Should the Yankees push to ACQUIRE Bryce Harper?

Should the Yankees push to ACQUIRE Bryce Harper?

Howdy y’all. Welcome in. This is Yankees Unloaded. I’m Jake Ellen Boen. He is Gary Sheffield Jr. Today we are going to be talking about whether or not the Yankees should pursue a trade for Bryce Harper that has been heavily passed around uh like a hot potato across social media and Pete Lonzo’s rumored interest by the Yankees. And uh we’re going to cuz I mean man it’s it’s you and me and especially me. Uh what better way to start off an off seasonason talking about Alex Bregman to the Yankees. Like this wasn’t just the other day we were talking about this So welcome in, you know, enjoy. I guess um we’re in the offseason. I mean the World Series is going on and yeah, the Dodgers just uh they just felt the wrath of a Blue Jays blowout. The Yankees know a thing or two about that. So, uh, Jake, do you think that Brian Kman is watching the World Series and thinking, um, yeah, I’m curious. Does he think this is just some like magical run or does does he actually think that there’s something behind why the Jays are are taking quality at bats against Blake Snell, right? Who is to follow? This isn’t luck. It’s not. And it’s same with the Dodgers, right? Like you see it with Trey Savage. He’s on the mound. The Dodgers are were tough to strike out and it it was a close game. That’s what at bats are supposed to look like in October. Obviously, the game got away from the Dodgers and you know how that game’s going. The Jays win. Well, it’s interesting that the Yankees are Bryce Harper’s not getting traded. That’s first and foremost. But it’s funny that the Yankees are always attached to guys either past their prime or players that are power hitters, which is the exact opposite of what we’re looking for. Because if you remember, Jake, I’ve been saying all along, I’ve been saying this since well over a year ago, the player I wanted on the roster, and this is a over a year ago, so I want to preface that, is Kyle Tucker, right? And the reason I said that was because of the contact first element, less than 100 strikeouts a year. The ball’s always in play. More of a Toronto at bat, as you like to call it, right? And the Yankees are inching towards their off seasonason. We’re now officially in it. And as we go into the winter meetings, we’re talking Pete Alonzo, Bryce Harper, Miraami, we’ve heard that as well, all players that don’t help the Yankees get better at what they very clearly need to get better at, and that is contact. Now, I’m not telling you they have to go sign Isaiah Connor Falefa and a bunch of players that slap singles. It’s not what I’m telling you. But if the player that we’re clamoring over to make some big trade isn’t a contact first element to their game, we shouldn’t really be losing any sleep about acquiring that player. I really don’t think so. So Jake, Bryce Harper, this is a future Hall of Famer in my opinion. Bryce Harper, it had a down year, right? Dealt with injury. But I will say one thing, he’s a great player. he would really help the Yankees, but it doesn’t help us achieve what we’re trying to achieve, which is how to stop going from a team who can go win 90ome games every regular season and then stop hitting in October. We want to find a middle ground of contact speed and power where you say, “All right, we can trust them against the game’s best pitching.” Acquiring Bryce Harper and acquiring Pete Alonzo doesn’t help us do that. So Jake, I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. My takeaway is that we have to focus in and just hone in on the fact that if it’s not Quan, if it’s not some of these guys, I know you’ve mentioned some Japanese players that are going to be posted, there are some contact verse guys available out there. Alex Bregman’s available obviously at third base. We don’t expect that to happen because of Ryan McMahon and what we are due to pay him these next two years. But Jake, how do you feel about Bryce Harper, the the Pete Alonzo? It Yes, it’s an upgrade, but it’s an upgrade of what we were already good at. What are you thinking? Well, it’s You know what’s funny, Gary, is I’ve seen Austin Wells for Bryce Harper. I don’t even think that’s a bad I think that’s one of the rare like works for both sides trades where the Phillies get out from under that giant contract that people have speculated they don’t want to be a part of anymore, right? um and they get their catcher of the future in Austin Wells uh when Real Mudo is going to be a free agent. So, I actually see both sides of that. Here’s my issue. When I started seeing on social media Rice for Bryce, I was like, are you an idiot? Are you stupid? That would not be a straightup trade. I understand Bryce Harper’s a better player than Ben Rice. When you make a trade, it is about value. Bryce Harper doesn’t have the control at the age that Ben Rice has. It makes Ben Rice a lot more valuable than just your fantasy baseball trade, right? You could ignore it. By the way, if the Yankees didn’t operate with a hard salary cap, like for example, if we were willing to spend the way the Dodgers spend, or for example, the Toronto Blue Jays are in the World Series right now. In terms of percentage of revenue spent on players, the Jays spend way more money than the Yankees. Not even close. And having said that, it means that the Yankees could say, “Oh, we’ll bring in Bryce Harper. We don’t need control.” But the Yankees, as far as how Brian Kman and how Simon is instructing him to run the team, they do need the control. They have a They run a tight ship. We’re going to spend $300 million. We’re not going past that. Don’t ask us to go past that because if you do, we’re gonna mention that we’re spending this exact amount of money. So Jake, if the Yankees forfeit a, right, you’re talking about Ben Rice, that player makes $800,000 roughly. You bring in a Bryce Harper, he makes 25 million a year, right? It’s not anything outrageous, but it’s a lot more than 800K. And now that 25 million goes onto our books, shouldn’t be a problem for the Yankees. But Jake, we both know it is it is an issue for the Yankees bringing on money into their books because it just means whatever 25 million is coming into the books, you can subtract that from the total budget and the rest of the roster is going to follow suit. That’s why this wouldn’t be a good move. Whether you’re trading Austin Wells for Bryce Harper, Ben Rice for Bryce Harper, we don’t move like the Dodgers. We make our roster good as good as we can make it for the price we’re willing to spend and that’s how we move. So I would love Bryce Harper and Pinstripes. I mean I would have loved it back in 2017 when we probably should have landed him in the first place but yeah I I don’t see I don’t get it. I I saw some dudes in Bartow today. They were talking about would you rather have Ben Rice or Bryce Harper. It’s not a conversation of who’s the better player. It’s a conversation of both talent output and projectability. What you’re going to do over the next three to four seasons based on age and contract. All of those things are factors. So, could not agree with you more, Jake. The Ben Rice for Bryce Harper thing just for me doesn’t make sense based on what the Yankees are good and bad at. Yeah, I I didn’t understand that at all. I I don’t think you know Yankee fans, not all of them anyway, they quite understand what the Yankees have stumbled upon here in Ben Rice. And the reason I say it coincides with your point is that when you’re trying to operate under this makeelieve budget, which you shouldn’t have because anyway, I’ll go down that rabbit hole and I’m not going to. Of course not. Yeah. But if you’re going to operate in the margins, we’ll just say that. Yep. Ben Rice is like finding gold to you. Gold. So is Austin Wells. That’s why they’re so valuable. Like say what you will, but having these guys for cheap and under control, what does under control mean? Means, yeah, I’m going to have to pay them when arbitration hits, but I’m not going to have to pay him $30 million. That’s what that means. I’m not going to have to pay him $20 million. It’s the value in having Spencer Jones go out there. And mind you, we shouldn’t have to do this. No. But if Spencer Jones comes out, guys, Trent Gisham walks. Trent Gisham makes millions of dollars. He doesn’t make 30 million, but he makes money, right? And if we were going to give him a qualifying offer or a contract, per se, just three or four months ago, people were saying, “We really need Trent Gisham back.” Well, if you bring back a veteran, that guy makes 10, 12, $13 million a year, maybe more. And if you give Spencer Jones the leash to go out there and play, it may fail completely, right? He may strike out 200 times and be a bust. Or Jake, he could actually be a good player in year one and help the Yankees win. And most importantly for House Diamond Runner, he’s cheap, right? He makes it easier to operate in the margins. So that’s why the Yankees guys were so high on Anthony Vulpi. For those of you wondering why did the Yankees do this? Why were the Yankees so adamant about Jason Dominguez and calling him the Martian? Because guys, you have to realize if things work out with Vulpi, Jason Dominguez, and maybe even a Spencer Jones. If things work out with Clint Frasier, this whole group, if it works, it’s the cheapest thing we can do. But if you look around baseball, more times than not, the teams that are winning, they’re going out there and signing veterans. There’s nothing wrong with it. So, we’ll see what the Yankees do, how aggressive they are. But Jake, I have to imagine Bryce Harper, we Brian, if Brian Cashion spending any more than 10 minutes on a phone call to get Bryce Harper on this team, I don’t I don’t know what he’s doing with his time. Yeah. Um, by the way, speaking of that, because the whole first base thing, you think about Bryce Harper and you you go back to when we were all saying, “Yeah, he could play first base.” And then, you know, you had Brian Cashman saying he’s not a first baseman, only for him to go on and become an MVP playing first base uh with the Phillies. be and be be that as it may. Um, I wanted to bring up real quick. There are a bunch of things I want to bring up, but here’s one thing I really want to bring up real quick. I texted you this because we’re talking about first base and I just thought it was so fitting how your guy Bo Bashette was at second base tonight in the lineup. He has played second base once going back to 2019. And yet we get Aaron Judge can’t play first. We get Ben Rice can’t play third. We won’t even attempt to use Ben Rice at third or second. We’re told like from their standpoint that we just know better than everyone else. He’s never done that before. But then in the World Series, Bo Bashette makes his debut in the playoffs and he’s playing second base. Gary, how did that make you feel? Because that absolutely I like part of me was like laughing. Like I actually was laughing when I texted you that. I’m like I can’t even believe this But part of me is like kind of pissed because it just goes to show you how close-minded versus how creative, you know, the the organization that’s currently in the World Series is creative. the organization that is on the outside looking in and lost last year and didn’t ever have a game that looked like tonight. That team right there, well, I won’t say that they did, but later on in the series, that team right there is close-minded. I think that’s the distinction between the two. I think the Blue Jays have proven based on I’ve watched them the whole year, all regular season. We watched a lot of them. Both of us have. Then you watch the postseason, how they coach, right? The decisions that they make, who plays where, is it going to be contact, power, what are we going to prioritize? Are we going to have a traditional leadoff hitter or not? They’ve shown that there’s a human element to what they’re doing, right? That’s what at least has been proven to me. If you’re a shortstop, that someone says, “Well, he’s got a lot of athleticism, but he’s not the best shortstop.” That was the takeaway that I heard a lot. They we can’t sign Bo Bashette to the New York Yankees. He’s not a good enough defensive shortstop. He can hit. He’s a contact first guy. Really good fit offensively. You saw him tonight. He actually made an impact. But the defense just we can’t have it. The Blue Jays said, “Okay, great. We’re getting awesome defense out of shortstop. Let’s move Bo to second base. Just that simple.” Uh Anthony Vulpi, let’s