Jeff Passan

Are you saying that you don't like the firemen, period?

See, I do like the fireman.

And I think you need a unique type of guy in Lucas Erson's career the way it's gone.

I think he actually has the right mentality for that kind of role.

And let's not forget, when the Royals traded for him, he was supposed to be a

strikeout guy.

He was getting a lot of punch-outs.

He was in double digits per nine innings, certainly.

And then last year, it goes down to seven strikeouts per nine, and all of a sudden, it's like, uh-oh, that's not ideal.

And

That continued this year and the lack of swing and miss, you know, it hasn't resulted in damage via home runs.

So when you look at Lucas Erceg's fielding independent pitching number, it's actually not that bad despite the lack of strikeouts and despite, you know, issuing too many walks just because he doesn't give up home runs and he never has.

And so for me, that's why Erseg made sense in that role, because it keeps the ball in the park.

And the damage that you're going to get, yeah, he's going to give it up sometimes.

But it's usually more of a, you know, drip, drip, drip than it is a, oh, God, that was fireworks right there.

Yeah, it's not a lot.

And let's remember, Andrew Miller was in a position to do that because the Indians had Cody Allen at the back end of the bullpen.

Because the Yankees, I don't know who was closing when Miller was there.

Was it Dillon Batances?

I don't remember exactly who it was.