Yankees Offense Is ABYSMAL + Jed Hoyer On Trading With David Stearns | The Show Ep. 214

John, Jed Hoyer, who's been a guest on our show before, it's really been a busy year, right? Lots of extensions, lots of work in the off season, especially Bregman, and he didn't stop. They've been in go for it mode, including acquiring two Met pitchers, David Peterson and Clay Holmes, not to mention Tyrone Taylor. And he's our guest this week as they try to track down the Brewers. Yeah, a lot going on in the Windy City. Jed's one of our favorites, been on many times on the show now, so give him credit for enduring the two of us. But they got the White Sox, the Red Hot White Sox, first place White Sox coming in starting today. So that's big. And certainly they were big at the deadline, and they got a lot of injuries. So a lot to talk about with Jed. Yeah, a little north side, south side in your college town is interesting this week, right? With the Cubs and the White Sox. Shocking that the White Sox ran. We expected the Cubs, but it's really a surprise. We expected New York, New York to both be contending at this time. Also, we only have half of that with the Yankees. We're going to talk a lot about their offense. We'll sneak in a little on the Mets. We'll play hit and error at the end, if you stick with us on the show with Joel Sherman and Jon Hammond. Jon, another week of bad offense by the New York Yankees this week. And yet, can I offer just some big picture stuff? They've pretty much held the second best record in the American League, being pretty much either the best or the second best the entire season. They're 69 and 55 as we talk. As much as they misjudge, they actually are 33 and 32 without them. They're over 500, not as much as you'd hope for. They're pitching, their ERA is the best in the sport. And Jon, it just feels terrible watching it, right? Because they can score, and they're not capitalizing on terrific pitching, where if their offense had just been slightly below average for the last six, seven weeks, they'd probably be in first place. What's your thoughts about watching this and how bad this offense has been for now, since the middle of June? Yeah, it's terrible. Their offense is just abysmal. They're last in batting average, near the bottom and on base. Terrible with runners in scoring position. Since Judge went out, I mean, to be one game over in this league when it's not a very good league is not that impressive. To be this far behind Tampa Bay, which spends nothing, is completely unimpressive. I can't believe that if this is the team in October, that they're going to go very far other than the fact that the competition isn't that strong. I still believe, and we've been talking about this from the beginning, the best teams are all in the National League. I think the four best teams are in the National League, and they are fortunate for that. Look, I give Tampa Bay credit on record. They're probably one of the best four teams. They're probably in the top four, but I think they're benefiting from the weak league as well. Certainly, they're in a better division than the other divisions in the American League, but they're not good. They cannot hit. None of them have really been hitting since Judge went out. It's missing Judge, but then everybody else has slid back down too. Yeah. John, I think if you watch them right now, I don't know that I could say anything worse about them, or maybe this is something good to say about George Lombard Jr. He takes the best at bats on the team. He uses the whole field. He's not afraid to hit with two strikes. He doesn't swing and miss a ton. I actually think that the results might not be there. I actually think Spencer Jones's at bats are good. He works counts deep. When he squares up a ball, he hits it well. He also seems not afraid to try to hit with two strikes. Wells has hit a little better now for four or five weeks. To me, John, the thing that stands out is the Yankees are a walk-home-run team, and when opposing pitchers recognize, especially in a judgeless lineup, hey, you know what? We're not walking you. We'll take a shot at seeing if we can find places in the zone not to give up slug. This is a batting average free lineup. They just don't hit enough to produce runs when they don't. You mentioned runners in scoring position. Runners in scoring position generally means you need a hit. You could get a sacrifice fly, etc., but they do not accumulate batting average. There's no multi-hit innings. There's just one, two, three in the first inning all the time without Judge, who was such a great first-inning force and I think helped everyone else. I'm blown away by how little they successfully land the ball for a hit. We're past that era where teams would go for walks and runs and that was it. The Astros were a team that put the ball in play. I know they did some other stuff that people don't like, and I get that. Last year, Toronto put the ball in play better than anybody. They made it all the way to the World Series, should have won the World Series. If you're hitting 220 over 65 games, you're not really going to win a lot of games. They are slightly over 500 in that period. I get it. Their pitching has been spectacular. Their starting pitching is the best in the American League, I believe. I mean, Boston's pretty good, but I think theirs is the best. Can you win with great starting pitching and no hitting? I doubt it. I really do. I really don't see that happening. They need to hit better. Certainly, Bellinger, when he comes back, I think I was told that probably around September 1st, might be a few days before. We'll see. That will help a little bit, but they need Judge. We still have no clear idea when Judge is coming back. We really don't know. They said they believe he's coming back. At the beginning, it was, he's coming back. We know he's going to come back. Then it was, we believe he's coming back. I mean, he's certainly not coming back in August. Their best hope at this point is the middle of September in a couple weeks. Can they win the World Series without Aaron Judge? I don't believe that they can. I think they need him. Even with them, I'm concerned about that offense. I really am. They've got too many guys hitting in the low 200s. You're right about Lombard. Lombard's been great. He's their best defensive