[FULL SHOW] Michael Kay BREAKDOWN Yankees offseason update; Brian Cashman & Aaron Boone on the media

[FULL SHOW] Michael Kay BREAKDOWN Yankees offseason update; Brian Cashman & Aaron Boone on the media

But as we’re speaking, uh, Brian Cashman is finishing up um his, um, press conference with the media, kind of an end of season wrap-up. Aaron Boone started at about noon. And I, I’ll just give you the, um, the hot topics, uh, that came out of the Aaron Boone uh, situation. Number one, Anthony Valtby did have surgery, which we knew yesterday. The New York Post reported that. And, uh, he’s not going to be able to hit. you’re not going to be able to swing a bat for four months. So that takes him right to February, February 15th, which is the beginning of spring training when the pitchers and catchers report and then he can’t dive for a ball at shortstop for 6 months after the surgery. Uh so there’s a very good chance that he does not start the season with the Yankees at shortstop. Um, also what Boone said that Anthony Vulpi is the starting shortstop and I know a lot of people out there are probably throwing things right now because they want accountability. You know, he has not performed the way people thought he was going to perform. But Boone was waxing poetic, uh, glowing about his defense and the fact that he he admits that for four to six weeks it was shaky, but he thinks he’s a great defender. Uh so at the start of the season, Vulpi will not be the shortstop. Not that he’s demoted, but because he’s not able to play and he’s not able to die for six months. So Vulpi is the shortstop. I know a lot of Yankee fans do not want to hear that, but that is in fact the case. And I told you that was going to be the case. I thought best case scenario was that you’d have a battle for shortstop between Cababayro, maybe Oswaldo Cabrera and Anthony. Uh, so now there’s not going to be a battle. Um, what’s interesting to me, what if Cabayro starts at shortstop and it’s just brilliant. And when Anthony Vulpi is ready to come back, do they say that Cabayro thanks, but now you’re going to be that super utility guy that we value so much. I think that’s what they might do. They still have a strong belief in Anthony Vulpi and he’s going to be the shortstop. Uh now Aaron Boon was also asked if if he was hurt then why in fact um did you not sit him? And he said well we don’t think it affected his play. Now my my rebuttal to that would be well he didn’t play well though so what’s the reason why he didn’t play well? Did he not play well because of the the left shoulder injury or did he not play well because he didn’t play well? So that that’s a little bit of a question. Now uh some good news and this one is about um Aaron Judge whether or not he’ll need surgery. Here’s Boon on that. Judgy is not. He actually had an MRI after the season showed continued improvement in the flexor muscles and he finished the season doing pretty well. So no surgery is going to be needed for Aaron. He’ll take some time off and continue to do strengthening things and rehab and stuff, but felt like he finished the season in a pretty good place as we saw continued improvements with him. Now, Boon did surprise everybody when he gave this update on Carlos Rodon. Carlos Rodon had a scope of the elbow yesterday to get some loose bodies and I think they shaved down a bone spur. So he’ll go into now into an 8week of no throw, which probably when you build in all the ramp up and the throwing program into, you know, getting him ready to be a starting pitcher, probably delays him potentially a couple weeks to start the season, but everything went well yesterday. He had the surgery out in LA with Elatrage. So for now, he’s eight weeks, no throw, and then he’ll start his ramping up in the middle of December. And uh he also spoke um Boon did about uh why they’re moving on from Travis Chapman and Mike Harky. So here’s the Yankee manager on that. Look, every year there’s difficult choices to make and and in the case of Chappie has done a lot of great things in this organization through player development and then coming up and impacting our club up here. So those are hard decisions. In the case of Mike Harky, a guy who’s been here for so long and has been kind of an institution with us and has been in the middle of a lot of winning with us and has impacted our organization in tremendous ways and is one of my best friends, you know. So, those are awful days to go through and both guys that I have a ton of respect for and ultimately the organization needs to make difficult decisions sometimes as you move forward as an organization. Now, right now, um, Cashman is is speaking, but you know, my question to Boon would be, well, what why why were they not brought back? And boy, is this telling as well about the power of the front office? Because Boon just said