use him as a perfect example. He struggled all year with his arm, right? That was the whole conversation. Anthony Vulpi could play second base. I guarantee you Anthony Vulpi if you decided we’re going to move him over to second base because he’s hitting right and he never did that. But let’s just say he was you would be able to successfully put Vulpi at second base. You would short stop’s a much more difficult position. So, the Blue Jays just used common sense rather than analytics and said, “I think my offensiveminded shorts stop that probably doesn’t play the best defense could just slide over to second base. He’s physically ready to play and make an impact in game one.” Lo and behold, he does, Jake. That’s just the human element. And will the Yankees suddenly emerge with the human element in 2026? The answer is no. The answer is no. Because you listen to Brian Kman, you listen to Aaron Boon. I know there were a lot of people saying, “Well, Boon’s going to lose his job. Cashman should lose his job.” And everyone has their own opinions, but the reality is is they came out and gave us the status quo interview to tell us they’re not just running back the payroll, right? And I know that’s what you guys wanted to to know if that would change. It’s not, but they’re going to run back their mentality. the entire room. Remember the room that that Jabba Chamberlain complained about? Yeah. That Jamba Chamberlain said, “It’s not just Boone, it’s not just Cashman, it’s not just Howal, it’s the whole network.” They told us in those interviews, if you really paid attention and decoded it, they’re telling you, “We’re not going to do anything of what the Jay’s are doing. We’re not changing anything. we’re going to run it back and hope that this crapshoot in October just bounces our way. And so to see Bob Bashette go from shortstop to second base and make an impact immediately in game one of the World Series, I thought it was refreshing cuz I don’t watch that often. So good for the Jays. Obviously, I know that there are some people who can’t root for them because it’s in division or there’s a lot of people rooting against the Dodgers, but that’s good baseball and good coaching. Yeah, I I mean sometimes you got to get creative and I I just feel like the Yankees are so close-minded in that. Um it’s why I, you know, came up with the idea of having Jastism at at shortstop and people are like absolutely not. And I’m like, well, he’s played shortstop before. He has like Bo Bashette one time playing second base. Oh yeah. The next time you’re going to play second base, if you told him in 2019, the after he played his first game at second base, next time you’re going to play it, it’s going to be 2025, October 24th, and you’re going to be playing in the World Series. What would he have said? Sounds good, but what the hell’s going on there? Yeah, it’s crazy. But if you read the context and you’re able to read the room, they’re getting a lot of production from Shortstop right now. Yeah. So if you watch the Blue Jays play, you’d say, “Okay, Jimenez is one of the best defenders in the sport.” So, right, and you’d say, “Okay, Bo has to play.” Bo, it’s Bo Bashette, let’s be real. And he had a really good year. You want him in that lineup. And I think most people, there’s some people who are going to tell you, “Oh, the Jays are going to win this World Series, especially now in hindsight of game one.” But I I think more more folks would say, “I think the Dodgers are going to win this World Series.” So, you need all the help you can get and the Jays bought into that. Let’s put Bo in there at second base. So, good for them, man. I think it was the smart play. Yeah. And then you you had mentioned earlier um power hitter Peter Lonzo. Absolutely not. I am so out on Peter Lonzo. Again, I don’t understand this whole like and I’m not saying every Yankee fan has this, you know, idea, but there’s rumored interest again from the Yankees for Pete Alonzo. My thing is why they haven’t once told us that they’re going to commit to Ben Rice being the catcher. And we just got done saying that Austin Wells is like gold for them because he’s so cheap and controllable. So what’s the deal here? Like why would you be interested in him? And like that’s my thing. If you are interested in a first baseman, he’s not even a full-time first baseman. He could play third and first. To me it’s got to be Okamoto. I I I don’t really like I was seeing in the comments section and sorry guys, we’re gonna try and remember everybody’s name again because YouTube I cannot believe they did it again. It’s unbelievable. I’m glad you remembered. I have no idea. But can I please just address this Pete Alonzo thing? Yeah. Jake, have you ever been to a steakhouse? I’m assuming you have, right? I have. Have you ever in your lifetime seen anything on the menu that says, “Yeah, you can order this ribeye steak and on the side you usually get what? Potatoes.” Mhm. What? Corn creme brulee and shrimp potatoes? Something, right? Have you ever seen steak fruits on the side of a steak? No. You’ve never seen that? Right. There’s no reason that the Yankees are looking for complimentary pieces that are identical to their main features in the main entree. The main entree for the Yankees, Aaron Judge, Jean Carlos Stanton. Those are their two, well, a their most prolific offensive asset this year was Aaron Judge. It wasn’t even close, right? It was their best player. He’s a power hitter, right? And he obviously has a contact element, but he’s a power hitter, right? Alltime great. Jean Carlos Stan before that was easily our best postseason player pure power bat. Then before that you’ve got Juan Sodto. Okay. So why are the Yankees saying I’ve got my stake and let me get a side a stake with it? Don’t you just watch the Yankees and say man they really could use a Steven Quan. man, they really could use a a player who really, and I’m not saying this exact asset, but when you look up and see Ernie Clement of the Toronto Blue Jays, right? You look up and see Tommy Edmund for the Los Angeles Dodgers, you see guys just slapping a single or spraying a ball, beating a shift, seeing speed going first to third. Don’t you watch those players and say that the Yankees need more of that? Or you see a traditional leadoff hitter, a contact guy who has multiple hits in a game and finds ways to score multiple runs. He’s wreaking havoc on the game, making an impact. Traditional Johnny Damon leadoff guy. Don’t you feel like that’s exactly what the Yankees are missing? The side of potatoes. That’s my opinion about the Yankees. I agree. They are essentially a steak dinner and here’s your side of steak and a pile of steak and then you’re just like we’re overindulged here of power. The Yankees genuinely and I’m and I mean this Jake. Yeah. They believe they have a top offense in baseball. They think that because they score more regular season runs than the other teams in baseball. But as your dad has brought up many times, they can’t score runs when you need them to score runs. How good is the offense really? And it’s not that the players suck, it’s that they’re redundant. There’s a very simple way to get them out. And it’s okay to have a few of them in a lineup, but when it’s nine guys trying to do the same thing, it doesn’t work. That’s why, guys, and this is my conclusion. When you turn on the World Series, you saw it tonight. The Dodgers were bludging. But one thing you didn’t see were terrible at bats from each side. It was you you see Y Savage, he’s having to work hard to get his outs, right? Didn’t have to work nearly as hard against us. And that’s for a reason. It’s not just because he didn’t pitch as well. It’s because of what we couldn’t do. And the same thing goes for the Jays who make Cam Schlitler work hard, who make Rhdon Freed, all of them work hard, and there was no outlier for us. Everyone had to work hard for outs. We simply don’t make anyone work hard. So, I I do want to see some variance in our offense. I mean, that’s that is my conclusion. But Jake, I do have a quote here from Dave Dumbrossski. He hopped on the um on the post this morning via the phone and said, and I quote, “Bryce Harper’s not getting traded.” Right? So, I literally just saw this and he said, “He’s a great player. He’s a future Hall of Famer. He’s a cornerstone of our franchise and we look to have him with us for a long, long time.” Um, based on what Dave Dumbrosski said, not here, but before, it definitely looked like there was trouble in Paradise or at the very least the sides didn’t like each other, but I mean, if this is what he’s saying, who knows? Yeah. I mean, I I don’t really care. Um, I like Bryce Harper a lot, but I I never looked at that. I mean, we talked about it off air and, you know, we were going to do an isolated video on that. We just decided, you know what, we’ll talk about it tonight. Yeah. I just never really viewed that. And then in addition like the Pete Alonzo thing, I’m just I’m totally in agreeance with you. I mean the way I see it cuz I’ve been baking and I’ve been cooking a lot and I just feel like when you’re adding spices, right? If you add you like say I like paprika, like I use paprika a lot. I’m a fan. But I like other things. I like onion powder, garlic powder, you know, some throw some salt in there, some pepper, whatever. But when you only say the whole freaking dish is paprika, how is that going to taste? That’s just that’s going to be too much. That’s going to be way too much. And so that’s really what we’re getting at now when you look at this offense is that I think they did a nice job of starting to get into the right direction where they’re moving away from the home run a little bit. But the problem is Gary, what we noticed is those guys are now just trying to hit the home run. So even the guys that you would think are more contact bats, even they’re trying to hit the home run. this year. I would really like to see them, like we’ve talked about, go after Steven Quan, kind of uh re, you know, reestablish, reset that uh that pallet, you know, and there’s definitely going to have to be more guys in the lineup that are that flavor for that’s why I like Okamoto and absolutely against Murakami cuz you already have Makami on your roster. And on top of that, you know what’s so funny to me is that there are people telling me that Spencer Jones will never make it in this league because of his K rate. Have you seen Mirakami’s K rate? Have you seen Miraami? He’s lit. He is worse than Spencer Jones. You could make the argument that Spencer Jones doesn’t fit our roster based on what we have in the door now, which is guys who strike out, guys who are going to hit bad pitching. And I think when you say they’re going to hit bad pitching, it’s more so the pure power bats, the assumption on him, because we keep in mind, we haven’t seen Spencer Jones at all. He may be a Hall of Fame player for all we know. But when he gets here, he’s going to have to prove that his style can go head-to-head with some of the game’s best pitching, some of the game’s best movement, some of the game’s best velocity. And what we’ve seen in the postseason is that the contact first bats are easily the most deadly in October. It’s not even close. Yeah, it’s not close. So, he has to prove himself and his whole style of play is going to work here in New York. But yeah, the whole Miraami thing, Miraami, if it works, in my opinion, it’s what Trent Gisham did this year. It’s going to be 30 plus homers, which is a good powerhitting season. I’m not sure if he’s going to play great defense. I mean, no one’s ever relished about his defense at any point in any scouting report I’ve read. I’ve heard that he can play third, first base, right? So, it’s nice to have some versatility. But if you’re going to bring in a guy who potentially can hit you 33, 35 homers and play some defense at a position of need, then you might as well just bring back Tren Gersham. You might as well just sign Pete Alonzo, right? We know what they do. I I don’t I don’t get it. And so what was the player that you said? So I’m assuming this is a right-handed first baseman. Is that it? Um the one the guy who’s posted from Japan. Yes, he just got posted and that was kind of like was on the fence. It was leaning that way, but there were still some like rumblings that he might stay. Um yeah, I I think they got to go after Okamoto. I I we we were talking about this. I don’t know if this got on video because quite honestly I forget at this point. We just talk so much. But I’m pretty sure this was off air and we were talking about