player as well. It's been really, really impressive. John, just to put a fine line, starting in mid-June, which was about June 18th or so, the last 52 games where it's been particularly terrible. When they give up no runs, a starter gives up no runs, they're 8-3. When a starter gives up one run, they're 9-8. They're one game over 500 when they're starting. When a starter gives up two runs, they're 3-4. When a starter gives up three runs, they're 2-5. The question to me, John, is also it's not just wasting, but there's zero pitches being thrown without stress by this Yankee team. Even winning yesterday, Ryan Weathers was really good. That was like a high-stressful, you-can't-give-up-a-run seven-ish innings. Well, they were facing Cease, yes, and Cease may win this. But Shane Bieber the night before has a pitch. Well, it's been gone 65 games without a judge. Yeah, it's bad. It's been bad since June 1st, since Judge went out. There's a history of when Judge misses games, they end up losing every year. But I didn't think they have a losing record or barely a winning record over 65 games with this team. It should be better. They should hit better. We would think overall, Wells would be better. McMahon would be better. Grisham, although he's been better lately, would be better. They have not hit as a team. They really have not. The guy who I think has killed them the most is Chisholm. I think I might have mentioned on this show and I know I did on the webcast we do on the Yankees, before the season began, I did worry about Chisholm because I think he has a certain mindset and a certain kind of player that him in his walk year, especially when he started talking about how much money he wanted over 10 years, he's the kind of guy. He could talk himself into hitting 200 with 200 strikeouts and I think that's kind of like where we're at with him and I think it's affected him on both sides of the ball. It's just not winning baseball that he's bringing. They did start, Boone started against a righty, Jose Caballero on Sunday. I think he needs to do more of it. You know, Caballero is a nuisance. He brings some energy. He's also, you know, imperfect, but it feels to me like Jazz is a weight right now. He's feeling it so much and he's still hitting the guy fifth in the lineup often or sixth. It's just not bringing enough to the party. Yeah, you brought that up. It was the last week or the week before and I said, I mean, they got to keep playing Chisholm. He's a 30 home run guy, 30 steal guy. He's got better range than anybody. But isn't it empty calories a little bit? That's what I'm saying. I'm going with you now. He's Stephon Marbury. I know you hate basketball now. He's Stephon Marbury. I mean, not even. He has bad stats now. I mean, even Stephon Marbury didn't have a year where he had averaged 11 points a game and had a 38% shooting percentage. He's been bad. I'm kind of with you and we addressed this early on the show about Caballero being a nuisance and yeah, that annoyed me. But he's even without that part of the game, he's been helpful. He really has. He's done good stuff. So I know Boone said it was just one day off. What's he going to say? Of course, he's going to say that. I think he may be, we're going to see a lot more Caballero at second base. As you pointed out, it was against the righty, not just any righty, but a righty. That's a sign. That's a sign. We can listen to Boone's words, but we kind of sometimes have to wonder what's behind the words. If he's going to bring something to the party, I wouldn't say that Chisholm or McMahon have earned the right to play against every righty. I'd have to see more. I would play Caballero at second or third with some popularity and get his speed, energy, etc. into the lineup. Jon, can I ask, as a way to wrap up the Yankees perhaps, two big picture questions. I'll break them up. The first one is, do you wonder and have any level of concern if you're the Yankees that you're kind of going to burn out the pitching? The fact that these are 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 games every day, I think they hope to get Rodon back maybe this next term at Clark-Schmidt, not too far down. That should add to his circle of trust. Going forward here, do you worry about it? I think every team is worried about that. We've seen attrition with just about every team. Even the Dodgers are worried about it. I get that, but they're in better shape than almost everybody else in terms of their pitching, so I'm not going to worry too much. We're worrying enough about the offense, I think that takes up all the energy, and rightfully so at this point. At least a second question. As we're speaking, they're 5.5 behind Tampa Bay, they're 3 up on the Red Sox, and they're 8.5 up on a playoff spot in general. At some point, I'm with you. Nothing's going to matter much if they don't get Judge and Judge back right, which means when he comes back, I think there's got to be an expectation by the Yankees and their fans, he's probably going to do some—I mean, Aaron Judge, he's kind of a little bit superhuman, we've seen him do great things, but I would think there's going to be some adjustment period. He hasn't faced live Major League pitching for three-ish months now, since literally the last day of May. If the Yankees kind of stay in this general area, which is comfortably in a wild card but too far behind Tampa Bay, is there a moment they have to back off? To me, they've used Hedrick too much, they've used Paul Blackburn too much, guys like Coles coming back from Tommy John surgery, Frieden and Rodan will be from arm stuffs, Weathers and Schlittler are way beyond what they've ever done in a Major League season. I just feel like there might be a moment, and we're not there yet, but sometime in September where it's like you got to concede the embarrassment of again not doing better than the Rays and just accept, hey man, we're going to get Judge ready and not push our pitching. I hear you, I see that point, I'm kind of with you on that one. I think there's no chance that they do that. Those teams are so fearful of that best-of-three series and being pushed out. I mean, the Dodgers played it last year and they played the Reds and it was a complete walkover, but teams want that bye badly and the Yankees have tried hard for that bye. Remember last