Aaron Boone Reveals One Player Who Will Have a BIG Year | 883

Today is March 26th, and it's a special episode of Talkin' Yanks, our first weekly exclusive conversation with Aaron. Hello and welcome to a Sunday edition of Talkin' Yanks, episode number 883. My name is Jimmy, his name is Jake, brought to you by SeatGeek. Jake, how are you doing? James, Zach, DVD on the road. I'm doing well as we approach opening week, which isn't a term really used in baseball. They really harp on the opening day thing. They could expand it. They could open it up. Opening week of baseball. Opening weekend, even. Weekend? You wanted to slow play it? Yeah, they're pretty firm on that opening day. And I'm jazzed up, man. I mean, we've done all of it at this point. We've done, you know, World Baseball Classic snuck up on us. Prospect Battles, Outfield, all of it. And I'm ready to go, man. I'm ready to see that lineup and maybe guest the lineup at some point. Yeah. Yeah, I am. So for everyone that has been with us over the years and knows the schedule during the season, the midweek episode, which last year was sharp stats, guest the lineup, whatever topics we wanted to discuss. That is now going to be our exclusive interview with Aaron Boone as well as sharp stats and sharp stats and then combo with Boone. And that's going to be the new midweek episode that will be released on mostly Tuesdays, except when the schedule gets a little funky. It might go go to Wednesday every now and then this episode is going to be just Boone. It's a little special one because we are kicking off the season. So is the interview brought to them by anyone? The Boone interview is brought to you by Vizio, Jim, the TVs. You got a couple. I got a couple. Vizio, they kind of changed the game. It was like a whole thing when we were in college. They want me to read so many other things about their 4K screens under 500 bucks. 120 FPS motion. You tell me more about that, Jim. Yeah, frames per second. That can keep up with Garrett's four seamer. I don't know who Garrett is, but stunning quantum color that brings City Connect uniforms to life. Vizio and baseball. All right. I know we got up like that. Vizio's latest sound bars and TV are award winning from some of the toughest tech reviewers. And Vizio has always from the start had MVP value. So head on over to Vizio dot com to check out how you can elevate your AV experience all season long. Whatever your budget or the size of your home, Vizio has you covered with the perfect TV and soundbar combo combo. That's Vizio dot com. We got a link in the description there, Bong. Hey, Jake, before we actually throw it to the interview, since we're just chilling and sitting around here waiting for him to come and maybe you can cut this if he wants. Are you excited to chat with Booney? I am. I am. I am. Do you have any pressing questions? Top of your head? Hot ones? Hot button issues? I mean, we've been talking about two of them for about three months now. Oberandi, the amount of innies versus outies. How many outies? How many outies in those showers? Shower etiquette. Is there a coach time and a player time? Separate shower, right? No, Jim, I think you know me well enough that I'm I kind of build it up to break it down as much as I can. That I'm excited for us to become entrenched with Boone. So then I can get to the real stuff. OK, you know, I'm I'm going to eat my way in like a mouse eating cheese. And then, you know, one one week I'm going to punch him with the like, what was the time you felt hollow? And then we'll be like, whoa, all right, we're talking yanks. I don't think he is so hollow. Hey, Greg, what about you? I am excited. There's a lot of like obviously there's the pressing issues at hand, which I don't know if we're going to get any more info than anyone else that asks those questions. So there's also some other lines of questioning that I want to talk about. Just more like general strategy stuff going into the season. You know, rest days. Does Rizzo ever get a red light? And maybe should he running, running? You got to specify that because I think that's a it's an important detail on the base paths. Yeah, you should. You know, because I was calling for when you first you first texted me that I was like, oh, Rizzo's pretty good adult hitter. Like, I think he can. I think no, no, no. Remember, I was calling for an intervention on his stealing. Right. But I think for most players. Yeah, that's what the stick, not the legs. Yes. So, yeah. And then I think he's going to break loose on this episode. Here it goes. All right. We are joined by a new friend of the family or we're a new friend of his. I don't know. I don't know all the details, but we figured him out. And now we're talking every week about it. Aaron Boone, Yankees manager. How are you doing, Skip? I'm doing well. It's good to be on with you guys. Looking forward to chopping it up with you this year and a couple of months in the works. And we're finally we're finally a go. So excited to kick it off with you guys today. Yeah. A week from now, I think the season has started. You're either one or no one. And people are overreacting both ways. So I'm excited to get there. I did like the headline. Did