Japanese hitters and how they all hit. They they I mean who has actually been a bust? Say a Suzuki. See, they always This is the problem. Otani came in, people missed out on Otani and then they’re like, “Oh yeah, nobody’s like Otani, so we’re not going to go after them.” Um, you’re right. No one’s like Otani, but Suzuki’s a really good ball player, right? Kim, who the Dodgers still added, is really good. I mean, they don’t even need him right now. And what’s the dude in Boston again? The one who always hits against us, but no one else. Yosha. Yeah. I mean, he he’s uh he’s the Yankee killer. He’s a roller coaster. He was up at the very beginning, then he was horrible, and then he he did have some impact in this season. So, I’m not going to overlook what he’s done, but I wouldn’t say he’s been a bust. He just hasn’t lived up to probably what their expectations were of what they were hoping for, but I just try to judge, if you’re going to judge like, okay, assets coming from Japan. For the most part, they’re working out, right? Um, you’re talking about Imanaga, right, and going to Chicago. Yankees fans didn’t even want him. The majority, they did not want him. They said, “Oh, he’s just going to be Ryu. He’ll break down. He’s not going to be able to pitch at the big league level.” Well, that was wrong. Right. Kikuchi, he’s not going to be able to last. Okay. For the most part, the room, right? Yamamoto, the the gist of it was he’s got the stuff to go out there and be uh Tanaka like, right? But then they said when he first got to the big leagues, his fast ball won’t play here. It just won’t. He almost won the Sai Young this year. And I shouldn’t say almost because obviously Paul Skins will win that award, but he was in this award like he was in the race as well as you could be. He’s living up to that contract. So he was a success. There were people saying, “Oh, the Dodgers wasted all this money on a 5 foot 10 guy. What are the chances he’s the next Pedro at that size?” Well, he’s looking fine to me. He looks fine. So, I would agree with you. I don’t think anyone should be afraid of signing Japanese talent. They’ve proven they can play at this level on this stage. They’re not afraid. They’re just not. It wasn’t that long ago we wanted Jung-hu Lee who ended up going to the San Francisco Giants. I know he got hurt, but he looked really good, too. He did. And his story hasn’t been written. I mean, he can continue to look really good. And you know, uh, Sagano for for the Orioles. I mean, he he’s been good, too. So, yeah, it it is funny because it seems like I don’t know since Kaggawa. I mean, obviously, I know they they got Tan to Naka, but it seems like since Kayagawa, like Yankee fans are kind of like out on Japanese players. I don’t understand why. Um, they all just they hit. They they all hit, you know, and and I’m not saying that they all become superstars, but you know, if you get a guy like Ianaga, and that’s the thing, in hindsight, 2020, of course, like Ianaga would have made a lot of sense for the Yankees to pivot from when they lost out on Yamamoto. Um, and they didn’t, but now you got all these guys. I mean, Murakami will probably end up working out. I’m not saying he won’t, but what is working out for you? Like, for me personally, when I look at Mirakami, and I’ve always liked him, but I have also changed my values when it comes to the Yankees. I want more contact. So, I think he’s going to go and succeed whether it’s the, you know, the Padres’s or the Giants or somebody like that. I don’t think he’s a fit in New York for that reason. When you look at Okamoto, he’s got the bat to ball skills. He’s got the contact. He’s a better defender than Miraami. He can play first, he can play third. It gives him that flexibility. I’m still not sold on Ryan McMahon. I liked what he did in a limited sample size in the postseason and I want to give him his props and I think I definitely have. With that said, Ryan McMahon hasn’t shown us that he should be an everyday third baseman. Defensively, yes. Offensively, no. He’s shown us that he should probably, and think about like this, Gary, if Jason Dominguez was not an everyday player, if Ben Rice was not an everyday player, why on earth is Ryan McMahon everyday player? I mean, he should be a platoon bat. He just should. In hindsight, it wasn’t a good signing for the Yankees. Not from the sense of, oh my god, we have to pay $16 million, but in a sense that we have a budget and $16 million in 2026, $16 million in 2027 is locked into your books unless you can make a trade. So, when people say go sign an Alex Bregman, right, was something that you were clamoring for last offseason, right? though this is way prior. Now, if you go get a player like that and you sign a guy who may cost you $30 plus million a year, you have to add that on top of the $16 million you’re paying Ryan McMahon and what you’re going to spend $50 million in one year for third base for a player that when we face lefties, we had to sit him down. He’s a platoon bat. He was. And I understand a little catch to it is that more times than not you do face right-handed pitching. We get that. You see, you know, Trey Savage, which was our Achilles heel in the postseason, was a right-handed arm. So, he wasn’t necessarily the problem. He did hit in October. So, you mentioned we gave him credit for it, but Jake, I don’t understand how the Yankees could be sitting in a position where a third baseman, a shorts stop, a second baseman or a first baseman, any one of those players who should be premier guys in your lineup. I mean, it’s the infield dirt. The last time we won a World Series, look at our infield. You don’t have any platoon bats around the infield. We have platoon bat. What are we doing? It it’s it’s just not the move. You need to we need to be more cognizant of what we’re building. I obviously what Alex Rodriguez was saying and Derek Jeter were saying on the broadcast. Yeah. I know Brian Kman talks about them like they don’t know any baseball at all. They never played apparently. When they say the roster construction is the worst they’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because they see we’ve got three left-handed catchers or we’ve got four DH’s, five DH’s. Maybe it’s because we have to see we have to tee up a matchup for it to work out for us. The Yankees need to operate a lineup where it doesn’t matter who they face. Split, splitter ball, sliders, slide step out of the stretch. It shouldn’t be our Achilles heel. So, we’ll see obviously what the Yankees do. Hopefully, Jake, hopefully their priority is finding some depth in the rotation. I think that that should be a priority. you can’t go into the regular season and I guess we didn’t know what Cam Schlitler was going to do this year but maybe the Yankees have as much faith as you do right in ERC and they give him the leash at the beginning of the season no Garrett Cole no Rodon there’s a lot of pressure on Cam Schlitler a lot of these guys to just pick up where they left off and carry the load so we’ll see what they do but I think this offense should be the priority offense and bullpen those are my two main fixes for this team. So, less focus on I would probably say less focus on the outfield. They’ve got to fix this infield in a hurry. Ryan McMahon at third base, Anthony Vulpi at shortstop, not expected to be ready for opening day. Second baseman, Jazz Chisum. What version of Jazz Chisum are we getting? Are we getting the guy who’s chasing 3030 seasons or are we getting more of a contact oriented player? And will they play Ben Rice every single day or will they trade him? We’ll see what they do. I highly doubt unless we’re getting Paul Ske or um a premier player in this game, I highly doubt he’ll be moved. So, there are a lot of question marks mainly in the infield. No, I get that. I think for me it’s still finding a legitimate postseason ace. That would be my number one. Um because I mean all those games were close. They were all close. Yankees had a shot in all the games they did. But I think really having their two aces struggle and then you know heal and yeah it just it wasn’t great. Aside from Schlitler that was iter I would say freed was the biggest development for us if he didn’t pitch well knowing that even if we had won the game that we obviously ended up losing but had we won and gone back to Toronto for a game seven you and I both said we’re we’re probably losing that game. We didn’t say that before the series, but once we watched how things were unfolding, we’re like, man, I wouldn’t even give him the baseball. I know we were, there were people in our comment section, and I and I feel like they actually had a genuine point. Do we even pitch him for game seven? That can’t be the case. It can’t be. I know Garrett Cole is coming back, Gary. That’s why you need school. I I don’t think it’s one of those. That would be cool. No, no, no. turn it from that will be cool to like let’s do it. Le let’s freaking do it tomorrow. Let’s do it yesterday. I I don’t care. I mean, make it happen. If he and you you mentioned this, Jim Bowden, friend of the show, Yeah. said that he um is expected to be traded. I I don’t want to butcher his report. He said he is likely to be shopped. Now, shopping someone, okay, isn’t trading them. Shopping just means putting it on the market. That could be. Yeah, that that’s also a negotiation tactic where it’s like, “All right, sure. You want to come back to Detroit? Let’s see how much you really want to come back to Detroit.” And really the whole thing is like if he starts, you know, okay, actually like he bs and like his agent like he tells him like, “Hey, I just make it happen, right?” Like we didn’t see it, you know, it wasn’t publicized, but the Astros with Altuve, like Altuve was like, “Just bring me back to to Houston.” Um, the Astros never got to the step of, yeah, we’re going to shop Altuv around because he he knew that. But this is where it’s like Scubble has spent his career in Detroit. It’s starting to get real, right? That’s when you start to really challenge him. I’m not saying I agree with going in this direction, but hey, the business is ugly. I’ve got to put something up on the screen, Jake, that I don’t know if I could disagree with anything more in my life. Okay, I’m 31 years old. There’s never been anything I disagree with more. And this is from one of my favorite people who listen to our show. They are a mod here. I’ve got to put it up. So Apex says, “Wait until Scoo is a free agent.” Now, this is a genuine point that you could make. There’s no doubt about it. Everyone can make this point. Juan Stoodto is a San Diego Padre. He’s got one year remaining on his contract. The New York Yankees could have kept Michael King. Could have done that. keep Michael King, you keep everything else that we kept, right? They could have signed Juan Sodto the following off season. You got Michael King and you’ve got Juan Sto. Do you know one thing you don’t have, Jake? A World Series appearance. Yes. You don’t have that. Why? Because Juan Sodto is not on your team for that year. Same way that Terrick Scooble I mean Terubel is not likely to be traded to the Yankees. We understand that. But if Trick Scooble was traded to the Yankees in 2026, in the off chance it happens, the Yankees would lose whatever assets they would cost him and you forfeit the opportunity of just acquiring him for money, right? Not giving away prospects. But Aaron Judge will get a year older. This prime of his is only three or four years away from being a thing of the past. Remember how Bryce Harper is looked at now? like he’s people are talking about Austin Wells in a trade or Ben Rice who by the way has been here 15 minutes and people are saying are you kidding me I would get rid of Ben Rice a player who’s an upandcomer for Bryce Harour and people would rather have Ben Rice could you imagine saying that two years ago you couldn’t you right so there’s no reason to just make assumptions about what players will be or how you’re going acquire him because we said this exact same thing about Garrett Cole and we got Garrett Cole. And you know what? We didn’t get a World Series. We failed to trade for Gar Cole because we refused to trade Clint Frasier and Miguel Anduhar. Now, in hindsight, that sounds ridiculous. Of course, it’s ridiculous. But guess who lands Garrett Cole in the meantime for the next two and a half, three seasons and wins a World Series? The Houston Astros. So, how much now in hindsight would we have liked to trade for Garrick Cole before we lose those three years? We should