year they tried so hard for it, they won the last eight games, ended up in a tie, didn't get it. You had to play that series against the Red Sox, they survived that, but I'm with you. You want to be going into, I think it's more important to go into October in great shape than getting that bye, because if you're not in great shape physically, you're not going to win the World Series anyway. If you play the bye, you still might win the World Series as the Dodgers proved last year. Yeah. You want to say anything about the Mets before we wrap this? Well, good for them. They're finally winning a few games. Is that enough? Yeah. Their history is they always play best when you think the least of them and always play worse when you think the best. I can't- It's interesting. I mean, look, Senga's closing games. They got that guy jumping around the mound like crazy and they finally put Ewing in center field. I'm not sure what the holdup was on that one because I think that Andy Green and the rest of them have made good moves. The Senga move, moving Ewing up to lead off. Do you have any idea why Robert was still in center? I mean, what is the point of it? He's not going to be their center fielder next year, right? Ewing is their center fielder hopefully for the 15 years, right? John, am I missing something? There were some people who have written and talked about the Mets bringing Robert back. What am I missing? Nothing. You're missing the fact that they think he's a nice guy or something. I don't know. I heard that from one Mets person. Well, we're not picking up the option, but we could bring him back for half the cost, whatever. Half the cost? The guy doesn't play baseball. Is it because he's a friend of Soto? Is that good enough to get you $10 million? I don't know. I don't get it. He needs to go somewhere else. Maybe he'll be great. He was great. What year was that? I don't know, three, four years ago. He was great that year, right? Obviously, I'm not picking up the $20 million as I've suggested. That's not happening, but I don't see the point of bringing him back. Why would he even want to come back? The Mets have a starting outfield, right? They already have three outfielders, right? Unless they think Soto's going to be the DH. I think you need that spot for Polanco anyway, right? Yeah, I wouldn't make any plans around Polanco. If he plays, he plays. I get it. Look, I would still think he's probably a good major league hitter who's had a bad year. If I were going to be encouraged about something with the Mets, and I'm curious, maybe this is the way to kind of finish up the first block here, John, is Bichette finally looks comfortable hitting. I think there's a fair chance he does not opt out in this marketplace, which will be a strange marketplace since I think we're anticipating a lockout on December 1st. I don't see why he'd opt out. Unless he hates it here. Everybody goes by the money. Nobody goes by the hate. People endure the hate. They don't endure making a little bit less. That's the world that we live in, right? I'm not blaming him or saying anything about him. He certainly has adjusted. So even if he hated it at the beginning, how much can you hate it? He's doing okay. He's doing all right. I think he lives on Long Island. I think it's nice and lovely. I know you're not a Long Island fan, but I am from Long Island, so I can see that. He's making $42 million a year. He's not a $42 million player. He never was a $42 million player, but he certainly isn't now, and he's still got another opt out. He is a very good player who's adjusted nicely to third base. The Phillies offered a 7 for $200 last year. I guess he was close. He's not going to get a 7 for $200. He's a year older with an average offensive season now under his belt after the previous year, which was excellent. So he's not getting that offer anyway. To me, it makes no sense for him to opt out now. We still have six weeks left in the season. If he hits a 450 during those six weeks, okay, maybe then, but other than that, I think it would be crazy for him to opt out. You know who needs him? The Yankees. That's batting average. That's how he actually- Yeah, he puts the ball in play. Yeah. And he hits in, and look- In the clutch. First few months, but he's done it now. He's unafraid to take a big bat against a good pitcher late in the game, and he's good at it. We'll do the, we'll start working on, we're going to have a lockout. We'll do fake trades between the Yankees and Mets in the off season. Somebody who did make a couple of trades with the Mets and was very, very busy at the trade deadline was the Cubs president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer. He joins us next on the show. Jed Hoyer, 15th season with the Cubs, the last six as president of baseball operations. As we speak, the number one wild card seed trying to track down the brewers who have the best record in the National League. I believe you're five back, you're 72 and 53. Jed, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Always. Thank you guys. Jed, it's been a fascinating kind of year for you. Like if you go back, really two huge extensions, a huge free agent sign in Bregman, plus a lot of other smaller ones. And you were as busy as any team at the trade deadline, especially trying to address deepening your rotation. I'm sure when, I feel silly to say, hey, do you feel a sense of urgency? Because I'm sure you feel urgent every year, but the team has only made the playoffs, I think once in the previous five years, it was last year, you won a round and lost in Milwaukee. Is part of this about a different level of urgency trying to solve the issues in a much, in a, in this aggressive of a way? Well, I mean, I think aggressiveness is, I mean, it's kind of relative, but I do think that when I think about our team and where we are right now, I think every year you're evaluating your roster, you're evaluating, you know, where the team is sort of in its life cycle and in terms of players being in their prime and all those different things. And, you know, I think for us this year, the deadline, you look at our team, we have a fantastic position player group, you know, both offensively and defensively, we played exceptionally well. We've kind of fought through a lot of pitching injuries, you know, obviously losing Horton