that Harky’s one of his best friends. Boon also was best friends with Phil Nevin. Both guys were let go. I’m sure Boon didn’t want them to go. Both guys were let go. So, that tells you all you need to know. The power of the front office supersedes the power of the manager. I I I I’ve been trying to explain all of that to all of you. It supersedes the power of the manager. You just fired Boon’s best friend. And before that, a couple of years ago, you fired Boon’s best friend. Now, I I guess Boone could say, “Oh, is this a hill I want to die on? There’s only 30 of these jobs. I’m not quitting because you want to get rid of Mike Harky, but why did you not bring back Harky? And why did you not bring back Chapman? I I don’t think that Boon was going to go to war for Chapman. I There wasn’t that much of a a long-term relationship with with Travis, but Mike Harky, Mike Harky is the last uniform personnel that remains from the 2009 championship. Been nothing but a great soldier. He’s liked by everybody. I don’t ever think I’ve ever heard anybody have a bad word to say about Mike Harky. So that that’s kind of surprising. Now, let’s go on to Cashman. Um Cashman was asked, “Is bringing back Bellinger a priority?” He was an impact player for us. I’m glad we got him. Certainly expect him to opt out. Again, I don’t know. We haven’t gotten to those conversations yet. You know, we’re in the HR version of our winner so far. But I can just tell you, you know, he was really impactful for us. No question about it. one of the many reasons why we were in a position to believe that, you know, we were capable of great things this year when the dust settled. And so I thank him for everything he’s done and certainly would love to have have him with our team moving forward, but we haven’t had any of those discussions. I haven’t had any conversations with Scott Boris and but Bouquet is his way without a doubt. He helped us on both sides of the ball, offense, defense. He’s a versatile player. He was great in our clubhouse. Now, I will tell you this, everybody, do not do not think that it’s a sure thing they’re bringing back Bellinger. I mean, Brian Castron just ausive bouquets he threw at him. That’s his word. And he should be because, you know, Bellinger was terrific. He really was. But we have to remember the realities of the situation in in in that we’re looking at. And Bellinger is is repped by Scott Boris. So, this past year, Bellinger made $25 million a year or this year. Um, he’s due to make$2 million next year and he already opted out of that. So, what do you think he’s going to want? What do you think that that Boris is going to ask for? Probably going to ask for upwards of 30 and he’s probably going to say 30 for at least five or six years. I think I think if it gets to six years, I think the Yankees are out. I think the Yankees would bring him back anywhere from 100 to 120 for four years. But anything more than that, they will draw a line in the sand. They just will. That’s all there is to it. I mean, people have to understand that. As much as they like him, there are underlying uh metrics that they don’t love. You know, you saw that um Ben Rice is is ninth in baseball in hard hit percentage. so hits the ball harder than all but eight other people in the major leagues and that’s why he was such a force this year. Now you look at the good numbers that Bellinger put up and he’s in the bottom 10% I believe the bottom 10% in hard hit percentage. So he’s doing it in a different way now maybe because of his two strike approach where he just puts the ball in play that does reduce the hard hit percentage but that’s something that the Yankees look at and go did he outperform what the metrics say he’s supposed to perform. So all of you people out there that say, “Well, that’s a that’s a must. They got to bring him back.” Well, you said that last year about Sodto, and they wanted to bring back Sodto, and they offered him $760 million, but sometimes it doesn’t get done. Sometimes there’s going to be another team that’s going to offer more money that you think is not as as uh as value centric as you think it could be. It’s not about being cheap. It’s about allocating your funds. So Brian was then asked, “What are the areas of weaknesses that you want to attack as you build rebuild this team in the winter?” I’m not going to unpack that today. You know, we’ll have some free agency that’s going to hit that’ll create some vacancies. We have, you know, got to weigh the the available marketplace via free agency or trades uh with the committed payroll versus the available payroll thereafter, you know, and again, measure opportunities. some some players, you know, knocking on the door, earning the right maybe to take the next step from down below and obviously at the same time just trying to weigh what’s available to us and