have had Garrett Cole on our team for years prior, but we didn’t. That’s the situation all over again just for a shorter sample size. So, no, we should not wait for players to just simply become free agents because we don’t move like a team that doesn’t have a budget. We’ve got a budget. So, we need to act accordingly and look at our team and say we need to get as good as possible immediately and try to win a World Series in 2026 has to happen now. So, that’s my answer. I’m trying to be as respectful as possible, but to simply look at Aaron Judge and what he just did, hitting 500 in October to say, “Oh, Ter Scubble, that guy who could answer your problem at the top of your rotation, we’re going to just wait until not I understand you’re at the top of your career, Aaron Judge. you’re the captain of the team. We’re just gonna wait till the following year and then we’ll go for it. Then you don’t know who’s going to be gone. So Jake, I can never subscribe to the wait till free agency bit because now we’re sitting in free agency. Kyle Tucker was a free a remember he was a he was going to be traded. We didn’t know he was going to the Cubs. I said right then and there I would do anything I could to get Kyle Tucker on this team. Anything. Because I don’t know what’s going to happen in 2025. And now we’re walking out of 2025 as losers. So go get the best players now. Don’t wait till free agency. Yeah. I mean, you know, I’m sure the Dodgers wish they they didn’t have to wait until free agency and get Otani a year early, you know. So they asked to trade for him. They called they called RD Moreno. Could we’ll trade We’re trading you assets for we’re going to get We’re going to get them. So like you’re an idiot. Like, how are you not accepting this? No, that was It’s so funny. That might be That might go down as the worst standing pat at the deadline I think we’ve ever seen. That was That was horrendous. You got nothing for I I Anyway, arguably the greatest baseball player who ever lived. Arguably one of the the greatest athletes of all time. Like they didn’t get anything for him out of pure ego. Yeah, it’s Yeah, he’s he Anyway, total idiot. Um I Yeah, I just to me, Gary, I I just think that Scooble needs to be the priority unless skins and we’ve talked about this. I was actually having a good conversation the other day with my father and and normally I’ve I’ve explained before where he stands on prospects and I was there and now I’m not really there anymore but um even he was like you just you got to find a way like if he’s available you do it like he’s two you get four years of control he’s not going anywhere by the way he would be a Yankee that would you know what Paul Ske that trade would be that would be the Lakers getting Luca Donuch that is a monumental pickup. Monumental getting It’s a pickup we never would do. We to say they would never do it is an understatement. Think about this. Just Just think about this for a sec. If the Yankees actually got Paul Skins Mhm. Hal Stein Brener is looked at completely different. Brian Cashman is looked at completely different. And I don’t think people are really worried about Aaron Boon because at that moment in time they’re just like wow we’re in shock and awe that the Yankees just did something that no one expected that see that in of itself is like why I don’t know why they wouldn’t because that’s like your your get out of jail free card. Everything that you’ve done that’s pissed people off. If you went up and got Paul skins, you’d be telling like the fan base, we’re for real, and people would get off your back, at least for the time being. They’d still expect a World Series, but to get Paul Skins, it would be like you’d be giving optimism to people who just don’t right now have it. And I told you, I sent you uh my friend actually sent it to me and I sent it to you, the Robert Andino meme, and it’s like the greatest thing ever. remember that? No, I don’t remember it. His picture in 2010 and he’s smiling and his picture in 20 2011 and he’s like, you know, and picture in 2012 and he looks like he’s been through some He is not happy. Like that’s what it’s like being us right now. That’s me. Like I was Mr. Optimist, Gary. And then you saw last year and I I had my blowup moments at times where I But for the most part, I was pretty optimistic. right now. I’m truthfully not. I’m not. There’s no chance in the world they would get. Yeah, they’ll be competitive. We’re going to win 90 to 94 games. 90 90 to 95 games and they’re not going to make any substantial changes. The most likely scenario is they sign Cody Bellinger, relievers, a couple right-handed bats, a right-handed first baseman. They’re going to s I promise you they will sign that. Mhm. That’s what the Yankees off seasonason will look like. They’re going to make a trade. It it could look into the bullpen. You never know where it’ll be. But the chances that the Yankees, even if he were available, let’s just say Paul Ske were available right now. The Yankees, here’s what the Yankees would do. You said, I think the Yankees could acquire Paul Ski. You You obviously you used um a way to quantify it, right? it. You’re you’re talking about there was Austin Wells involved in the deal. There was George Lombard Jr. or Spencer Jones. And to which I said, the Yankees essentially what would be told to them because everyone would be after his services. Literally everybody, Boston, the Mets, right? Mets have a problem in their rotation. I promise you, they would go out there and give everything they’ve got for a player that has four years of control. And in my opinion, this is just my opinion, Paul’s the best pitcher by a mile. There’s no one even in his breath right now. Yeah, the consistency is just on. Not even close. The only I would even say close is probably Scooble. You and I even and I probably would even go there because Paul Ske doesn’t have any injury history whatsoever. Obviously, I wish him the best of health. He’s young, right? So, my deal is this. Even if the Yankees could go out there and get on the market for him, the Yankees would be like, they would end up being told, “We need Ben Rice, we need Jason Dominguez, we need Spencer Jones, we need George Lombard Jr., and we need probably like an outfielder. Throw us in somebody else, maybe an Austin Wells.” And they’d be like, “Well, that’s just dismantling our whole team, our whole team.” That’s what they would tell you, right? They’re not going to move like the Yankees. They’re going to move in terms of value. They’re going to say what’s fair to trade for Paul Ske and another team would get him. That’s what I’m telling you guys. The Yankees got They would like actually try truthfully. No. No. They what they would try, but no, not literally try. They would tell us they’re trying, but they would leak all these different players to the media, which is exactly what they do, by the way. Yeah. Okay. This is exactly what they do. out. Go out there and tell them we would have to trade Ben Rice. Go out there and tell them they have to trade Dominguez Jones, George Lombard Jr. They have to trade uh Cam Schlitler. That’s a buzzword, right? Cam Schlitler, a player that we’re all high on. I mean, there’s no one in this room wants Cam Schlitler off the roster. But go leak that the Pirates need Cam Schlitler to make this deal happen. And what would happen in hindsight, guys? Our audience would say, “Oh, we don’t need Paul skins. Cam Schlitler’s the future.” And now you’re begging for a player, right? It turns into a conversation of you begging for your old players back. It reminds me we would never get Paul Skins under any circumstances whatsoever. So Brian Kman, you mentioned that it would change the way we look at how it would change the way we look at Brian Kman. You’re right. It would change the way we look at the whole room. But we look at this room the way we look at them because they never make moves anywhere close. Not just that, anywhere even below it. Nowhere close to it. They would never do it. That’s why I do think that Scubble is like it’s actually a possibility. And the reason I say that is because I think it’s very similar in structure to a Juanto deal. And I’ll say this, I’ve really done a lot of thinking. I still I was just talking about this the other day. I still think they they won the Juan Sto trade. I do. I really feel like they do. They uh they they went to the World Series. They got everything that they wanted out of a rental and they still had a funding shot where they gave him over $700 million. He chose to go to the Mets. There’s nothing they could really do about that. Juan Sodto was worth the cost. I I still even though I love Michael King, I am not been out of out of shape out, you know, over like the guys that they traded. I don’t feel like they gave up a giant package for Juan Stoodto. I think it’s incredibly overblown. Like, let’s be honest here, right? What is um Drew Thorp doing right now? I’m not talking about Drew Thorp in our comment section. What is Drew Thorp doing right now? Right? What is um I can’t remember the dude’s name, the uh the other pitcher, right? He was on the Padres’s. What is he doing now? I mean, Michael King was the headliner and he’s the only one that you could say is like significant in that trade. Never at any point did I think we lost that trade. Not at any phase of it. Not now in hindsight. Johnny Breuro, that’s who I was talking about. There you go. It was nowhere close to a loss trade. The same way that the Cubs didn’t the Cubs didn’t lose the trade. They they’d send us Glabber Torres and they get Araldis Chapman. They won the World Series. You really think they give a rip about having six, seven years of control of Glabber Torres? Are you kidding? Glabber wasn’t even signed after his uh rookie deal. Yeah, they I promise you the Cubs haven’t lost a 30 seconds of sleep about not having Glabber Torres. And that has nothing to do with Gabber Torres. It has to do with the ultimate goal, which was ending their curse in winning the World Series. We have a curse of our own. Now, we haven’t won in 16 years. I know fans of the Reds and whatever have you would be like, “Oh, that’s so spoiled to look at it that way.” We’re not you. We’re our own group with different expectations. The Yankees have to win the World Series. We don’t sit in the park listening to uh you know, the old radio uh of the 1960 World Series. No, we we we have expectations to go win. And we’re not the only organization with those expectations. Philly fans, right, they have those expectations. They want to go out there and win. It’s very negative in Philly right now. That’s why these Bryce Harper and Dave Dumbrosski situations are happening. The Dodgers walk into spring training expecting just, oh, let’s go sign autographs. We expect to be in the World Series. They’re in the World Series every year. That’s their expectation. So, um, I do have a win now mentality. I did see in the comment section that, oh, no win now moves. No win now moves. Everything we do should be a win now move. every single thing we do. The two things that you and I both want, uh, Scooble and and, um, Quan Quan, I think are actually realistic. That’s the crazy thing. Like, I think they’re like I could see the Yankees doing them. I don’t think they’re crazy. You’re not talking about anybody that would cost you an arm and a leg down the road for this incredibly stubborn and frugal franchise. frugal. They’re frugal. I don’t I don’t care. Um I What’s more likely between Quan and and uh Scubble? I’d probably say Scubble to be honest with you cuz I think Scooble is rich enough where it’s going to be like the Yankees and they’re the only team that might have interest because of the Juan Sodto deal. Like teams have shown they don’t really want to go out and do that. Not unless it’s at the deadline. They’d rather just wait. The Yankees have shown they’ll actually do that. I’m not saying they’ll do it all the time, but they did it with Sodto. My thing is with Quan, I’m looking at the Dodgers and I’m like, if the Dodgers don’t get Kyle Tucker, because I think Kyle Tucker is probably going to go to the Dodgers or the Mets. I still think it’s going to be the Mets. I don’t know why. Well, there’s only like Well, I mean, maybe it has something to do with there’s only like five teams that are going to pay the amount of money it’ll be. And I mean, after that season, they’ll probably just do something erratic. they won’t actually look at the real problem, which is their, you know, rotation was dog But either way, um, but yeah, the Dodgers, I think, are