early steel hasn't come back, you know, Boyden Cabrera spent a lot of time on the IL. So this team really, in my view, kind of battled and survived really well. And it felt like a team that if we could, you know, kind of get our starting pitching stabilized and sort of get some of these guys back and, and healthy, it felt like a team that, you know, can make a real run and can, and can make some noise late in the season. And I think you have to evaluate your team every single year. I think going into this, this off season, we felt like we had a really good team and a team that we wanted to, you know, to continue to add to. And we felt the exact same way at this deadline. I think that's a big part of the job is evaluating your team and trying to figure out, you know, what there's years you're going to do more. There's years you're going to probably do less. And I think some of that depends, you know, you have to, you have to feel your roster and feel where you are, like I said, in your life cycle. And those are the decisions we make every day. Speaking of the deadline, I thought you did a really good job of filling needs and it wasn't easy in this environment, right? There weren't really many relief pitchers, for instance. There were a couple of starters, but you ended up with a few multiple starters. I'm interested now in how a homes trade came about is if you could talk a little bit about the specifics of where you were, what else you were looking at and how that came about and, and, and why you decided to give up Rojas and you got the two players, Tyrone Taylor, who was a very useful player and why you believed in homes, even though he hadn't really pitched at the major league level at that point in his comeback. Anyway. Yeah. Well, I think the fit with homes to us was, was pretty clear. You know, we have terrific infield defense and he's a ground ball guy. Now we have some pitchers that, you know, throughout the year of giving up homers, he generally keeps the ball in the ballpark. So the fit with our team we felt really, really good about. And, you know, this year for us, I mean, I've had years where your needs aren't as clear, I guess the best way I would say it, you know, you're looking at your roster and you're, you're like, okay, what, you know, what upgrades can we make? And this year it was really, really obvious, you know we needed to bolster the rotation. I guess it with the injuries we had had and you know, we had kind of grinded for months with, you know, with, you know rotation that probably wasn't strong enough to make a real run. So I think that that was a big part of it. Sometimes you have, your needs aren't quite as certain. Our needs were very certain. Our position player group I think was strong and deep and I felt like, you know, the rotation needed to be, to be bolstered. And we talked a lot about controllable starters. I think, you know, as always, I think, you know, we looked at a bunch of different guys that we would control beyond this year. Ultimately we weren't able to line up on, on price. And that's two years in a row at the deadline. That's, that's been, that's been there. This year, the rental starting pitcher market was a little deeper than last year. Last year, there was very few rental starters available. This year, there was a few more. So obviously, you know, you'd love to be able to add controllable starters at the deadline. That wasn't something we could do. And so Gosman and Holmes, you know, fit nicely for Obviously we have you on. We're a national show. We talk to people all over the game, but we have a lot of interest because of my and John's background with New York. You did make two trades with David Stearns who used to compete against with the Milwaukee Brewers. And I'm sure you weren't making trades regularly with the Brewers. Can you, John talked about the need for Holmes. Can you take us into the trade dynamic? Give us some insight. You, you acquired David Peterson about a month ago. Also a ground ball pitcher to work with your infield. Right. And Holmes and Taylor here tell us about the dynamic. How is it to work with Stearns and, and, and try to do deals? Oh, I mean, so yes, David and I have known each other for a long time, but you know, when he was with the Brewers, we really didn't talk about, about trades. And I ended up making a deal with the, with John Mazalek as well with the angels. And that was another, another guy I've known for 25 years that we never did deals with the Cardinals. So David is, you know, obviously incredibly talented, incredibly bright and, and very, a very straight shooter and very clear. And I think that's, it helps to make deals. He's very certain about, you know, kind of what he's looking for. He delivers really clear feedback when you, when you go through deals. And I think that's something that's really appreciated. You kind of know where you stand, you know, the players that they're interested in, that the Mets are interested in, and that really does aid the process. So he made a lot of trades at the deadline. And I think really good trades, I think, you know, in this job, you know, there are, you know, unfortunately, you know, you only have, you look at like a simulation of, of seasons and you might, you know, you, you take a thousand seasons and you simulate them. And I think the Mets, you know, on paper were a really good team going into the year. Unfortunately, this season through injuries and performance, it just didn't work out that way. I think the Mets did a great job of being opportunistic. They gathered a lot of talent for their future and they can kind of redouble their efforts to be good again next year really quickly. So I think he was doing the absolute right thing for the, the New York Mets in a season that hasn't gone as they planned, but there's no reason to think they can't be good again quickly. And I think they made some really good deals. And I think David did a really good job of being clear about his goals. Now, counting Peterson, which, who came earlier, you, you acquired four starting pitchers, which kind of reflects how many pitching injuries you've had in that rotation. So I want to just try to get updates on where things stand now you've got Cabrera. I think he had some issue last yesterday. So is he going to be on the IL for a little while? Does Peterson