if we can get our hands on it, you know, in competition via trade or free agent dollars. Now, Boon uh spoke about Harky and Chapman, but he talked about it in the abstract and Cashman was asked why did you make the coaching changes? Yeah, every year I’m charged with making some tough decisions. I got good we have good people and unfortunately and friendships too but I have to assess everything in the present and where we you know go as we move forward and you know again our staff is you know they work in tandem with each other in conjunction with our player group and I just have to make tough decisions. So, no one was per se terminated. There was these were expiring contracts that uh the question is do you are we going to offer a new opportunity moving forward? And so, I’ve made those decisions to to make some changes and and open up to to evaluate opportunities in the marketplace to see if we can find some fits as we move forward into 2026 that make us better. But that’s not to take away from our the staff that I let go who have obviously gave us a lot of great contributions along the way. At the same time, Brian is so good at answering those questions without answering the question. So, you never told us why did you get rid of Harky and why did you get rid of Chapman? Now, you could say, well, they weren’t fired. Yeah, because their contract was up, but they weren’t offered another contract. So, you could put lipstick on a pig and say, well, we didn’t offer them another contract. They would let go. I mean, Mike Cary’s been with the organization off and on for 16 years. So, I mean, I would love ju just just for my own edification, someone to sit me down and go, “What did a bullpen coach not do that you not you not bring him back where he’s he’s close friends with the manager and everybody in the world that’s ever met him loves him?” What did he not do? I mean, I thought that Travis Chapman was was a done deal when Boone aired him out in front of all the cameras in the dugout when uh Josh Chisum got doubled off of first base that that one time. So, that one doesn’t surprise me. Maybe there was a disconnect there. But Harky, the bullpen coach, again, he didn’t answer the question. He just says, “I, you know, I have to make tough decisions.” Yeah, that Well, why was it tough? What what what was behind the decision? I mean, I I’ll continue to try to dig for you, the listener, but that didn’t answer the question. Now, they don’t win in October. They have not won in October since 2009. And if you want to even make it more, you know, outrageous, they’ve won one championship in 25 years. Starting in 2000, they won in 2000 against the Mets. They lost in 2001 against the Diamondbacks. They lost in 2003 in the World Series against the Marlins. They won the World Series in 2009. They lost in 2024 to the Dodgers in the World Series. So, one World Series title in 25 years. And Cashman said, “Hey, you need your aame in October. You have to fire in all cylinders. That means you got to pitch to the best of your abilities consistently.” That clearly didn’t happen in the Toronto series. And you got to hit to your best of your abilities. You know, the sample sizes are so small that, you know, when opportunities present themselves, you have to capitalize. Some guys who consistently hit in the postseason didn’t hit in the division series. Some guys who have people question whether they can hit in the postseason did produce. You need it all at the same time. You need everybody from your rotation to your bullpen to your start position player group on the lineup side to bring your agame. Well, the you know the small sample size he’s talking about that that I think is the disconnect between building a team in the 21st century that’s going to get you to the postseason and building a team that’s going to win in the postseason. So, you choose to build the team that’s going to be able to to win enough to get into the postseason over 162, but then the sample variance shrinks considerably where over five games, what will play out over 162 might not play out. It might not. So, it didn’t with Freed, it didn’t with Rodon, it didn’t with Stanton, who has carried them in the postseason before, not this time. It didn’t with Vulpy. Guys kind of disappeared. Gisham disappeared. Bellinger did not have a great um series against Toronto. It was It was Judge. They won the one game because of Judge. He hit 500. So, this is one time that you really can’t blame him. All right, let’s get the co-host involved. It’s me and you for two. Fastest two hours in sports. 