool. But there's going to be, you know, some regression there, some meeting in the middle. And the teams that can do that, you know, the teams that find their glue guys, you know, who's a glue guy? Johnny Gohams is a patented glue guy. Mustakis has become a glue guy, even though I think he's a better player than Gomez.

Good glue guy, yeah. He's a good glue guy. You're going to, Parra. Girardo. That's for the nationals. Measure that. Decible level. Every team has them, man.

Like, shout out Lucas G. Lito. I don't know when this is coming out. Uh-oh. We did a sequence with him. And I'm talking about, I'm like, you guys have so many, like, faces of your franchise, dude. I'm like, you got you, you got Luis Robert, you got Elo, you got Tim Anderson. He's like... Abraeu.

He's like, yeah. He's like, but don't forget about, you know, Abraeu. He's like our guy. And he goes, and our captain. I'm like, who's your captain? James McCann. You know, like he was raving about how much impact McCann has on that clubhouse.

Now, is McCann the best player? Like, obviously not. But what's his impact? I don't know how you ever measure that. But it seems like every single team has a guy. Successful teams have guys. And they're not going to show up in the box score. Probably not in, you know, any sort of war or advanced statistic,

but they're there and they're making an impact. Yankees need that. Yeah. Bring it full circle. Full circle. All right. I think we'll wrap it up there on this one. Appreciate everyone for tuning in.

Love you. Any final thoughts? Beautiful. Football's back. Jamie Carroll. God. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We appreciate you.

We will catch you next time. Voicemail episode. Love you. Goodbye.