move back in? And then, I mean, Brown was outstanding when he was healthy and we know Steele has the potential to be outstanding. It's, it feels like from reading the Chicago papers that Brown is a little bit more of a chance to come back this year than Steele. Where does that stand now? Could Steele even be maybe a bullpen option at the end or are we looking at next year for him? So a lot of things to touch on there, Cabrera, Peterson, Brown, Steele, but you've had a number of injuries, so. Yeah. So unclear. So right now about Cabrera's blister, we do have some depth if he ends up having to go on the IL and, you know, Peterson would slot, slot right back in there. I think you probably read that, right? I think Brown, you know, both those guys are working their way back and brought Brown probably is a bit ahead of Steele's schedule. The ability to stretch those guys out is incredibly difficult at this time, you know, and so I think that shorter, shorter stance is probably the likely outcome there, but whatever we can get out of those, out of those guys would be great. I mean, I can't say enough about Ben Brown this year. That was a really tough injury. I think we, we slotted him. He's great in the bullpen early in the year. We had some injuries. We stretched him out. He was our best starter. Him getting hurt really did hurt us. And, you know, that was one of those days that we were in New York, we're playing the Mets. We had a rain out the day before. And in the same day, Brown, his neck kind of got to a point where he couldn't go on. And then Cabrera hurt his hamstring. And so we lost, you know, 40% of our rotation in one day. You kind of think to yourself like, Ooh, this is going to be tough sledding for a while. And we ended up sweeping the Mets and kind of going on a run. And this sport is really hard to figure sometimes, you know, I would have not guessed that we were about to go on a run when we lost those two guys on top of, you know, Boyd already being out, Steele, you know, Steele and Borden. But like I said, our team was really resilient, you know, through those injuries, but Brown was outstanding for us. And, you know, the hope would be certainly that he could, you know, his trajectory is good and he can come back and help us, you know, in the words of Craig Council as being an out getter for us late in the season. You know, you're usually as proven because you've been a guest with us so often, a very accessible guy. And when you were at Citi Field, when your pitches were getting hurt, you were like the shiftiest running back in the NFL. I couldn't get you. I should have figured out you were trying to get David Peterson, which you left down with a bad job by me there. Do you do this much as you've done, where you've had to give up collateral from your organization to get it done? If you don't think you could still win the division? And what do you think about that tracking down the Brewers? Well, I mean, they're the best record in baseball right now, and they've earned that. And so, yeah, I think in a lot of divisions right now, we'd be in really good position to do that. We've got some real work to do to pull that off. Obviously, we got to three. They won the last two. We lost the last two. So they spread that out a little bit. But we play them seven times at the end of August and early September. And that's helpful in that regard. You know, in general, I think, yes, there's no question that, you know, getting a buy in today's world is so incredibly valuable. And so tracking them down is really important. But like I said, we're tracking down a team that has the best record in baseball. They're going to make it difficult for us. And it's our job to, you know, put some pressure on them over the next, you know, 35, 40 games. Yeah. The rarely hurt gamer Dansby Swanson, who had, I think, 30 RBIs in a three-game series against the Mets. It looks like he might have to go on the I.L. at this point. He's getting a MRI, I believe, on his left side. That normally is right before, at least a short I.L. stint. I mean, am I crazy? Is Nico Horner a possibility for shortstop? Is Matt Shaw, do you have something else in mind there? Or, you know, are those two guys possibilities to play shortstop? Yeah. Nico's going to play most of the shortstop now. You know, I think Pedro Ramirez will play a lot of second base. Shaw's working his way back from injury. You know, the hope is that he's pretty close to going out on a rehab assignment here. So hopefully getting him back will allow us that depth. So, I mean, listen, you don't expect a guy like Dansby to get hurt. He's been really durable. But that's just the game. And, you know, even with the pitching injuries we talked about, like, you can't make excuses about it. You just got to deal with it. That's the game. Some years you have a lot of injuries. Some years you don't. So, yeah, it's unfortunate for us that Dansby went down. But our job is to have depth behind that. And hopefully, you know, Pedro, he's played great for us all year. Hopefully, you know, in a role where he was kind of spelling different people, hopefully he can continue to do that for us. Yeah. You know, I wasn't even that familiar with Pedro Ramirez. And then I thought he had the best of bats on your team pretty much against the Yankees when you were playing them. They were really good. He looks like a good young hitter. Can I just go back to the Brewers? How much of an annoyance is this to you? You obviously did something very, very public and huge when you bring in Craig Council from them and give them a record contract. And you've now finished behind them in the first two years under Craig. You're behind them again. They beat you in the playoffs last year. They're your little brother city-wise, not too far away. What is the, I'll use annoyance of this being the Brewers over and over again? Yeah. I mean, they have, I mean, they've been the best organization in the sport for the last, you know, the last two and a half years. There's no way around it. I mean, Pat Murphy's won two manager of the years. Matt Arnold's been executive of the year twice. They've just continued no matter what is thrown at them to survive. You know, the thing for me that's the most impressive about the Brewers is that, you know, there's been times over this two and a half year