1800 9193776. You’ve heard what the manager said. You’ve heard what the general manager for the most part said. I don’t think I I’ll just I’ll just speak for all of you. Okay? I will put it out there what I think you’re going to say. You’re not happy because you’re looking for a pound of flesh. You’re looking uh for people to throw themselves on the mercy of the court. You want to know why the same people are in charge when they haven’t won in 16 years. But you didn’t find that out today. The fact that they held a press conference with the manager and the GM tells you, as I’ve been telling you for the last couple of years where everybody’s screaming that there has to be a change. There’s not going to be a change because they think they have the right people in place, but for some reason it has not um resulted in a championship. So, let’s go to the phones. 1800 919 3776. Uh we’ll start off with Tyler in Albany. Tyler, hey, Michael. How you doing? Good. How are you? Uh, not too bad. Um, so that’s point of my call. I was just going to talk about the press conference a little bit. Um, you know, I’m at work. I I kind of had some time to listen to it. Um, there seems to be a real disconnect from what Aaron Boon had told us throughout the season with Anthony Vulpi and his and his, you know, shoulder saying it didn’t affect his play, but then like what 10, 15 minutes later, Brian Cash’s walking it back saying, “Oh, it definitely did have an effect on him this season.” So why I don’t understand why this franchise has been so, you know, content with committing malpractice with the fan base and outright lying to the fan base, you know, year-over-year when we have guys who are just, you know, they’re fighting injuries throughout the year. And for a guy like Bulby who played almost every day this year and struggled and it’s clearly showed both on this on the defensive end and in the batters box, I I don’t understand what the deal is at this point. Well, I I think that they have so much invested emotionally, organizationally, not not financially, but emotionally and organizationally in Vulpi that they’re going to stick with Vulpi longer than they would stick with others. I mean, if you look, you look at the season that Jason Dominguez had, right? But when they thought that they could be better by playing an outfield that they played, Jason Dominguez sat his butt on the bench for the entire final month and a half of the season. And that was the right move. Well, they had Cabayro who is a a a player who’s prone to mistakes because he he plays a wild game, but he’s a much better hitter at this point than Anthony Vulpi. and they played him for those six games where Anthony Vulpi sat out when he had the uh the cortisone shot. But when Anthony Vulpi was ready to come back, you know what? He came back. So Boone kind of danced around that it affected him. Cashman kind of thinks that it did affect him. And that begs the question, a followup. Well, if it affected him, why didn’t he have the surgery sooner? Because by having the surgery when he had the surgery yesterday, you know what that means? He’s not coming back until probably the middle of April, maybe the end of April. If he had the surgery in July, all right, he misses the rest of the season and he’s he’s 100% for April. So, again, there’s only so many I I you know, I read social media and you know, people are ripping the writers. Why don’t they ask tough qu there’s a decorum to the way you do this. You can’t pin somebody to the wall and make them answer the question the way you want them to answer the question. All you could do is put the question out there and if they want to offiscate, then they offiscate. That’s all there is to it. That’s that’s the business. You can’t set up electrodes where if you think they’re lying that you charge them with a jolt of electricity and they suffer pain. That’s not the way it works. So all the people out there that are criticizing the beat writers uh that are actually at the the stadium, if you did the job, you’d understand the limitations that first of all, there’s only so many follow-ups that you can have. The mic has to be passed around. It’s not like Mike Wallace sitting down with a head of state where he can go question after question after question. It’s one then somebody else gets a question who might be writing a different story. So you all talk tough about well they’re not asking the good questions. Sometimes you’re not able to. Sometimes you’re just not able to with the setup that that you have. Let’s go to Mike in um Connecticut. Mike. Hey Michael. Thanks for taking the call. You got it. Um, so a lot of the same points that the last gentleman was making. I just can’t understand the last few seasons and this year it’s the same thing. This constant way that Boone and Cashman talk in their post like end of season press conference where it just seems like their underlying mood is pipe down little boys. You don’t know anything. We know everything. And it seems like they’ve been doing that to the fans for years and not backing it up with any actual real results. Like to say that a guy