you like the headline that you're becoming a podcaster and joining the company? You know what? Yeah, I did. Especially now that I'm 50, you know, it kind of hopefully keeps me a little more, you know, up with the times a little bit, a little bit hipper, a little cooler. You know, that's right. Have a belated birthday. It's a big one. Thank you. 50 with Pop. We saw you showing off for the boys. I mean, did a couple of the young kids have to find out? Was that their first time finding out or what? Hey, I had to find out. Yeah, that was coming. So I was a little nervous. But glad I was able to because I was talking a big game the day before. And then we get out there and I'm in with Judgey and Stanton. And we're playing the Red Sox. They're out there stretching right next. So it was it was a little bit of an audience, a little more than I anticipated. So glad I was able to run into one. They're probably still, you know, Pester and Cora. When are you going to get in there and pop one over the wall? And he's probably scared. So that's good stuff. I think they did. I think some of his guys, from what I heard, like turned around and looked at him like, hey, what do you got? He gave her one of these. It's a good move. I like that. All right. Well, yeah, we're honored to have you. We're excited about this. We're excited to dig into some kind of like, you know, the regular routine weekly conversations. And then some bigger baseball conversations. I just want to, you know, if I have your your ear and your thoughts, I want to ask about as kind of like holistic decision making or just what goes into this, what goes into that. So I think our audience is super excited. And then we are thrilled that you're using your first appearance on Talking Yanks to announce the opening day shortstop. Oh, no, but we're a couple couple more days for that. You know, we're getting we're getting real close to that decision. We think we have a good decision to make and looking forward to that announcement, but not quite yet today. Well, this airs on Sunday. So, you know, don't go making it on Saturday. And then and then we missed out. So, OK, I won't do it Saturday. Try and hold off till Sunday. Perfect. Now, as fans, this is kind of the least we've known about not opening day lineup, because I know that's one day, but kind of like the the positions throughout the week. I mean, with Bader injury, center field reps are going to. We don't know the breakdown there. I mean, it's really first base is all right. Six out of seven days. Rizzo's at first. That's all we know. Kind of like Donaldson. What? Two out of seven or three out of seven. I don't know. As fans is crazy frustrating. And in our heads, we get even more frustrated because we're like, they know they just are waiting. Do you do you know more than us at this point? Like, obviously, have you figured out, like, the actual rotation of all these positions or and if you don't, is it frustrating for you? No. So, I mean, one of the things we're looking at here, these, you know, these last couple of weeks, but even moving forward a little bit is given ourselves as much flexibility as possible. I feel like I can put Aaron judge in center field, you know, and if I want to go that route until Bader's back, which we hope is, you know, two, three weeks into the season. So more of a short term thing. But I do feel like we're seeing enough from different guys that we can kind of piece it together and play a little bit of the matchup game. You know, obviously, we've been getting Izzy out there. Some Cabrera we've been putting out there in center and left and right. Obviously, he plays all over the place. So trying to see what exactly I'm comfortable with as far as rotating through center and left field kind of initially. I feel like Giancarlo is going to be very much in play from jump street in the outfield. Obviously, I'm not going to play him too much out there, but I do feel like, you know, a couple days a week from the jump will be in play for him. He looks really good. And then we'll just kind of, you know, rotate around a little bit our infielders. Obviously, we'll make our decision at shortstop. And then between second and third with J.D. and Glaber and D.J. and then obviously D.J. Spelling that, say, once a week for Rizzo at first base, maybe against the right lefty or whatever. We'll do that. So it's a little bit akin, although we're more healthy rolling into the season last year where we had the kind of nine guys for eight spots and we just kind of rotated. And it kind of worked really well because guys were playing all the time, but that one day off. So it'll be a little bit of that. But also without Bader, you know, there'll be a little bit more Daly probably mixing it up a little bit in center and left potentially when Giancarlo's not in the lineup. So you mentioned Big G there. And I think we were a little surprised because now we're kind of like six years that we've been fake fan beat reporters or whatever it is. And when the Giancarlo quote came out, I think 40, 50, 60, I think we were a little surprised because in previous years, I think you guys kind of didn't put something out there because you were just feeling out the