period where like, they got pretty banged up. They, you know, their depth was tested and they always, you know, come up with some player or some set of players that handle the challenge, you know, and you got to give them a ton of credit that they signed Andrew Vaughn last year. I have a trade for Andrew Vaughn last year as an example. And he, you know, ends up hitting third or fourth for them the end of the year and post-season. And they do a great job of finding, you know, undervalued talent. They do a great job developing talent. And so I don't see it as an annoyance. I see it as, you know, they probably, I assume they've won the most games in baseball over that stretch. And, you know, we've had a lot of success too, but, you know, not to their level. And that's our, that's our job and that's our challenge to overcome that. And it's, it is a challenge. When I was with the Red Sox, that was the Yankees, right? Like, how do you get past the Yankees? And this is a smaller market version of that where they've got everything going the right, the right direction. And it's our job to try to knock them off that. The most famous trade, at least in New York over the past, I don't know how many years, most famous deadline trade is the Pete Crow Armstrong trade for obvious reasons. So good job again by you on that one. Now you traded a pretty good prospect in Jefferson Rojas to get rentals with the Mets. How hard was that for you? And what, what do you think on, on Jefferson? Where do you think he stands? No, he's a really good player. And I think that's the, it's always the challenge, right? Is that you're at the deadline, you know, when you're in the race and in contention, you know, especially in, I guess a year, I feel like this team has really been resilient. You want to, you know, honor the team and get, and you want to, to make, to make deals that can make the team better. And I think that is, that's our job. I think, you know, for us, one of the things we focused on is we have, you know, significant infield depth, as I mentioned, you know, we lost Dansby, you know, we have Pedro Ramirez, we have Matt Shaw, not to mention, you know, Nico and Dansby and Alex Bregman. And so you're trying to look at areas of depth where you can, you know, where you can afford to make those kinds of trades. But yeah, we gave up a number of good prospects at the deadline, you know, Rojas being one of them, you know, Baez-Darros, we, you know, we gave up to get Zephyrjohn, obviously we, you know, Bateman and Southestine, you know, to get Gaussman. That's, it never feels comfortable. You want, in general, you want to keep all your prospects, you want them to keep developing. But I also feel like it is important, you know, when you, every, as I kind of mentioned with the Mets, every season, you know, doesn't go as you hope, right? And there are going to be seasons where you could be on the other side of that equation, you know, and the Mets in 21 were on the other side of that, the Cubs in 21 were on the other side of that equation. And obviously the Mets were, so there's, there are seasons where you're able to kind of gather more prospects and make those trades. And there are seasons where it's important to kind of use the, like I said, the areas of depth in your organization to try to, you know, you know, win here, you know, because ultimately like that, that is the most important thing is to try to win at the major league level. Jetty mentioned his name, PCA Pete Crow Armstrong. Perhaps the most fascinating awards race this year will be him versus Shohei for NL MVP. I suspect you have a bias in this. Would you like to make the case here why you think, at least three quarters of the way through the season, Pete Crow Armstrong is the National League MVP? Well, yeah, I mean, I think he's a top 10 hitter in the league and he's the best defender on the planet. And so I think that that's the reason. And listen, I think he's meant so much to this team that for us to have the number of injuries we have, have had, and to be able to, to be where we are. I think his defense is a huge part of that. His offense is a huge part of that. And you know, listen, I, you know, obviously I want him to win the award. I think that that that's clear. But I also feel like, listen, he's the guy he's trying to knock off is the best, most talented baseball player that's ever lived. And so that's a real challenge. And I think the next month and a half is ultimately going to determine the award. I think that, you know, MVP awards are won at the end of the season, not at the beginning, you know, and there's just countless examples of, you know, guys having great finishing kicks and winning and winning the award. So I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. It feels like a conversation better had on, you know, September 17th and August 17th, because we got a ways to go, but the year that Pete has had is sensational. I mean, to be like, what are the eight wind player right now here in the middle of August to, you know, really overcome some struggles early in the season offensively to mature the way he has at the plate, drawing the number of walks he has really being our offensive catalyst and lead off spot. I think he's meant more to our team than I would think any player in baseball is meant to their team. I think that's the definition of value. Yeah. One more thing I want to ask you about the deadline. You did as much as just about anybody at the deadline. You obviously didn't get the biggest player, but you got four starters starting with the Peterson at the beginning. I actually think Braxton Garrett could come into play. He's, you know, a very good minor league pitcher at this point, but could be a major league pitcher. Zephyr John, you got a reliever in a market where there just wasn't, weren't very many of them. And I, we, we all like Taylor here. Obviously the biggest piece out there was school bowl. And you were one of the many teams that at least connected with them. Was this, it seems like you believe in a very strong everyday team and that's where you kind of put your eggs in anyway. So it seemed like you were a little bit of a long shot for us, at least the last few weeks. I'm just going to ask you my final question is whether you know, you had multiple conversations, was there ever any point