the team that’s most likely a trade for Quan. They actually had a deal in place and it blew up. So, at the deadline, they tried to get Quan. I That’s the least likely, I think. I think it’s still very possible, but I I think Scoo, if he gets traded, I think it will be to the Yankees. I actually do. Um because well, I mean, you have to remember that a lot of teams are looking at it and saying the Mets are dismal in the rotation. Yep. Terrible. Right. They’ve got some young upand cominging talent in that group, but there’s some holes to fill. What better way to fill that hole than having Trick Scooble show up to the roster without having to give up a single one of these assets? Because Mets fans are already talking about it. Should we trade some of these assets and cash in and get this player early, get him through the door, then we resign him, or do we just wait? Well, the Mets aren’t competing for anything. So, their answer should be to wait. Pete Alonzo is a free agent right out of their lineup. That’s not going to help their lineup. There’s no reason for the Mets who How many games did they win, Jake? How many was it? Like 84, was it? Yeah. Was it even 84? It was somewhere in that ballpark. They were a 500 baseball team. They lost a tiebreaker to the Reds. I’m pretty sure there’s no reason for any team like the Reds or the Mets, given how they played in 2025, to go out and rush to go get a player in the last year of his deal. That makes no sense for you. It only makes sense for the teams that are sniffing contention to actually win something. And the Yankees are they’re in that group. So, the Mets had every opportunity to bulk up that rotation. You had, and I know he got hurt, but you had Corbin Burns, you had Max Freed, and you had the Garrick Crochet deal. And I honestly just don’t think the Mets have the balls to make a trade. I think that they want to throw their money on the table, but I don’t think they’re a team that would even compete with the Yankees in a trade for Scooble. I don’t, cuz they showed us last year they didn’t care about trading for Crochet. They didn’t have a serious offer. The Red Sox are the only team that had a legitimately serious offer to get crochet. The Mets are the biggest the the biggest threat if a player reaches free agency. So, if you’re going to wait for Scooble or you’re going to wait for Paul Skins or you’re going to wait for any of these players just to simply walk into free agency and you’re like, well, we’re the Yankees. We’re going to throw a check at him. Well, you’ve shown that you’re not willing to throw the biggest check. You’re you’re willing to throw a big check. And we we’re not here to debate that you offering Juan Sodto $775 million over the course of 16 years, right? It’s a lot of money. But if another team’s willing to spend $800 million, which they were spent 805, you’re not getting the player. So you really didn’t spend a dime on Juan Sto. You just talked about it and then went over and signed. They trade, right? You end up trading for one year of Cody Bellinger. You knew it was going to be one year. He was going to opt out if he played well. and if he if he didn’t play well, he would opt into it. It’s a two-year deal. That’s exactly what they did. They signed Paul Goldmid. They didn’t get Christian Walker. So, we know that the Yankees, if they’re really being honest here, when you look at some of these players, you look at Trick Scooel, I really think this makes sense. I I genuinely do. I’m not trying to play MLB the show here. I’m not turning force trades on. I am trying to look at this from the way that Brian Kman looks at rosters. how it people are usually after control. People are usually after uh okay, we want to go get this player on the market and it’s a slam dunk. The Jays were throwing money at players to get him. Otani, same thing. But the Yankees actually could benefit from the fact that Terrick Scooel could be on next year’s roster and you don’t have to worry about it the following year. You worry about that then. Won’t be your problem next year. So, I actually really like this. Obviously, Peacekegee wants us to stay the hell away from Pete Alonzo. Can’t blame him. We Yeah, we don’t we don’t blame you. It’s not an indictment on him as a player. He’s a good player. He is a good player. Yeah. It’s a matter of where he is at this stage of his career. What he does well and the fact that we already do it well. We already we’ve got the Jean Carlos stands. We’ve got the judges. We’ve got the We’ve got Ben Rice. We We had Trent Gisham. We’re bringing in Spencer Jones. I promise you power is not going to be our Achilles heel next year. So, we agree with you completely. Ninja hot dog. Gotta love that everyone’s got their handles in. They’re so I was just going to say it again. Hey guys, do us a favor after this show or maybe during it if you want to. Please switch out your handles. Make it like the closest it can be to what your name is or what you want your display name to be. If they let you, we would love really hard time to figure out everybody again. Yeah, some are obvious like in Ninja hot dog very obvious. So Ninja, thank you for being here. Obviously been a member for the last four months. Says, “I just don’t understand why the Phillies would trade Harper and even if they did, the Yanks won’t pay for him. Also, we don’t deserve him. His tenure with Phillies signifies everything wrong with our team.” So I would agree with you. the Yankees wouldn’t pay for Bryce Harper if the if the Phillies were to trade him hypothetically, Philadelphia would have to be taking some of that money because you know how we move. Yeah. We didn’t wait all this time for Jean Carlos Stan to to basically gaslight the Yankees fans that we can’t go get Machado, we can’t go get all these players because we’re paying a DH, we’re paying a right fielder all this money. Well, it doesn’t really make sense to bring in a player who’s going to be paid for the next six to seven seasons. at $25 million. It It doesn’t make sense. Go get a player that’s in his prime. And if you’re going to spend that type of money, $25 plus million on a player on an outfielder/firstman DH, Kyle Tucker’s on the free agency list. Won’t cost you a single prospect. It’ll just simply cost you money. And he’s 28. Yeah, that would that would be your answer. So, Ninja, we really appreciate it. and Jersey girl with the two. Was this tonight? Was this super chat tonight? Yeah, it was. So, Jersey girl, thank you for the two. Says, “Thoughts on impending lockout?” SC pros, cons? What’s SC? I’m trying to think what would SC be. It’s a good question. Could you drop in the comment section what SC would be? Obviously, we’d really appreciate it. I’m sure it’s something very obvious, but I’ll talk about the lockout. The lockout is interesting because what’s happening here is there are major markets that are relishing and enjoying the business model of the fact that there is no salary cap. We’re going to use that to our advantage, that fact. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Toronto Blue Jays, right? we’re going to make x amount of dollars and we’re going to reallocate those funds back into the roster. I don’t call it buying championships. I call it investing in your product. That’s what I call it. And they go out and they say, “Yes, we’re spending more money, which means there’s just like a big budget movie. We’re going to spend more money upfront. It’s a bigger risk clear. I mean, I guess you can call it that, right? You spend $100 million to bring Tom Cruz in to do Top Gun Maverick. Is it that big of an investment to give an actor $100 million when you know the movie is going to sell a billion dollars in revenue in the next couple weeks? Probably not. That’s what the Dodgers do. It’s essentially Top Gun Maverick in baseball form. We, on the other hand, are saying we’re going to budget a $50 million movie and we’re comfortable. We’re essentially the fast five, fast six, fast seven, fast eight. We are that franchise. Oh, I hate that franchise. There you go. We are the Fast and Furious franchise in we technically bring in great revenue. I mean, I’m sure a lot of you saw it. I have the tweet right here. Yes Network tweeted. I can’t believe how tonedeaf it was. They talked about Yankees on Yes. total audience delivery up and yearover-year. How brilliant. They mentioned that our audience is up 5%. Yes Games 49% up. Stream viewership up 91%. All these things are up. Yes network gained 127,000 followers on Twitter and all social media platforms. Well, how brilliant. Didn’t spend a single extra dollar. It’s weird. That’s so that’s what I’m sickening. Remember we talked about Yes. operates as like a different entity than the Yankees. Like the Yankees don’t even own them. It’s some like weird I think Amazon owns the majority of them. I don’t Is that what it is? Yeah. Uh I’m gonna bring it up again. Who owns the lockout network? How star is intent on spending x amount of dollars in complaining that the Dodgers are something different than what he is. Right. So my thoughts on the lockout, I want to set in stone there will be no salary cap. I want a salary floor. That’s the that’s this is an opportunity really for baseball to establish we’re not changing the rules so people like house diameter or owners much cheaper than even he is they shouldn’t survive in this climate. We should demand as those ratings, the the percentages continue to pile up and people continue to pile up and listen to our podcast, other Yankees podcast team, other teams as audiences continue to grow and revenue continues to grow, especially with the gambling space. You guys need to be spending more money in its own right as well. So, don’t just make our money come in, your money needs to follow that as well. So, I have the official here salary cap. Okay. Everything here. Okay. Mhm. Yankees Global Enterprise, which is the Yankees, 26%. So, they are the majority shareholder, but the fact that they only own 26% of Yes Network is insane. Amazon owns 15. Main Street Sports Group owns 20. Redbird Capital owns 13. So does Blackstone Group. And then Mabadala Investment Company owns 13%. So that is the distribution. Um it was majority owned by 21st Century Fox and then Disney and then the Yankees exercise the right of first refusal to reacquire control of the network in 2019. And they did that using Sinclair, the main street sports group, Amazon and other investment firms. So it sounds like it looks like Amazon actually. Like the fonts, everything looks like it’s on Amazon, right? They do the Amazon Prime games. Yeah. So yeah, it’s very interesting. Uh there um but yeah, now now that is all out there. I figured I thought we talked about before. I will say the lockout, as you’ve said, should be more the reason to go after, you know, a ter because you’re more likely to have some flexibility here where it’s like he’s trying to get paid before the lockout. And by the way, this brings me to a point that I wanted to make. We’ll probably do a bigger video on this and break it down. I 100 billion% believe that the Yankees should extend the qualifying offer to Trent Gisham because I don’t think he’s going to take it. Well, no, of course he’s not. He But there’s still people that think they’re going to extend it cuz they’re like, “Well, no, but I mean, we’re not very smart.” So, I’m not surprised that we would be worried about losing a pick. That doesn’t surprise me. But you really think Trent Gisham played five straight baseball seasons? five straight of really quality defensive baseball, lackluster offensively. He sits on the bench for the entirety of 2024 as an afterthought of the trade for Juan Sodto and we send Michael King and no one’s thinking about him. Alex Verdugo played the whole year in front of him. Yankees didn’t even look his way. Tren Gisham, nah, he’s he’s he’s dep on our bench. Okay. The following year he before the season starts Aaron Boon says we’re going to give him some burn. We really believe in this player. He goes out and has a career year that’s not even good to Trent Gisham standard standards. It was electric for anyone’s standards. If he did that every time he’d be I mean he’d be worth $250 million. But the reality is Trent Gisham, there’s no possible way. He played the way he just played and how it went prior to that for years on end and he’s going to accept a one-year prove it deal in 2026. No, he’s not. He if I were Trent Gersham, as much as I love the Yankees and as much as you love the Yankees, Jake, if we were in his shoes, you’re a fool to take a one-year deal. Wherever