who just went and had what sounds like a pretty major surgery y um on his shoulder didn’t affect him playing pretty much the entire season with that injury. It’s just a blatant lie. Anyone with half a sense knows it affected him in some capacity. And then look how awful he was. It clearly affected him. So why lie to us? Like we’re absolute idiots and we can’t see what everyone can see. It’s just the hubris is just insane. And it seems like with Vulpi, they’re cutting off their nose, gouging out their eyes, and chopping their tongue off to spite their face at this point. They’re so invested in this idea that Cashman threw it in everyone’s faces. Oh, just wait till you see what he’s going to become. That they refuse to even analyze him in what’s actually happening because they want this gotcha. See, we were right moment to be able to throw at everybody. And it just doesn’t make sense. How about just get the results and do what’s best for the team and then your gotcha moment can be when you’re holding the trophy going down and having the parade. It just doesn’t make sense. Well, I I hear you. I hear your frustration. um they they are very confident in what they do and it and it does border on arrogance. So they they look at the media and they probably look at the fans that complain about certain things. They go, “We know stuff that you don’t know and that’s all there is to it.” But they have a lot invested in Vulpi. They really really do. And they’re not going to give up on him. They’re not going to give up on him. Now, is it to their detriment? It certainly was in the series against Toronto. I mean, when you strike out 14 times and have one hit, it was your it was to your 11 times in 15 at bats, it was to your detriment, but they stuck with him. And I’m going to tell you, I’m going to be honest with you, I have private conversations a lot with people in charge and and Aaron Boon, he’s telling me privately where I’m not rolling a camera on him or taking notes, they love Vulpi. They think Vulpi is great. And you know, you heard Boon in the press conference, if you listen to the whole thing, they he came out and said, you know, I look at a guy like Danby Swanson who’s turned into a really good player, but the first three years of his career, you know, he struggled a little bit. So they they’re they’re trying to find some comp that gives them some cover on why the fact that Anthony Vulpi is essentially a 210 hitter. Now, if you’re going to be the starting short stop for the Yankees, you got to hit more than 210. And forget about the hitting 210 because they don’t even care about that. They care about on base percentage and slugging. Both of those are bad. His OPS was was 670. That’s not good enough. His on base percentage borders around 230. That’s not good enough. It’s just not. So this surgery now puts him out probably till middle or end of April. And there’s Cabayro’s chance. Go play great. Hit 350 when Anthony Vulpi is ready to come back. And let’s see if they do that. Now their cover is this could be the last year that they actually throw themselves on the mercy of the court with Vulpi. They’ll play Vulpi. Let’s see what he does. If he does reach the heights that they think he’s going to reach and Boon kept saying, you know, he’s only 24. There are some first picks in the first round that still aren’t in the major leagues at that age. Okay. But he is in the major leagues. You thought he was good enough three years ago for him to make the team as a starting shortstop. So, you can’t use the age factor because you guys brought him up. But I think if he fails this upcoming season, then the next year after that, you’re going to see probably George Lombard. And they also had a first round draft pick this year, Dax Kilby, who look really good in the low low minor leagues. So, they’ve got people that could could take over at some point. But if you think they’re going to go get Bob Bashette, they’re not. They’re not. They’re not going to get Bob Bashette. First of all, Bobett’s a terrible defender. Is he a much better offensive player than Vulpi? Yes, he is. But you’re not going to spend 25 to $30 million on a seven-year deal because they’ve got enough hitting. Their hitting was great. They led the league in runs. They led the league in home runs. They don’t have to worry about the hitting. Even with Anthony Vulpi hitting 210. So, the dreams of getting Bette, that’s out. No way. They got other ways to spend their money. Maybe they go after a Tucker or something like that. But remember how we all talked about, oh, they got so much starting pitching. What are they going to do with it? Cole’s not starting the season with them. Probably comes back sometime in May or June. Now, Rodon’s not starting the season with them. Clark Schmidt’s not coming back until probably late August of 2026. So, be careful. Pump