situation. Is it something maybe you guys have learned in the past couple of years with G or is he looking better that you want to throw that out there or something else? Yeah. So, I mean, in 2019, he obviously got hurt. And then in 2020, he got hurt too. And after a great start to the season, so got a little bit gun shy there because he had missed the chunk of a couple of years and with COVID there. But so 21, we didn't do it very often, although I kind of always wanted to get him back out in the outfield because not only does it obviously open up some options for us and gives us more flexibility and it's better for us as a team, but I really maintain that it helps keep him healthy. I think there's something to being athletic and playing not all the time anymore, obviously, I can't run them out there every day. But, you know, there's a lot of the times when he's gone down, it's been, you know, like, like the injury he had in the second half of the season kind of happened in like third inning on a day he was DH and where he was underneath getting ready where he just kind of felt that thing. I feel like, you know, I've made the analogy that, you know, if you're a marathon runner or a weightlifter, you don't sit on the couch for two weeks and then go run the marathon or power lift the weights. You got to train. You got to do that. And I think him being out in the outfield periodically keeps him athletic. He likes doing it. He does it pretty well. And then it obviously serves us well as a team to give us some of that flexibility if I want to DH judge or I want to DH one of the infielders. So hopefully it's something that, you know, best case scenario, he stays healthy and we would get him out there 50, 60 times or two days a week, say, with an off day in there. So, and I've been really encouraged with how he's looked so far. He's had a really good spring. We talk about the rotation and all the positions and how, like, last year you guys did it a lot. I always look for to get inside your, the heads of the decision makers and your guys' heads like patterns. And my assumption is there's sometimes like strict rules. I, that could be way wrong on that. But as fans, you see people on Twitter or even some of the reporters, like, I think a rotation like this could work, you know, and they literally map out like 14 games. Do you guys have a big whiteboard where you have like the first two weeks of the season and you map it out? Or do you have rules? Like last year in April, JD didn't play third two games in a row for like two weeks. Is that happenstance or is that a rule that you guys say, Hey, we're not going to double them up at third base until we get to this part of the season? No. So I do treat April a little bit different because, you know, just if you, you know, look at the history of it, that's where, you know, a big chunk of injuries happen. Not just pitchers, but position players too, because all of a sudden you go from most of our guys will have played three in a row and have now played seven, eight innings. But you get into April, it's a little cooler. And now all of a sudden you're going to play in seven, eight, nine, 10 games potentially in a row in the month of April. You know, especially if, if you are even, you know, north of 30 years old, you know, that's something that I, I try to be mindful in the month of April where, you know, just going to be a little strategic and disciplined to, Hey, I'm given, you know, this guy a day, you know, for example, last year with, with judge, I think I gave him a day in the first seven or eight. And, and not that you love doing that, but I was also going to say, you know, I'm not going to have him play 10 in a row in April to start the season. I'm going to have a built-in off day. And, and, and when you have the position flexibility and you have the kind of musical chairs, open spots where you can rest guys, you can be a little strategic there in April. So I try to be strategic and say, okay, I know this fourth day we're facing this picture. This may be a good day to sit so-and-so and I can get him his day. So I try to be a little strategic, but the, but that said guys, the season's always throwing you curve balls or something happens within the course of the game that puts that in jeopardy or takes that away. So yeah, you try and plan as best you can, but usually the day throws you a wrinkle that you, you got to make adjustments and be, be able to make adjustments on the fly. Yeah. We already let our audience know last episode. We recorded April 8th. I have you sitting judge. It's an away series in Baltimore and it's after the Friday off day. You're a big fan of double rest days. Yeah. So you get them two off. So, you know, I think that's on your whiteboard already. So I already let everyone know. It is not, not on my board, but, but it's good. Research by you. And I would say that is a possibility. Well, we're going on the six of the home opener down there. So just don't do that. Baltimore. Yeah. Okay. All right. Six. Yeah. Six then. Yeah. The back end of the house. Yeah. And I, and I think it's, I think it's funny when, when you know, I'm, there's still days. I look like 14 years old, but 33 now big fan of the