you can get your money on a long-term contract, the way he’s played his career and how you just showed up and started playing well, the last year of your deal, you take that four, fiveyear contract. I think the projection was 85 million roughly there. Sounds about right. It’s a Aaron Hicksesque contract. I’m taking that money. If I’m the Yankees, you have a lockout next year. Gisham would be a fool to accept it. And you know what? If it burns you, then I guess it burns you. But I offer that qualifying offer and see where that goes. Do you remember I don’t know if you ever had this as a kid, but in school they did the marshmallow test. You ever you ever do that? The marshmallow test. Yes. What’s the marshmallow test? You’ll have to do it with Antella, too. This is kind of funny. So, okay. The marshmallow test, right, is the idea that you give a young kid a marshmallow, right, to eat. Okay. If the kid eats it right away, kid doesn’t get another marshmallow. But if they wait, they’ll get more than one marshmallow, right? So, you see what I’m getting at? It’s like you could get more if you wait, but instead you want it now, so you’re only getting one. And that’s how I kind of So, yeah, you should try that with Antella. But the point being is my daughter’s 15 months old. That marshmallow would be gone. She’d probably rip it out of my hand. That’s what she would do. But the whole point is that yeah, it’s about like testing patience and there’s there’s other stuff to it, but Trent Gisham would be essentially taking that marshmallow and making a mistake by signing a one-year deal worth $22 million on the qualifying offer. And I just simply don’t believe that any Think about this, right? Um, I don’t think any agent worth his salt would even allow him to take that deal. Well, maybe Ronald Akuna Jr.’s agent. Yeah. By the way, the Yankees could offer him a one-year deal for 20 million, let’s say, right? Qualifying offer, whatever it is, and he could end up getting $15 million a year. So, a $5 million pay cut stretched out over the next five seasons. at that deal for 15 million a year for the next 5 years is massively better than a one-year deal at 20 million. It’s guaranted. $20 million. Yeah. $20 million. Yeah. All the money is guaranteed. $20 million is a lot of money. It is. But you know what’s a lot more than that? Having a guarantee of making 15 for the next four to five seasons. Way better. Way better. So that’s my expectation for Trent Gisham. I’m obviously proud of how he played because I want these guys to make as much money as possible. I just do. Oh, I I didn’t even realize it. I I totally forgot like the point of it like at the end it was debunked. It turns out the kid kids who are food insecure eat the marshmallow and they tend to become poor adults. It doesn’t hold when you track for income. Well, Sam on YouTube has gone deep into this. I I didn’t even know that was the case, but this is why we love our show and our community so much because oh my god, we’ll be talking about marshmallow theories and god knows what. Um that’s our show in a nutshell. We appreciate you. Uh Jaden, oh I was going to bring him up too. Thoughts on Tatsuya Imi or Imi from the Nippon uh baseball league? Um all right. So, I am all about Scooble before anything. Mhm. But I would definitely be interested in Emi. Uh mainly because that whip has gone way down. He’s consistent pounding the strike zone. He’s got a really compact motion. I remember telling you that. It doesn’t look like your stereotypical Japanese pitcher motion. Um you know, he throws hard. He’s got um well I might be bo I might be confusing him with another guy but anyway for the most part the statistical output is there the strikeouts are there but the controls there. Remember I was saying oh yeah he had 45 walks in like 160 plus innings and then you brought and you’re like how many walks did Luis Seal have and like 38 and like whatever. So, do you know what baseball reference has him listed at, by the way? And I’m not telling you guys this is a necessarily a problem, but it is at least something to discuss. Yeah, we talked about Yamamoto in his build, right? He’s under six foot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He’s really, really small. He He They have him listed at 5’11, a buck 54. He can practically jump on a horse. So, I’m not telling you anyone here that he can’t work out because of his size. 27 years old, he obviously still can grow into his body. He can put on weight. It’s not a problem for Yamamoto. It certainly wasn’t in 2025. Yeah. So, and it was a question mark for Yamamoto. How’s this fast ball going to hold up? How’s he going to look after 200 innings? How’s he going to look in a fiveman rotation? What will that look like? He was just fine. So, and those are question marks. I like pitchers and I put a a priority on pitchers that put the ball in the strike zone that aren’t just hunting strikeouts and that’s not what he does. So again, I’m not going to pretend that I have the deepest scouting report. Obviously, we’ll do more research on it and do a much longer video on all the players from Japan and how their fit would look with the Yankees. I think that video um it’d be fun for us, Jake. So, we’ll definitely do that. Japan. So, I I want to go to Japan. I love Japan and I love uh Japanese players, you know, the free agents. I wanted Yamamoto. I I wanted Jung Hu Lee. I wanted Kim last year. Saw in the comments people were like, “The Yankees were never getting Yamamoto.” I’m like, “You’re right. They were never getting a player they got outbid $80 million for.” So, you’re you’re absolutely right. He was never going to be a Yankee unless he was just dying to be Yeah. a Yankee and just wanted to take a massive pay cut. Apex with the two. Thank you, Apex. We really appreciate that. Says Jones is another 2025 Yankee worth trading. So Jake, I already know I feel like I can answer this for you. You feel like he’s not necessarily a 2025 Yankee because he’s a good defender. He has speed, but he also has the power and you can see it projecting and improving kind of like skills got better last year before the back issue. And I I don’t think people talk about that nearly enough. Yeah, which is perfectly valid and you may be right. My perspective on it is that yes, for me personally, if I’m running the New York Yankees, given how Spencer Jones played in 2025, how it looked, I’m not concerned about the back injury or how it depletes his value. I’m going out there and shopping at the I’m not just trading Jones for the simple fact of getting him off our roster. I’m shopping at the top of the market and dangling Spencer Jones. And if I can land something at the top of the market that fits this roster, I’m doing it in a hurry because of what he does well and also what his weaknesses are. And I don’t think it helps our team to the degree that I want it to. I want a contact first guy as our main prospects or players that are going to start playing next year. So yeah, I’m not telling you that he sucks and to trade him. I’m telling you that he doesn’t fit well and that’s why I would trade him and go get something that fits perfectly. Yeah, I mean I think that’s fair. Um, I’m not taking a strong stance either way because like I’ve gotten to the point where it’s just like I don’t think it’s as simple as Spencer Jones and then, you know, Jason Dominguez. Like I I don’t think it’s as simple as that. There are so many different ways that you can reinvent this Yankees team. I just don’t want to see them do the same thing over and over and over again. And it’s like you said with the infield, like that’s why the infield is such a big thing. I’m not worried about the Owfield because they have so much flexibility. If they do choose to move on from Spencer Jones this off season before he even gets a chance to play, if they do ch, you know, they they do by chance end up trading away Jason Dominguez, well then I would imagine that Kyle Tucker’s in the outfield in some capacity or it’s Cody Bellinger and somebody else and Steven Quan is out there. That’s my point. I feel like we should be happy either way if we win lose situation in the outfield. That’s kind of what I’m gathering. Okay. So, no, I I mean, I can see I would say there’s there’s probably more risk in us going young just because we don’t know what they are, but it can work. Oh, by the way, we have a new member. So, hey, we appreciate you. Welcome in, man. Thank you. Second deck. Welcome in. We really appreciate all of our memberships. Thank you for being here. We’re going to get to your super chat here in just a second. Obviously, if I can find where the hell we are. Is it okay? So, Tate with the five. So, thank you for the super and supporting the show. Says, “Are we grasping at Straw as Yankees fans? Uh, do we think an organizational change can happen or will we have the same complaints in 15 years?” Now, um, to answer your question, and I’m not trying to be funny here at all. Yes, we are. We are grasping at straws. There aren’t going to be any major changes. There’s going to be minor tweaks. And based on what we’ve heard out of the mouths of Yankees leadership, we’ll just aim at that. They believe that the regular season is who they are in October isn’t necessarily a reflection of their hard work and their preparation and really the winners that have won over the top of their head. It’s not an indictment on them. It’s not what they’re doing is not working. It’s just luck hasn’t bounced our way. So when you hear these things out of their mouths, just know change is not coming. So yes, we are grasping at straws. Yankees fans care about their team arguably more than any other fan base in the world. But what comes with caring is wanting change. Wanting change when things don’t work over the long haul. So will it be this way in 15 years? I’m not sure. Probably not. But I feel like if I told you we hadn’t won a World Series in 16 years going on 17 years, people probably would have lost their job by now, and I guess you can argue Gerardi lost his job to Aaron Boone, but there hasn’t been much turnover in this organization other than third base coaches and hitting the hitting staff, right? Trainers rooms, there hasn’t been much turnover. So yeah, I feel Jake that we are in a way grasping at straws that never there’ll never be um they won’t resituate anything. It doesn’t seem No, I I kind of agree with you there. I mean, Hal’s 55 years old, right? So it’s not like he’s going to get so old to the point where he’s given away the team. Howal? No, he isn’t. He is. No. No, he is not. No, you’re Hal is younger. No, he is not. Yes, he is. No, he is not. Hold on one second. Yep. No, I think Gary just died a little inside. He’s 55. Yep. I feel like this is like a Cowboys fan finding out that Jerry Jones is really like 61. He’s So he’s what? A few months uh younger than my dad. Oh, yep. Oh, I thought Howal was at least 64. Look at at least 64. Guy was like, he’s 70. Come on. Wow. We’re doing I had no idea. I I I promise you I didn’t. This is not some bit. I genuinely thought he was at least I I probably would have said he was in his early 60s. Yeah. 63 62 I would have said. With all due respect, how his brother listen when he passed. Wow. So yeah, it’s a bummer. It it is. Um yeah, it’s it’s crazy. I mean, George lived to be 80. So dudes Benjamin Button. Yeah. 55. Wow. Yeah. Well, he doesn’t look like a day past 72. So, but Tate, thank you for becoming a member. We really appreciate the super and you supporting the channel. So, thank you for doing that. Yes. Apex with the two. Thank you. Says, “How does a strike salary floor cap affect deals?” So, here’s my expectation. My expectation is that if there’s going to be a salary cap, what’s most likely to happen is the team’s willing to go 10 plus years will diminish heavily. I think that’s what the owners really want here. I think that’s their end goal. When you look at teams like the Reds, you look at teams like the Pirates, I think what a lot of those owners would tell you behind the scenes is we would be willing to spend money, but we can’t acquire any major free agents because you’re required to go 12 13 years down the road. It’s too much risk for us. But if we could go five or six years and the market could start to drift that direction, we can maybe do that. That’s my expectation of how these salary cap and floors really impact free agency. Those 13-year deals, you saw it from Fernando Tatiz Jr., you saw it from Bryce Harper, 13 years. You saw 15 years for Juan Sodto. Kyle Tucker’s expected, he’s 28 years