the brakes and say, “They’ve got so much pitching. What are they going to do with it?” Well, right now we’ve erased Rodon from the starting rotation at the beginning of the year. Cole’s not there. Schmidt’s not there. So, what do you have? You have Freed, you have Schlitler, you have Heel, you have Warren. Now, they’re pretty good pitchers, but would you say that’s a dominating pitching staff? No, you wouldn’t. It’s dominating if it’s Cole, Freed, Rhdon, Schlitler, and Warren. If Warren’s your number five or or Heel, that’s dominating. the way it is right now. Looks like they’re going to have the mix and match at the beginning. Aaron Boone spoke with the media and then he was followed by Brian Cman. Kind of a a post-mortem of what happened uh in the season and in the postseason. And you know, just from the the tone of the the phone calls that we got earlier, fans are certainly not um satisfied and and I understand that they’re going to look for pound of flesh and I just don’t think that that’s going to be made available. I just don’t. So, uh, it is what it is. This is an organization that values the decisions that are made in the front office and the front office values, um, the collaborative work that they do with the manager. So, I don’t think anybody’s going anywhere. Uh, let’s go to the phone calls. Let’s go to Joe in Washington Heights. Joe, hey, Mike. So, I got a couple questions really. First off, what do the Yankees fans really expect? Do they seriously think Cashman’s going to come out and say, “Oh yeah, Vulpi was playing terribly because his injury and that’s why that’s on us for not fixing it sooner.” Like it feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. When they give vague answers, at least the media can’t run wild with quotes out of context. Sure, fans get frustrated, but like does it even matter? I mean, how do we really know about the inner workings of a major baseball organization? And on the flip side, Yankees fans are the heart of the brand, the brand that they’re so protective of. And it’s been 25 years since the championship. So, do we at least deserve a sliver of honesty, but my last question is for you, Mike. You of all people know and understand the New York media and how one line can get twisted and spread everywhere. So, do you think that Yankees fans deserve more transparency or do you think that the Yankees fans are kind of right to stay guarded? Well, um, first of all, they have won a championship in 25 years. That was in in 2009. Um, but they’ve won that just one in 25. So, I understand what you’re saying, Joe. Listen, I don’t think that we get told the truth by any sports organization. They they give you just enough to feel that you’re involved, but they’re not going to tell you the inner workings and their inner feelings. They’re not going to they’re not going to tip their hand. You know, it’s like they’re playing poker with you. They they don’t want to tell you everything that they know. They don’t want to tell you every feeling that they have. They don’t. Now, I understand fans want that, but you tell me any football coach that tells you the absolute truth every time he talks to you. I mean, you don’t even get a chance to talk to GMs in football, they talk once a year, you know, on the by-week. So, they don’t tell you anything. I’m just it it it’s almost folly. It really is because the the the media is trying to get the organization to tell the truth and the organization’s trying to give enough of an answer to get the media to back off and the fans to back off without telling you the absolute truth. It’s not just um endemic to the Yankees. It’s everybody. That’s how sports are. That’s how the government is. They’re going to tell you just enough to think you are hearing something, but you’re not really hearing anything because they’re not g they’re not going to tell you state secrets. They’re not going to tell you the recipe for the stew. They’re just not. Let’s go to Victor in Florida. Victor, how you doing, Michael? Hey, Victor. What’s up, man? How you doing, man? I listen to you every day while I cut my grass. Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. I I love it, man. It’s like you you are um like my version of going to Sunday mass. Oh wow. Now um as far as Judge playing in the WBC, is he going to be limited to like more or less being a coach or is he going to full throttle player in and out? Well, I think he plans to be a full throttle player. Uh, I don’t know if the injury that he’s coming back from would maybe have him change his mind, but I I think he’s really intent on playing. I’ve told you this before. I mean, it’s a it’s a tugof-war between what’s good for baseball and what’s good for an individual organization. If I ran an organization, I would try my best to tell every player, we really don’t want you to do this