where you thought, well, maybe it could happen or did you step too many needs with the relief also that it was never going to work? We taught me, I talked to Scott Harris a lot about him. We had a lot of conversations as so much of the, of the deadline game is a matchmaking game, you know, who likes your players and, and you know, which, you know, which players you're, you're unwilling to give up. And we just didn't match up. That's as simple as that. You know, the guys that we were open to talking about were not guys that they had interest in. And that's just, that's how this goes. And I think I say this every year that I think that's the part of the deadline that I think is the hardest for people to understand is that, you know, there's just times you're not going to be able to get a certain player or make a certain deal because the other team that's either likes another team's players more or doesn't, doesn't like your prospects or players that much. And that's just the nature of the deadline. And so you have to put a ton of lines in the water because you know, you know, 10 of them might not get any bites, but if one of them gets a bite, then all of a sudden you have a chance to make a deal. Rejection is the most common thing, probably the deadline. Right. And so I feel like when people, when people ask about like this school, it's like, yeah, we didn't match up. Would we have loved to have him? Of course, he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. And I think he's gonna, you know, he's the kind of guy that has a, has a massive impact on every series he pitches in. He has a massive impact on, on, on the postseason. We just didn't match up there and, you know, good for the Dodgers on matching up. You know, Jed is a way to wrap this up. I wonder just a big picture question. What would make this successful now? You again, I literally don't think anybody's done more. If you think about why, wherever we start the calendar for a new season from the end of last year to this moment, then you, we talked about pressure and aggressiveness early. What, what's a successful conclusion now for the Cubs? Yeah, I don't want to put, put any limits on it. I think we have a really good team, like really good from top to bottom. I think we have a lot of depth. I think we have, you know, on paper we've had, you know, I think we have, you know, we've had the most talented, most successful position player group this year. You know, I think that, you know, we needed to improve our pitching. I think we did that. So I don't want to put any limits on it. I think this is a really good team and obviously it's baseball, you know, but I think we have a chance to make a real noise over the next month and a half. And, and hopefully we can, we can get hot at the right time, but we have a really good team and it were fun to watch, you know, on a nightly basis. And like I said, I don't want to put any limits on it. I think this team can do special things. It is a really good team. As we talked to you in 19 games over 500 it is a bear in the national league, as you know, though, that only gives you the fourth best record in league. I think John mentioned when we opened the show that the four best teams in the sport he believes are in the national league. I'm not going to argue with him. It's a bear, but you put together a terrific team, Jed and John, and I wish you nothing but the best of luck down the stretch. And as always, you mentioned a few times, you've been, you've been a guest somewhat regularly over the years, and we do appreciate you joining us on the show. Always. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks Jed. John and I of course, thank Jed Hoyer for joining us on the show. John, hit or error? Well, I'm going to give it a hit probably at the end of the season when an American league team is in the playoffs with a losing record, I'll probably give it an error, but I, right now I like the chaos in the American league playoffs. It is crazy what's going on now. Many, many, not just one or two, many teams that sold at the deadline are in the race and not only are in the race, some of them have worked their way into the race since they sold. And Toronto, shockingly, is in the race. Baltimore, as we do this, is in the playoffs if they started today with a losing record. Of course, Texas, which tried to trade their, its best pitcher, still hanging in the race. You know, we've got... Detroit traded its best pitcher? Detroit is not a shock, right? We kind of knew Detroit was going to sell and probably stay in the race, right? But they made, and I, you know, I know a lot of people criticize them. I think they kind of made the mature decision to sell, to trade Schuble, who's a free Asian, and you could get a huge prospect, and they did. They got your hope for them. So I got that one and they've done it before and they're in a terrible division. So I kind of, I kind of thought they'd still be... I can't believe Toronto has worked its way into the race. What if we have four teams from the AL East in the playoffs? I was just about to say that. We, I probably began this year thinking that like the AL East had four or five of the best, whatever number. Well, it might not have included Tampa Bay. We might've thought four, not including Tampa Bay, who's been the best team pretty much the whole time. I looked at it before, John, two and a half games. There are six teams within two and a half games of that last wildcard spot who are not in it right now. Six teams within two and a half games. There's a lot of chaos there. On the air, on the first MLB Now, on MLB Network, after the trade deadline, I bet a dinner with our good friend, Brian Kenney, he was talking about that the Tigers and the Orioles, why'd they give up? Why'd they give up? And I said, Brian, I bet you one or both of those teams is playing important games on September 15th. I'm getting closer to that dinner. What kind of a bet was that? I got to make more bets with, with Brian Kenny. I mean, what is it? What kind of a bet is that playing important game? How do you even decide what's I said? He could decide it. I said he could just, I mean, they're going to be at least one or the other to win that bet. All right. Good job. Good job. I'm going to give a hit to Dave Roberts, a guest a few times on this show. He really