old. They’re expecting him to get a 10-year deal. 9 10 years. Those are long contracts. Long time. When they work out, you don’t really pay attention to it. You don’t really pay attention to mookie bets and how long his deal really is with the Dodgers, but when they’re not going well and they’re Anthony Rendone, those deals look like a long time. They look like a long time. So, that’s my expectation. Jake, what do you think the effect will be? Yeah. I I mean, I think it’s really going to put a a damper on some of these deals. Um, I also my issue with this salary cap, like you know, cuz I I do think that they’re going after like the teams spending and not the teams that aren’t spending, right? And I just I feel like it’s not going to help at all. I don’t think we’re going to see cuz this is like owners like Bob Nutting, who I always use as an example because he’s got all this money and doesn’t use it with the Pirates. And so I’m glad you said pirates. I was going to ask. I’m like, “Who the hell is that?” Hey, he he makes his appearance on Yankees Unloaded, I think, every single night. But, uh, I’ve talked about this dude, Bob Nutting. I’m looking up his net worth now. The the poor the poor guy. He’s worth 1.2 billion. Yeah. So, you think he worked at Sheba Hut? He The dude is just He’s point4 billion behind House Dime Runner. Oh wow. So like what are we doing? I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what to tell you either. I just It’s why I Yeah, Apex always pay poor guy. But yeah, I it’s I’m really not a fan of I I honestly hate salary caps in in general. Um like I I don’t even think there should be one in the NFL. I don’t because I think I’m tired of watching teams that are built the right way get penalized by the salary cap and I also think the compensatory picks are So if you lose the best player in the league, the best thing you can do is get a third round pick. How is that? So if I lost Patrick Mahomes, and obviously I know I can franchise tag anybody, right? And there’s a whole thing with that. But if I lost Patrick Mahomes, just normal without the franchise and all that, I would literally get a third round pick for Patrick Mahomes. Tell me how that helps me. It’s ridiculous. And also, baseball from a technical standpoint as far as who ends up winning the championship, the World Series, there’s more parody in baseball without a salary cap than there is in the NFL that there is in any of these sports. the NFL. I watch the Patriots win the Super Bowl a million times. I watch the Chiefs in the Super Bowl a million times. I watch the Eagles in the Super Bowl a million times. It happens all the time. There’s We don’t see as much repeat champions or repeat NFC AFC champions. We We don’t see that as much in this league. Obviously, the NBA is just decimated to the point where you never see a repeat anymore because it’s impossible to hang on the talent, right? An injury upends the whole season. Baseball is just fine the way that it is. The problem with baseball is that we see a player like honestly I think the biggest problem with baseball is you have a player like Paul Skins who plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates and he’s directly saying before the offseason before the offseason even had a chance to start. He’s like well hopefully we end up spending some money on the offense he’s basically telling you we we don’t ever spend any money. I hope we do that this offseason. They probably won’t. So um Apex I love this question talking about deferred money. Genuinely, I think deferred money shouldn’t exist at all in any way, shape, or form. I I’m I respect what the Dodgers have done because they didn’t cheat. The Yankees had any opportunity to go do the same thing with Garrick Cole, who says that he’s right. He was the biggest Yankees fan, Yankee fan for life. He could have deferred his contract to help out the New York Yankees easily, but using Clara. Yeah, I have no problem at all. By the way, with Garrick Cole taking his contract the the way that it traditionally would operate. Just divide the total contract by the years. And that’s how we got his deal. 36 million a year, add a year to the end of it. Okay. Traditional. The Dodgers didn’t honestly the Dodgers didn’t cheat the rules. They just they just really did the best thing that they could do at the time. So, what do you think about deferred money? I hate it. Um, one thing I will say, your Eagles do it. My Rams do it and did it. They I I they haven’t done it recently. They did it during the FM picks era. Deferred money in the NFL is void years, right? So, you tack on these years that essentially under contract, it’s just on the books. Like they just pay like five million, 7 million, whatever. Right. Right. and that can hurt your cap down the road. This is exactly why I hate it for baseball. There is no salary cap. You’re the Dodgers. You to me, you should have to spend your money. And the Dodgers do, but the I thought the deferred money was absolute I’m not even going to mince words on that. That was an issue of mine that I had. And that was only put in place for the small market teams that actually can’t compete with the Dodgers in a offer. So now nice though if I could spend money and then be like I’m giving you I go to Five Guys to get a cheeseburger and surprise you can do that and I swipe my card. I mean obviously we have credit cards so we we know that but the the catch with our credit card is if you don’t pay the money by a certain period of time and that short that period of time is very short. I mean you’ve got probably more than likely you’ve got less than three weeks to go pay that off. No, I’m saying they let CLA now you could do you can cla your five guys, right? But when do you have to pay for CLA? Yeah, but when but when do you have to pay Clara? Uh monthly. Exactly. So you have 30 days. The Dodgers don’t have to pay this for 10 years. Yeah. And that’s why I think it’s a huge issue. Oh, I’d be eating out every single day. All day every day. Three times a day. If they were like, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be there 10 years from now. I’ll be like, you know what? This is probably not smart for me to do this, but I’m going to go ahead and I’ll go to Panda Express for breakfast. I’ll see oils just running just running rampant on your insides. Imagine if they allowed everyday Americans to defer their purchases. Not credit cards where you’re charging interest and there’s there’s kick there’s things that kick you later. But if people could simply swipe their card and we’ll take it from you 10 years from now, how would people be living? All those people you see at Disney World, which by the way, the parks are packed. Packed. It’s because of credit card debt, right? That’s why everybody’s there. Let those people kick that credit card debt a decade from now. Disney World would be so out the door, you guys wouldn’t even be able to see the entrance. That’s what the Dodgers have just done. They move moved the money and I think it charged them $40 million a year. I think that’s technically what it is on the cap as far as their books go, but they’re really giving him $2 million a year. It’s crazy. Bobby Bonia still collecting checks. Yeah, for the deferred. Yeah, deferred money. I hate it. So, that’s just my take. And then Alex dose x93. Yeah, we’re going to need you to switch to Alex, please. Because that’s so brutal. That I I hate that they did that. If we didn’t know Alex, we would have no idea who that was. And obviously, we know the picture. So, Alex, he says, “My dad must have swapped marshmallows with McDonald’s.” Yeah, McDonald’s used to be good, just not just not so much anymore. Dodgers proved money spent increases luck percentage. Yeah, it’s uh you know, in a in a lot of ways, it’s like straight out of one of those RPG games. It’s like, oh yeah, the more assets you put into it because they they’re they’re just they’re getting those experience points and every single time they have to do something, they’re just like ll it’s just, you know, could you imagine going to just going to Vegas on a bachelor trip with Brian Cman? He would be just surveilling the entire floor and just probably ask the staff and be like, “Which game?” He’d end up at blackjack. He’d be like, “All right, sir. You’ve got 50/50 odds.” He’d be like, he’d probably sit there all night. He No, no, no. And then, dude, can you imagine the buffets? Cuz there’s like a million buffets. He’d be like, I don’t Well, we could go to this buffet, but no. You know, that buffet wants this and that and we’re just not going to give him that. So, he would be a nightmare when it comes to anything luck oriented. There’s nothing luck related. I actually saw that on Twitter today and this will be the last thing we’ll say. We’ll get to our voicemails from our diamond levels. So, we really appreciate those. Um, honestly, there were people saying the the Blue Jays are on a magical run. That’s what they said. I’m glad I remembered it. A magical run. I said there’s nothing magical about what the Blue Jays are doing. Nothing. If we restarted the postseason, the same teams would be through. Yeah. What What are you posting right now? I don’t even know. Oh, you didn’t you didn’t mean to put that up there. Well, no. I was getting ready for the voicemails, but I didn’t want to Oh, I I see I see what you’re saying. I mean, that is that is our page. So, if you want to go and subscribe, you should go and subscribe. Yeah, it would be crazy. If you’re here after an hour and a half and you haven’t subscribed, but yes, please subscribe. Please like the video. Helps us out a ton. Obviously, dropping comments helps. Not in the live. I mean, we would love that, but post show. Um, people were saying that the Blue Jays were on a magical run. I said there’s nothing magical about it. They have the best offense against good pitching in baseball. That’s who the Blue Jays are. And they have really good young pitching. I know Max, you know, Max um Sherzer, they’ve got some veterans there, but Trey Yavage and what they’ve got over there. Um Kevin Gausman, there’s no surprise. They are where they are because they’re the best team in the AL. That’s what I said that they were. I actually said it was going to be them and Seattle. I think I said Seattle was going to go to the World Series, but um I thought their pitching would get them through, but no, Toronto went out there. Seattle and Philly. And I was close on Seattle. Seattle probably should have won the series. You’re up. You’ve got two games remaining to clinch. And it what a brutal brutal way to go home. But hard-fought series. The Jays earned it and now they’re up 1 over the Dodgers. So, we’ll see what they do. We’ll see if the the luck of the Dodgers improves over the course of the series. Yeah, the the Yankees Brewers uh pick was kind of bad. Um anyway, I’m out on the Brewers forever. I’ll never pick them again. I don’t trust them. That’s fair. That they fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Uh, yeah. I No, never again. Pick, but Freddy Peralta might be a Yankee. Who knows? Yeah, maybe. Um, do we have any scrolls? How many voicemails? You said we had three, right? We got three, but one of them is a scroll. Uh, is it the first one? It’s so long that transcription is not available. Oh my god. Who Who is it? Is this Chris? It’s Guy. Oh, it’s Guy. Oh, Guy. Let it fly. Hey, Jake, Gary, and everyone. Uh, not sure this will turn out to be a top five prospects, but I want to let you know who I like. Um, first of all, there’s no brainers for me is for the Yankees, the exercise Tim Mills options option. And agree for like $3 million, right? And on that Rosario, you have to bring him back. This guy is just perfect for the Yankees. I mean, agree. Yeah. And if Stephen Quan’s available, we have to get him. We can’t let the Dodgers win. We always seem to get the second best players. So, go after the guys that are going to win you championships. The Yankees also can’t afford to let the youth play. Um, we want to win a championship with Aaron Judge, the last pioneers. You can’t have Wells, Dominguez, Jones, Luli, and even Ryan McMahon, who was a mistake trade playing. We have with these prospects, we need to make some trades. I mean, these guys will not win a championship. So, I’ll start with my number one, uh, Ter Scoo. You want to contend with the J Dodgers, uh, you have to go out and get this guy. And if you get him, get him first before anything else. uh totally you know you mean business and don’t stop there. I mean guys I would move for him would be Spencer