double off day. I think when we first started doing this, I was like, what, what are we doing? Who needs a double off day? And then I took a couple of double off days in my personal life. And man, that resets you. So I'm a fan of that. Is that something you learned? Like as a player, that's, we always wondered because you know, Girardi for a while, he didn't do that. But since you started managing, you kind of did the double off day, get them all, get them off two in a row. If they're, if there's not missed two games in a row, but sync it up with an off an off day. When, when, with a guy like Aaron, who's going to play, you know, if he's healthy, say, call it 150 games. And you know, he's going through the grind, or maybe he's dealing with something small at the time. That's not keeping them out of the lineup. Those are the times when maybe I'll pick those where I know, Hey, he's played seven in a row. I know he's a little banged up. He's not injured or hurt necessarily, but I know he's a little banged up. Those are the times where I, I go, all right, we've got that off day coming up. I'll pick the day before the day after and double up. And I do think it's something that can serve guys well. And it has with, with Aaron where I've done it from time to time the last couple of years. So for, you know, these final days of spring training, it's, it's, it's been funny. We've, you know, we try to keep the off season. There's topics that come up and then, you know, we probably had five episodes this off season that have been related to shortstop and left field. I guess when it comes to the final decisions getting made and, and, you know, we were half connected to the Yankees now, but when, when these decisions get made, whether it's some of the veteran guys that are in camp or tagging Calhoun and, and some, you know, obviously the young kids at shortstop, I guess for you, is, is it an equal part vote or is it, you know, you pitch in your two cents and then the front office runs with it or, or kind of how will the process go in the next couple of days? Yeah. So, you know, when it's come down to really the roster, especially shortstop, but even, even, even the outfield situation, we had a big meeting several days ago where, you know, it was kind of a larger meeting of coaches, support staff, player development side, front office members, scouts, like, like a pretty big room where it's like, okay. And we'll dive into a player or a position. And it's like, this is your chance to kind of, you know, state your case or, you know, pound the table as we like to say, or raise concerns. And, and, you know, Cash and I will kind of call on different people. If we have a question about something and hear people out, it gives people a voice. And then ultimately, you know, when it comes down to, you know, the final hours where we're making final calls on things, Cash and I will kind of get together on that and, and really hammer out whether it's the last bullpen slot, last spot on the bench, you know, shortstop, make our decision after kind of allowing people to be heard and, and kind of state their case for or against different things. I've heard you talk about how the opening day lineup is really just the opening day lineup, right? And, and even the first two weeks are just the first two weeks and that's not going to, it's usually not because of happenstance, the steady everyday positions, but we're coming off two seasons now where the shortstop had to move in the post season where all of a sudden the guy that got the most reps there isn't starting in the post season. So is there anything learning to prep for that? Like, I know opening day is just a day of a facility, but the playoffs is real. Like, and is there anything, Hey, even if this guy's going well, let's get this guy more reps or let's get a look earlier. So it doesn't become a headline when we're changing it. After the last two years of having the shortstop position kind of be Well, look, I think last year was a little bit unique in that we got in that situation where I felt like I needed to do something in the moment, you know, where I, I thought, you know, the noise, the pressure, you know, was, was getting in the way a little bit. So that's the decision you got to make in real time that, you know, you got to do some hard decisions there in, in, in the playoffs, but that's not something normally you're ever going to do. Like the season's going to tell you who should be playing in October. And usually you're pretty disciplined to that performance or not, you know, like, you know, baseball's game of failure and guys are going to have a great series or struggle. And, you know, the reason I made the move when I did last year was I felt like there was that added weight in there that was getting in the way. And that's why I made the move as opposed to, you know, best guy moving forward. Potentially. I just felt like there were some outside things kind of getting, getting in the mix a little bit. Yeah. Thank you. Stadium playoffs. It's a, it's a beast of a, an environment. So yeah, that makes sense. I, I wanted to ask you about another kind of since you became the manager, something that I've noticed, like the double