laid into his team a few times recently, including sounding a lot like what I think Aaron Boone should be sounding like right now. He literally said, we have not played well for six weeks. Sound like anyone. They haven't hit. We haven't defended. He benched Kyle Tucker on Saturday. Tucker went over 19 on this homestand and made a key error on a Sunday. He got booed. Edwin Diaz on, on a Thursday night, blew his save. He's blown three of his three of the last five times he's in a game. He's blown a save. He's got a 10 66 ERA. Both him and Tucker will boot off the field. It might turn out that the best thing that happened to the Mets this season is they didn't sign either of those two guys. They tried real hard to do so. But I give Dave Roberts, who's trying to make some more history this year, not just wanting his team to throw their gloves on the field there. The Dodgers have some issues. They have fewer than other teams because they're great and they're deep and they spend their money, et cetera. But they, I watched a lot of the brewers and Dodgers over the weekends. Now keep in mind, John, the brewers went six and O in the regular season against the Dodgers last year, and then got swept four games in the post season. The Dodgers are going to go into the post season, heavy favorites. But I like that their manager isn't just accepting three championships and all in the last two. They're trying to make history. And I like that he went after his team hard over the weekend and specifically after the game yesterday. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the reasons he's a Hall of Fame manager. The roster helps as well. You know, Dave is fantastic. Yeah. Good for him. I don't, back in the old days, they'd go after specific players too. I don't know if he went to that, went over that line, but I mean, you're absolutely right about Diaz and I was in favor of Diaz for the Mets or the Yankees. Diaz and Tucker have been terrible. Now the Mets fallbacks to those were Devin Williams and Bichette. Now Bichette's been good lately. And you know, out of the four, he's been the best. You know, he's the closest to his career norm, I guess. But Tucker is just terrible. I mean, it's the highest paid player in the major leagues. You know, nobody wanted him back in Chicago. Yet there were teams clamoring for, when they're not paying attention to what was going on in Chicago. Now he had a great first half with the Cubs. I get he's a great talent. I just don't give that kind of money to a guy who isn't, I think, driven to be great. You know, at least Soto, I think, I know he's out right now. I think he's driven to be great. You know, $60 million a year. That's another guy who should not opt out ever. That deal is ridiculous. So I think Dodger people were making fun of it, not making fun, but they were critical of the Soto deal that the Mets made. That's a better deal. I'm sorry. He's a player, I think, who, you know, is worth that kind of, I don't know about worth, but he's a player I'd be more apt to give a big deal to than Tucker. But we know that Soto is driven by, at minimum, history. He wants to be known as one of, if not the greatest, you know, he's liked all the comparisons. One of the best hitters ever at age 24, 25, 26. Some of that's going to get messed up now because of how many games he's missed this year in what is age 26 or 27 season. But he's historically an important player and it motivates him. You know, some people might look at that as selfish, whatever. It gets him on the field and gets him producing. I don't know if there's a motivating factor for Tucker who, you know, the hope was the Dodgers were thinking if he's the 10th most important guy on the team and the media doesn't bother him because they want to talk to Freeman and Betts and, you know, Otani, et cetera. The media won't bother him because the other guys are bigger stars and they're more interesting. The media wanted to bother him yesterday. He didn't talk after the game. He didn't talk really. After he completed an 0-19 homestand and made an error that really stretched out what was already an inefficient start by Scoble, made Scoble throw, I think, his most pitches this year, maybe the most in his career at all. Which was interesting in his walk. Yeah, I will say this. The Dodgers are playing terribly. I mean, Edmund dropped the ball that was going to end the inning. Yeah, I saw that. Scoble had 70% strikes yesterday. He was throwing 99, struck out the side in the sixth inning. It was the most pitches he's ever thrown. So it doesn't look like a great outing, but the defense was terrible. So it was better. It looks the same as the previous two, but it was actually a good outing with a bad team behind him, or at least the team that played badly. It's interesting because for six weeks, or about the period where the Yankees have really wobbled since mid-June, Dave Roberts is saying what, again, I think you could say that Aaron Boone should say. We haven't played well on offense. We haven't played well on defense. We're not honoring our pitching, and the Dodgers aren't doing it either. They've come off of it as two-time defending champions and with a much better record once they started not playing well, and they're winning a little more even while not playing well. But they deserve it. They have a $400 million team. They have a better team than the Yankees. So if they're playing worse than the Yankees, they deserve what he said. Yeah, Boone, he's never going to do it, but I get it. He's just not that kind of guy. He's a modern manager. He's not going to do it. I mean, Roberts didn't go full out like maybe Leland would have in the days or whatever, and that's not that long ago. But I mean, somebody needs to light a fire under Tucker. Somebody making $60 million a year, he's making 30 times what Shohei Otani's making, who's maybe the MVP. That'll be an interesting debate for another day. Is he the MVP? We'll have that discussion along the way. Our MVP, of course, is Tommy Hogan, our great producer. Thanks as always, Tommy. Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, please rate and review us. It always helps the show. The New York Post sports YouTube page, give us a view, and we're hitting the stretch run here. Please continue to stick with us on the show with Joel Sherman and Jon Hale.