Jones and then add in either Warren or Heel. Jones has a lot of upside of course but he also has a low floor and Jake I don’t quite trust him yet. Um but if we can signal it’s all worth it either way. Uh if they don’t want Jones they want Lombard Jr. because they need a shortstop, then you’d probably throw in another prospect mid-tier. Um, my number two, I wanted him for two years, is Brandon Dunovan. This guy’s versatility, stands out. Great contact hitter, great approach to the plate, and he has two years of arbita arbitration life. He can play infield or outfield. So, if we move on from Jones, and especially if we miss out on signing Bellinger, this is our guy. Um, I hear all this stuff about Bryce Harper and Josh Naylor. Well, uh, if that’s the case, then Wells has to be traded for a little pitching and a good team to be trading with would be Philadelphia because we have to put Rice at catcher and we’re really going to need a good mentor for him like JT Rumoto and we could probably sign him for a couple years. So, the Yankees have a lot to think about and a lot of different ways to go. don’t want Alonzo Miraami. A lot of hot news on Okanata, but everybody’s going to be after this guy uh for his qualities that he brings to the table. He’s a little older. All right, I just got to add a couple pictures. I would really like Pete Fairbanks because he K’s he has a K per in somewhere and I don’t see Oh. We we ran out of time, but we heard Pete Fairbanks. That was uh that was fantastic, guy. Every I think every single player that you mentioned, I don’t know if it was for a reason or not, but Gary and I I think mentioned and I I agree with pretty much everything you said. Um I would probably trade Lombard Jr. over Jones. I I would probably do that because I think that’s what the Tigers would want. Um, and the reason, the main reason is I would like to minimize how much I’m giving up in the Scooble deal and then use what I don’t give up in the Scooble deal for the Quan deal because I would do them both. So, that’s the thing. I’d be trying to play I’d be playing the margins to start, you know, that’s how it works. And then I would be I would already be ready to give up a lot to go after Scooble cuz I think he needs to be the top priority without a shadow of a doubt. Yeah, I really like Guy’s point which I know you liked as well, but it doesn’t end with who you want to see through with this organization which is Spencer Jones. And I also like just to preface this, I would love to see what Spencer Jones could do for the Yankees. I would love that. But in my opinion, this is similar to the Ryan McMahon situation. The Yankees haven’t done prior enough to allow a prospect the leeway and time it would take to develop a player and become a player that’s good enough to contend for a World Series. to make a rookie the difference maker or something that puts you over the top. The X factor to go win is so unlikely. It’s absurd. Unless they’re on the mound, it’s very difficult for a rookie position player to go out there and put you over the top. You just rarely see it. Now, having said that, if Spencer Jones takes three years to become an all-star, that’s awesome for the Yankees. It’s really good for House Diamond. It’s the cheapest way to go forward. It’s It’s actually good. You developed a player. But three years from now, Aaron Judge is How old will Aaron Judge be? Well, he’ll be 36 now. He’ll be 36 37 36 37 years old. He won’t be in his prime. He 37 years old. I know George Springer is having a nice um Right. He’s having a great postseason at that age. But how does it age for a 6’7 player? Is he a full-time DH at 6 foot7 at that age? We don’t know the answers to these questions. But what we do know is that Spencer Jones, basically what you would be saying as a win now franchise, he would have to show up, he and Jason Dominguez, and be key contributors right off the rip. No developmental time, no six months and oh, he’s improved like Ben Rice, right? Ben Rice was pretty mediocre in 2024. He really fell off a cliff. Then he started to change the game in 2025. We don’t even have that much time. We don’t. So that’s the catch with Spencer Jones. It’s the catch with George Lombard Jr. It’s always the talk about the future, but I think the Yankees and Brian Kman obviously mainly it’s his damn job. You need to worry about the now. I think we do that less than maybe any other team in baseball. We don’t worry about the now nearly as much as we should. And we’re for some reason always worried about two years from now, 3 years from now. Where are the Yankees going to be then? And I think that’s how you end up where we’ve ended up. Always looking at the big free agent and saying we don’t necessarily need him because Scoo is a free agent the next year, right? You can always look down the down the road. The Dodgers don’t look down the road. The Jays don’t look down the road. They offered Otani 700 million. They offered Soda over 500 million. They offer all the players, right? They offered Trey Turner over $300 million. the teams that are winning right now are focused on the now. So, I’m giving them all the credit in the world. I think the Yankees need to start moving like that. So, Guy, love the voicemail. Thank you. Yeah. No, that was great, Guy. We really do appreciate that. Um, Ninja Hot dog has two. One’s 8 seconds, so we’ll let it slide. Hi, I am leaving this right now because I have no time for food otherwise. It’s my dog’s birthday this How about that? Ninja hot dog birthday. Let’s go. Love the dog. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Hello. I don’t know if you’re gonna listen to both last week’s voicemail about my dog’s birthday. We did. This week today, but I’m still anyways. Um, today is game one of the World Series and we have the Toronto Blue Jays playing against you. We’ll call them the Japanese Dodgers. Um, especially when they sign those two new Japanese guys. We now have Scott Boris the client. And don’t worry, guys. They’re going to get them. Not on deferred contracts, though. Boris probably doesn’t do deferred contracts. But either way, let’s see how it goes. I’m going to be rooting for the Blue Jays because I’ve been to Toronto before, never been to Japan. And also, you can’t I just can’t have it in me to root for the evil empire of the Dodgers. But let’s see how it goes. People keep saying that if the Dodgers win, there may be talks about a salary cap. All I want to say is that there should not be salary caps. I think with all the inflation going around, players should be getting what they’re worth and Show Otani should be making what he’s worth. At least after the deferred contract, Sodto should not be making what he’s worth. He’s still not worth $765 million and the suite and all that other crap. But I digress. Let’s see how it goes. Hopefully the Yankees will start making some moves cuz so far nothing’s been going on but winter meetings haven’t started. So whatever. So let’s see. Fire Baboon. Well, appreciate you, Ninja. If the Jays do win, it would be a major thorn, I think, in Hal’s side because Hal’s waiting for the Dodgers to win three in a row so that owners can rally together and take down the big bad Dodgers. Not by beating them with a better baseball team or spending more money, but by creating rules to make it more difficult to move the way that they move rather than just asking the other owners who also have a lot of money to start moving more like the Dodgers or moving more like the Toronto Blue Jays. So, the Toronto Blue Jays winning, which by the way, the Jays spend just as much as the Yankees. And they don’t make nearly as much money. Not even close. And um I like that. I love that that that’s the case. So, I I’m rooting for a good World Series. I would probably say, who am I rooting for here? It sucks to root for a team in division. I hate that. I really don’t like it at all. But the Toronto Blue Jays winning would be a a good story for baseball. Obviously, there’s an entire country rooting for one team. Sure, that they would love it, but I’m obviously focused on what we do this off seasonason. I mean, it’s it’s all I can think about. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really care. Like, truthfully, I don’t care about There’s no win for us. Yeah, I’m not I’m not into it at all. I do not care. Um, but yeah, the Japanese Dodgers. How about that? Uh, let’s see. Last one here. We got Buzz Lightyear. Kyle Malay. Kyle Malay. Hey guys, Kyle Malay here. Billy May here. A home run. Oh, sorry. I’m watching the game. Um, I think the Yankees should go after um Parker tradem. Okay, sorry that was like real time, but um yeah, let’s let’s go get Bryce Harper, sign Bob Bashette, um and trade for school. That’s what I think the Yankees off season should be. And yeah, let’s all have a good night and hopefully they’re I’m actually rooting for the Dodgers. I can’t stand the freaking Toronto Blue Jays. But um let’s all have a good night and let’s hope that um we have a good off season and go Yankees. Did you hear it? Yes. The the fans by the way in Toronto were absolutely out of their minds tonight in a good way for them. They were first of all they were on their feet the whole game losing their minds which I understand. They haven’t been to the World Series in a long time. I think it was 30 years. So, deservingly so. They earned it. But yeah, guy, I agree. I I would definitely take B on this team. I know people are talking about defense. Beggars can’t be choosers. If there was a shorts up out there who could hit and be a premier glove, well, they’d be Bobby Whit Jr., most of these players have major flaws. Pete Alonzo is a power hitter. He strikes out a lot. Bryce Harper, he’s injury riddled, right? He’s on a down year. He’s a more of a power bat. There’s pros and cons to all these players. I’m willing to take the pros of Bo Bashette, obviously, who’s healthy enough to play in game one. So, made an impact. But Jake, did we have anything else we wanted to touch on? I think that’s it because we’re going to have to try and figure out what to talk about next week. So, I don’t want to It’s going to be Yeah, you don’t you don’t want to squander the opportunity. I don’t know how we go an hour and 45 minutes. I really don’t. Obviously, it’s our audience. So, thank you guys for participating. We really appreciate you guys. And um yeah, obviously a bummer earlier learning that House Star, with all due respect to him. I mean, I don’t want him to perish, but the fact that he was 55 years old was was a little disappointing because I thought if he was maybe, I don’t know, if he was 64, maybe he’d pass the team to somebody else who maybe likes baseball, who or at least would show that they like baseball and every once in a while spend a little bit more money than you’re used to spending. But guess I’m I’m going to be waiting a while. At least till I’m 50. Yeah. So, I think next time we’ll definitely do more of a deep dive into the Japanese pitchers. We have a fun little video that’s coming out Monday or Tuesday. Haven’t figured out when uh we did on Paul Ski’s uh you know, kind of like a projected trade package and kind of talking about that. Um, now we know it’s probably unlikely to happen, but what time would you really ever make a video like that? It would be during the offseason. So, yeah. And then we got the deadest time of the entire year. Uh, I mean, there literally is not more of a dead time than November. It’s the calm before the storm. So, we’re going to get through it, y’all. It’s going to be tough, but we’re going to be talking about Twitter in November, probably. Like, there’s there’s literally going to be Twitter rumors. Yeah, there’s going to be just Twitter rumors. Reddit. Well, Reddit is saying this. It’s like, oh man. Yeah. Some goon on Reddit had,00 up votes to trade for such and such. That that’s what the show will be. Obviously, if you guys want us to make a video and you can put in our comments what you would like us to make a video on and we’d be more than happy to do that and obviously we want the time to be able to do the necessary research. We did that on Paul Sche. So hopefully you guys enjoy that video. Make sure you guys subscribe to Yankees Unloaded if you haven’t yet. And make sure before you guys go to like the video, Jake, anything else? Oh, something to put in the comment section. Marshmallow. Yeah, marshmallow. All right. Well, you can drop you can drop marshmallow in the comment section if you stuck around for an hour and 47. Like the video. Like it.

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