because I mean, Buck Shoalter essentially lost his job with the Mets because Edwin Diaz got hurt celebrating on the field. You can say you can get hurt in spring training, too. But all of a sudden, every 3 years, these guys are playing high pressurized baseball when they should be getting ready for baseball. I don’t know when a a good time for the WBC to take part or to happen would be, probably in the All-Star break if they made it a week, but it’s not great for players to be ramping it up and playing high pressure situations that early. So again, if I’m the Yankees, I would tell Judge, I’d rather you not do it, but Judge wants to do it. I don’t think any team is thrilled that their player is going to do it, but these players want to do it. And for the good of the sport, you’re trying to sell the sport worldwide. The teams keep their mouth shut, and baseball tells them to keep their mouth shut. They don’t want them to discourage players from playing. So, I don’t know if coming back from the injury changes the uh the outlook for for Judge, but I I know that Judge really wants to play. Let’s go to Troy in New Jersey. Uh Troy, you’re next on the show. Hey, Mr. K, you’re the man. Um well, first off, I just wanted to say um it’s so awesome. I’m a huge Devils fan, so I love seeing Lreka or uh hearing him. He’s doing really good and I can’t wait for the home opener. Yeah, he really is great. Thank you. Yeah, but um I want to talk about Vulpi. I called in uh last night, the overnight to talk to Keith. Mhm. And um I I want to ask you the same question, but I kind of thought about it when I was on hold. U I’ve never seen I’ve only been a Yankees fan for about 10 years. Have you ever seen the Yankees give such a long leash to somebody like they have Bulpi, but when I thought about it, I guess half the season they didn’t have anybody else to put in there. They put in PZA and um they can’t the the short the shortstop market isn’t really you know booming right now. Correct. No, absolutely. I mean their ability to get a short stop pass by and that that’s why they have so much invested in Vulpy Troy because you know they they didn’t bid on um on all the shorts stops that were available in free agency. They didn’t they didn’t go that route. They didn’t go Trey Turner. They didn’t go Danby Swanson. They didn’t do it. I I don’t blame them. They thought that this guy was the answer. Now, you ask me, have the Yankees ever given a leash like this to a to a another I can’t I can’t recall a leash this long for a guy who’s not lived up to to what at least the fans want. I mean, the Yankees keep trying to paint it in a different light. You know, he had 19 homers, 72 runs batted in. He’s a great shortstop. Okay. But I think that even they probably have expected more offensively from him. So if you look at the bottom of their order now, if you’re bringing back Vulpi and you bring back Wells, Wells actually came up because he was a good hitting catcher. Now he’s a defensive catcher who’s not hitting. You know, he does run into, you know, some slug every now and then, but I I don’t think the Yankees expected him to be a 215 hitter. So it’s odd. It is odd. But they have given they have given Anthony a lot of leash because they believe in him. They have given him an awful lot of leash. I felt like we’re behind in games. In part, a big credit to them. You know, whether it was hitting the ball out of the ballpark against us, whether it was putting the pressure on us by just continuing to work counts and putting the ball in play, they beat us. And just comes down to, you know, they out executed us and and outplayed us, which is odd. I mean, this is the best team that Aaron said that he had in his eight years. Why should the Blue Jays out execute you? I I I I don’t understand. I don’t think there’s an answer. And I’m not critical. It’s just it’s just a question. Why are they out executing you? Now, a big point of contention with the Yankee fans is what is happening with Vulpi. Had surgery yesterday. He’s not going to be able to play in the big leagues, it seems like, till at least the middle of April, maybe a little bit later. And Boon was asked, “Do you regret playing Vulpi as much as you did with the injury?” No. Even going into this winter, like surgery wasn’t a certain. it was, do we do this surgery? And really what it comes down to is we have this time now and Anthony ultimately deciding like because there’s things that that he does to it over the course of the year that aggravate it, right? I think for the overwhelming majority of the year was not affecting his play. There were things like he would dive on it a certain way, tick it off, aggravate it. I think in some ways the injury probably got a little bit worse towards the end of the year based on a couple of episodes that happened, but I don’t think it was impacting