off days, which we are in favor of, we were confused at first, but we're like, yeah, but I, it's more of the reliever philosophy that you guys have. And as far as usage and just the pattern of taking the guy out with two outs is if that's personnel or if that's doing the three batter minimum rule, what's guiding that. And then I don't even know if you realize or know, because like that you guys do that more than other teams. So since the rule got put into place, the Yankees have the second fewest relievers to start with bases empty in a clean inning in baseball. And last year, only four teams had more pitchers, pitching changes with two outs because some teams are circumnavigating that rule. Others aren't. So is that a philosophy? Is it personnel or is it? No, it's, it's, it's sometimes the makeup of our bullpen. That may be, I liked a particular matchup and what's coming even beyond that. So it's coincidental. The two out thing. I told the guys who made the rules, we had them on a podcast. I told them, you know, the Yankees are slower since your rule, they change every two hours now. So I, I'm advocating it for it to come out, but now it's coincidental. So I sound dumb on that podcast. Yeah. Well, I would say it's coincidental in that if I feel like, um, there's no like, like philosophy and like, okay, this guy's got the second out. Let's get them out and let's get this guy in for to only have to get one out. I'm I'm tree. I treat it more in a matchup way. You know, if I got Wandi in the game and I'm, we're going through a lefty kind of lane or whatever. And I got a low up behind them and he's gotten two outs. And I know that low is coming in in the next inning anyway. And I know we got a tough righty here. Then I'm going to go get low for example, to face that if I know I got him for, uh, an inning plus. So that's just where, where another team's lineup is. Who's in our pen on that particular night and what matchups we like. Is there any, is there any, uh, keeping track of that? Whereas you guys don't do three, three games in a row, three days in a row at the bullpen. Usually if a guy throws 30 pitches, he's not going to see two days games in a row up downs. Is there any tracking that where if a guy pitches sits pitches, there's no way to track it for fans. So I don't know if you guys keep track of that. We, we, we do try to track the up downs and there there's, there's like a couple of times that happened in the course of the year. That couple of times that happened last year where, you know, I felt like a guy was up a couple of days in a row and we didn't have to go to him or something. But that, that goes into taking that into account. And then you're always like the nuance things that happen throughout the course of the year is like, I would imagine as a fan, you see it as, well, this guy drew 15, he's good to go. Well, he may be a little banged up the next day. So it may be a like I'm kind of staying away from him based on he's not hurt or injured, but he wasn't quite right today. So it's like, then you kind of alter the plan a little bit. Yeah. We just need like a sneeze or a code in the post game presser. So then we, we know like, oh, okay. Won't, won't get on you about that. Nose is the indicator. We don't know. We don't know. So why didn't he go to him? So just, you know, so yeah. And then, you know, and then you, you, you know, you gotta, the reality is you gotta, you gotta find a way to use the eight guys to like, and obviously it's going to change. You're going to end up using whatever 10, 12, 15, 20 relievers over the course of the year, but it's hard to always go to the whip over the course of a season, or all of a sudden you have a reliever that's making 80 and 90 appearances. So you'll go through stretches where, you know, let's say we're really hot or like last year, we got off to such a great start and we're winning a ton of games. So you're in winning mode a lot. And I remember actually, let's let's not even go last year. Let's go 2021 where offensively we weren't as good and we weren't scoring as many runs. We were in dog fights every night. So it was like, we're in leverage games, 90% of the time. Like we never got blown out. We never really blew anyone out. And so we were in these games where it's like, here we go again. And it's like, that's when you've got to develop and lean on more than just your three, four, five main guys. You got to find a role and sometimes in a more significant way for those other three relievers to play a role. Otherwise you'll burn everyone out. And especially your, your high impact guys that you know, you're going to count on. Still. Yeah. I still remember Albert Abreu during that stretch. He became like a guy out of nowhere. Cause he had to be. And he, he put a couple of nice performances for you guys. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you one last one and I'll, I guess I'll see if you could dance around it. It just popped in my head. Last year, the story was at the end of spring training, didn't you, you gave Nestor like a pat on the butt and you were like, Hey, I think you're going to be an all-star this year. Do you, you got anything like that for a guy in the clubhouse that maybe, I don't know that, that we can invest a little in or we can brag to people about like what's, is there any comp to that? So that is a true story, by the way, it didn't happen at the end of the camp. It happened at the beginning. Okay. So I'm way out ahead of this. So if you guys, you guys have been out, have you been our locker room in Tampa? Not a locker room. No. Okay. Stop us before then. The one, like when I walk out of my office here to the left, that row is kind of starters row. Well, last year Nestor was not on that starters row. There's still some starters on another row, but he was in that row and he was kind of asking, you know, Hey, am I going to be in the rotation? You know, he had kind of asked that of Matt Blake before he got here and everything. And so I literally, I, I remember this, like it was yesterday very early in camp. I walked over and I just sat down, he was sitting at his locker. No one's around him. I sat down next to him in the chair next to him. I said, Nestor, not only are you going to be in the rotation, you're going to LA for the all-star game this year. And you know, it was a pretty bold prediction, but I mean, I felt that way in the winter time when, you know, teams would try and talk about Nestor and whatever. And I'm like, Nestor's going to the all-star game for us. Like let's, you know, cause they're, you know, trying to decide if 2021 was real. Right. And, and for, you know, people kind of think he came out of nowhere last year. He dominated in 21 when he went into the rotation, he was awesome. And then, and I knew it was for real. So I sat down, I wanted to just kind of put him at ease a little bit like, yes, you're in the rotation and you're going to the all-star game this year. So that's how that did go down, which is true. So I got that one, right. But for one for this year, huh? A lot of guys in that locker room. A lot of guys are begging for that speech, but the job's still going. Yeah. I think Aaron Judge is going to have a really good year. Good dancing. Good dancing. We are like that. Well, you know, the shortstop has been so loud that the, the, the fourth outfielder left field has been like quiet. Those guys are having a stress-free competition. That's also going to the polls, Floreal, Ortega, Calhoun, Hicks, whoever's going to have most reps out there. Is that the same for you? Yeah, it is going down. I'll give you, I'll give you guys one. JD's going to have a good year. Okay. Okay. You like the adjustment he made? Did he really make it? Like lately it seems like he did the standing up, right? JD's going to have a good year. Okay. I like that. That'd be nice. Yep. His glove was nice last year. Glove was nice. And JD and Glaber are going to play third and second, right? Like those are their homes. Oh, and DJ. But DJ will spell them. JD's not going to be moving to first. Glaber's not going to be moving to second. Yes. JD and Glaber will not move. Right. Yeah. So you got JD, Glaber, Rizzo, the two catchers, and then maybe the starting shortstop, if it's a young guy, is like they got one spot, that's, they know that, but everyone else is helping out wherever you put them. Exactly. All right. I like that. Well, Hey, I think we got all your time today. We appreciate it. And we'll let you go. I got, I got your a little misguided quote on the shirt. That was, that was good. That was good. I like that. I am a little misguided, so I'm excited to be straightened out over the year. I can't believe you're 33. It's tough, man. It's tough. All right. Enjoy the rest of the camp and the trip up. Hopefully, uh, everyone gets the news. I don't, I don't even know what people want as fans. I know everyone wants Volpe to be on the team, but I don't even know what that means for Paraza. I'll let you go. You don't, you don't got to dance. What do you guys root for? What do you guys want? I don't know. Cause I don't, if Volpe makes it, for Paraza, like is, does he have a spot? Do they both have a spot on the roster with the current, uh, with everybody, with the utility positions? Not really. It doesn't seem like it. It seems like if Volpe makes it, Paraza might be starting in AAA. Otherwise, cause otherwise they're sharing reps in April. So I don't know. You got to hang on. But if it's truly a competition, it seems like Volpe's winning. He's doing really well. Hang on for a couple more. A little, a little bit, a little bit longer. I think you've played Volpe at second more than Paraza at second though. I have. So that might be. I've tried to mix it up as much as I can to, you know, get, the biggest thing is, and I've tried to keep this in mind with, with them is getting them ready for the long season too. So as much as, yeah, we're, they're competing and they're, you know, it's an important spring, you know, and them wanting to perform like, it's also, we're playing the long game here and I'm trying to get those two who we think are going to be impactful players ready for a long season. So I've tried to treat it like that too. If Volpe makes the roster or whenever he comes up, you guys like him in the leadoff spot in spring, but I'm guessing that's just to get as many at-bats as he can. Is that, is that an option? Like