performance and this is something that you can play with and play through, but the finality of getting it fixed now hopefully frees him up to like really go dive on it the way he’s going to dive on it and make those next level of plays that Anthony makes. And then hopefully because you’re fixing something that is hurt on the body that hopefully, you know, it does help performance too, like go to another level. Um, listen, I I have great admiration for Aaron Boon. I like him personally quite a bit, but I I mean, we had a caller who said it doesn’t impact him performance. wise. Okay. Then why did he perform the way he did? Isn’t that the bigger question? Isn’t it better to lean on the fact that it did affect his performance? And later on, Brian Catherine said, “Yeah, it had some effect.” I mean, you can’t just leave it out there that he had a crappy season for no reason. He had a terrible season. He strikes out way too much for somebody who’s not hitting 50 home runs. So, I I would lean on that. Yeah, of course it had some but but then if they say that then then the the next question is go well then why’d you play him? And in the first half of the season you know the reason they continued to play him they had nobody else. Pasa is terrible can’t hit great defender can’t hit once Oswaldo got hurt that that was it and they didn’t have a real backup short stop till they got Cabayro Brian Castron talked about everything but he was uh asked about the job that Boon does. I think he’s a good manager. I think he’s one of the better managers and I think like in this environment if he was out there right now he’d get a job rather quickly. But I also know because of our environment he’s someone that can be second guessed 10 million times over and I don’t care who you put in that that would be the same whoever else would be there. I trust him. I think he’s a good man. I think he works his tail off. I think he’s got good people that help support him and he’s got good players and with all that it doesn’t guarantee the outcome we’re all fighting for. But the guarantee is always that we’re going to be fighting for it. And that’s the one thing that Steinbrer family provides for this city is constantly having a team that you can put forth that you can believe is capable of a championship and that’s the job that we’ll be doing again once ne once again next year. I’d rather be talking about a World Series title right now, but I’m not. But the championship caliber intent is always there. I think we have a good manager and I think he cares and I think he works hard and I think he’s got good people and I think we have good players and we’re going to try it again. Well, there you go. So, put it to bed everybody. you know, the the hashtag fireboom. It’s not happening. And I’m not quite certain that it should happen. I I’m not I I don’t know if it’s his fault. Again, in an analytic collaborative world, I’m not sure who to blame. Blame the numbers, blame whatever, whatever. But the players play hard for him. Aaron Judge loves him. Everybody, everybody in that room loves him. They do play hard for him. They respect him. That’s important. That’s more important in 2025 than at any other time in sports. You need somebody that identifies with the players, appreciates what they go through. He was a pretty good player in his own right. And I know that really, really, really frustrates Yankee fans cuz I’ve said it and I get jumped on it. I get jumped on about it. If he was let go today with all the managerial openings, he would get a job. He wouldn’t have to wait and become a broadcaster again. He would get a job right away. And you I know what you’re all saying right now. You’re in your car rolling your eyes. Be careful. don’t get into an accident and you’re saying, “Well, then let him get another job.” Well, the Yankees think they have a good manager, so they’re going to stay with their manager rather than have him manage somewhere else. And it almost lines up with the shortstop. They think they have a guy that could be a good shortstop. And that if they pulled the plug on Anthony, Vulpi would go somewhere else and actually be a good player. And they don’t want that to happen. They don’t want Boone to be a great manager somewhere else. And they don’t want Vulpi to be a good shortstop somewhere else. They think it can happen here. So the fire boon hashtag, you could put it away. It’s not happening. And I’ve told you it’s not happening. It would be the height of being hypocritical by the front office when he is a collaborative with you as any man could be. And then if it doesn’t work out, you’re going to blame him. But instead, some coaches get blamed, which I don’t agree

[FULL SHOW] Michael Kay BREAKDOWN Yankees offseason update; Brian Cashman & Aaron Boone on the media

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