a rookie to lead off in front of Rizzo and Judge or, or would you rather give a rookie that like seven, eight spot, the Glaber treatment that he got in 18? PJ will be leading off. All right. Okay, cool. We're going to lock it in first. We're locking it in. DJ lead off in shortstop is next time. Next, next Tuesday, something like that. We'll figure it out. Yep. All right. Enjoy opening day and the trip up north. The weather's getting warmer, so that should be nice for you. All right, guys. Take care. Good to be on with you. Thanks Booney. All right. There you have it. First interview with Booney. Going to be happening every week, Jake. So, you know, you can save some hard hitting ones, but I think we talked about some topics. We treated it like a conversation. I, uh, Jim, I don't go on as many first dates as I used to these days. And, uh, I think that went well. I think, you know, we, we've told the Talking Yanks people through this process, we wondered like, they, is this all a joke? Is this a gag? But I think at the end of the day, like, Booney's kind of into what we're doing. I think some people in Booney's life are kind of into what we're doing. And, uh, you know, we, we got a taste of it in that interview. Like he, he wants to chop it up baseball wise. And, you know, a couple jabs here and there. It was good. DJ is the opening, uh, lead off hitter. If he went into the lineup, I knew that was cemented. Yeah. And rightfully so. Yeah. And I, I really did want to like hit him with like, yeah, it must've felt good for Nestor to know and have that, uh, you know, a vote of confidence at the start of camp. Like, yeah, I kind of snuck it into like, there's a bunch of guys waiting for that speech Booney. Like, Hey, don't worry. You're the starter and you're going to be good. Yeah. Cause right now they're all just standing around. It seems like, and then, yeah, I don't, I liked that. He threw it back on us at the end. And then you're like, well, is Paraz on the team to focus on the team? Cause how does that work? There's gotta be a trade then. Yeah, I was, I was going to give, I was going to throw it in, but the conversation was over, but he was looking for honest feedback. Every time I honestly try to do it. I forget about one guy and I'm paralyzed here. I'm like, Oh, Glaber Torres is our fourth best hitter. And I don't have him playing at all currently. We locked down DJ's or JD's not playing another position, but third labor's not playing another position, but second Rizzo is at first six or seven games. He agreed with me on that. And a DJ will spell him once a week at first. We all knew this, but it is interesting to hear the way he dances around April and, you know, him to say, yeah, I do treat April differently. We know at this point we know, and we somewhat accepted as long as you're winning. Um, no, that was, that was good. Joe McFly saying what it's going to be. I think the conversations are, as we build more of a rapport are going to become more and more fun. And you know, like a lot of iconic talking Yanks moments, there's going to be some fun, you know, nine game win streak ups. And there's going to be, you know, lost six out of seven and let's talk about it. That I think is, uh, is going to be something very new to us. So I think he's going to want to flip it on us a lot. Like if we're like, if we start saying things like, um, you know, why did you bring him in here? He's going to want to, well, who would you have brought in? Like, I think he's gonna, and that's really fun. I actually am very excited. If he continues, I think that's both of your guys kind of argument style. I think you guys like to back the other one into the corner. Yeah, but I'm excited. What do you got? Yeah, no, but that's great. Like for him to invite us to be obnoxious fans and say, here's what I would do. Right. It's good. I'm excited for that. Also a little hat tip to Booney. His, his wifi was terrible and his video is trash and we started it. And then he said, no, no, no, we got to do this. Right. Yeah. And he waited. We've had guests before be like, well, let's just call. Oh, let me just call you. He was like, Nope. First one, let's do it right. So, and yeah, I guess if, if there's any, any last people out there writing cat checks, they can't cash about Donaldson. We now heard Hoke mentioned that there was an injury. I mean, I know Boone had his back all last year, but you know, to highlight one guy and go for JD, it could be anything, right? It could be one guy. He's trying to boost who's a veteran or go judge first. Smart, good dance. Smart. Yeah. Smart pick. All right. Hey, well, thank you guys very much for listening. If this is your first time tuning in, appreciate you. Subscribe to the YouTube or down or subscribe on the podcast app. Those help us a bunch. We will see you next episode on, well, this is a coming out Sunday. So like tomorrow, Tuesday. So I think Tuesday, I think there's a PPP and then Tuesday up. Yeah. And then there's a game on Thursday and we're live streaming during the game. So if you're not going out on this, not on this channel on JM baseball, but you'll have enough alerts. Yeah. All right. See you guys. Go Yanks. Tell them grams. Go Yankees.