Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Going through this morning, the Yankees signed Randy Grechuk to come off the bench, and I had some thoughts on that with Jason Dominguez. How do we lead there? And then, about an hour before the show, we get this article from NJ.com from Randy Miller, who spoke with Giancarlo Stanton. And I'm going to read a couple quotes, Tiki, give a couple thoughts, and let's just talk this thing through.
Just two weeks ago, when spring training started, we got word the Yankees are healthy. Yeah. They're full go.
Chapter 2: What did Giancarlo Stanton say about his elbow pain?
Giancarlo Stanton, no problem, no biggie. And yet this morning, Stanton has not been re-injured. No, no, no, no. Stanton is ramping up to try to play by probably the end of next week or March 4th, I guess March 4th, the end of next week in spring training games.
But what Stanton gave quote-wise to Randy Miller today makes it feel like he's trying to be heroic, and I see it, but I don't know how alarm bells aren't sounding all over Tampa and the Bronx. So Giancarlo Stanton's elbow, he says, and I quote, I can't open a bottle, I can't open a bag of chips, a bag of anything. That's the way it is.
Aaron Boone added, for me, he's the poster child of mentally tough. I don't know how else to say it's true. Poster child. And Stanton also added that the public outlook would be that I wouldn't be mentally tough if I miss games due to the elbow injury. Now, I'm going to read more on the surgery and everything else. Mentally tough?
When you hear all those quotes, Tiki, as a former athlete, what the heck is going through your mind?
To me, what I hear when I hear this is... is, one, he's battling this tennis elbow, and he's been battling it for, I think, a few years now. We heard about it mostly last year. But as an athlete, you don't admit to those things. I don't think I would tell anybody that, oh, I can't open a bag of chips, I'm weak. But then I also start thinking... What the heck? How the hell do you swing a bat?
That's exactly it. If you can't open chips, how are your hands strong enough to hold a bat? It almost feels like arthritis issues that older people get when their hands start to break down and they start to get joint issues. There's just a weakness in your joints because of arthritis.
I tell you, the one thing that immediately jumps to my mind is, man, Spencer Jones has a real chance to make this team now as a DH if he keeps hitting in spring training like he did when he started the season. So I feel like Giancarlo Stanton's issues are maybe being exaggerated, and even by him, because it doesn't make sense that you can't open chips but then can swing a bat.
Do the motion. We all do it. You pinch the bag and you pull it open. Right. Again, now if he's talking about the Hal's chips that are a little thick or bad, maybe I understand. Yeah, but I can't even open those sometimes.
It has nothing to do with my strength or lack of tennis elbow. It's more like, this thing is really tight.
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Chapter 3: How does Stanton's injury affect his performance expectations?
They don't know what it feels like. Because it seems like that Giancarlo Stanton for the last couple of years has just been finding ways. And I don't know how he's doing it. Maybe he's taking smelling salts or something or whatever. Something to get him gassed up emotionally before he goes and plays a game of baseball to just fight through this.
That's the mental toughness that people were just talking about and alluding to, that you have to get your mind right in order to push through it and be able to grip a bat and swing as hard as you can and launch these things at 110 mile an hour exit velocity.
And a doctor can't relate to that.
His doctor just doesn't know. He could diagnose it from a layman standpoint, but from an elite professional athlete, I get what he's saying.
Okay, so then he also added, what's written about my elbows is what me and the Yankees give you. Well, hold on. If you're giving us this morning. Right, why are you even giving us that? I want to make this clear. Again, this is a Randy Miller piece. If you're just joining us at NJ.com, he spoke to Giancarlo Stanton. You can go find it there.
If you're giving us this, and this is written made to make Giancarlo Stanton look like a hero going into the season. I understand that, but I'm looking at the negative.
It's going to worry us. It does worry us as Yankee fans.
If you're giving us that you can't open a bag of chips in a bottle, what are you not giving us? That sounds bad. If that's supposed to sound like, yeah, no biggie, what are you hiding to tell us that? So here's the issue, and you can go through the whole, he wants to play a full season, that's his goal, but the full season is going to be... He's not playing a full season.
Well, this is where it's kind of a caveat. There are going to be a lot of off days, they say this. And I want to make something clear. When I read this, as a Yankee fan, I'm not upset at Giancarlo Stanton, and I appreciate that he's trying to will himself through pain for the betterment of the team. I was hard on Giancarlo Stanton early in his Yankee tenure.
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Chapter 4: What concerns did the hosts express about Stanton's health?
I think this is all adding up. No, I hear you. So they want Jason Dominguez to play every day. Every day. So that when he comes up, if he has to play every day, he can do it.
And I'm comfortable with that. Okay? You know what? You should be making him better every day rather than having him sit and we argue about Trent Grisham and all that. But the Grisham stuff now makes sense if all this is true. But Tiki, this is my issue. Stanton has this goal of playing a full season on the surface.
What does a full season mean for Giancarlo?
For Giancarlo, it means being on the opening day roster and being there through the end of the year while managing these off days. And that sounds nice for him. How many? How many days does he play? How many games? It's okay. Two, three days off. 108?
Okay.
Okay.
That's two thirds of the season.
Two thirds of the season. The end goal for the Yankees is to make the World Series, win a World Series. I don't care about the end goal for Giancarlo playing the full year. Wouldn't it behoove the Yankees to slow play this and not have Giancarlo touch cold weather in April, May? I'm serious. If the elbow isn't that much pain, you know what Giancarlo brings to the table late in the year.
You know how important he is. I know that Giancarlo wants to be there. So to me, I would rather say, you know what, Big G? How about we check back in on you on May? Keep doing what you're doing in the warm weather.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Stanton's injury for the Yankees' lineup?
We all agree with that? Of course. And Giancarlo only played 77 games, and they did that last year. Yep. I'm fine with that Giancarlo plan.
And he felt fine.
He felt fine.
He felt like he contributed enough. It wasn't like he felt like you were lacking of a Giancarlo Stanton influence last season, even though he only played a third of the season.
We'll be here waiting for you in the summer.
100%.
Now, the argument would be, well, how much more rest is going to help him? I don't even think it's about a rest. I just think it's about preserving how much torque and shots he's taking on the elbow.
Yeah, I think the other thing is, given what you're just talking about, if Jason Dominguez is going to evolve into the player everybody thought he was supposed to be, I mean, he had a nickname. He's in the minor leagues. He had a nickname. It wasn't like he was mashing home runs in majors. He was in the minor leagues, and he had a nickname. Talk about it.
Volpe didn't have a nickname in the minor leagues. Jason Dominguez had a nickname, the Martian in the minor leagues. It means you're an alien. You're a freak, and you're supposed to be elite. Or it means you don't exist. Right. Very true. Very true. The reality is... he's got to still prove that. Before we can really call him the freak, the Martian, whatever you want to say, he's got to prove it.
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Chapter 6: How do the hosts feel about the Yankees' injury management?
That's a good one. He knows Bernie, though.
I'll give you just a couple more, and then we can move on. Yeah, please. Number 10. This is a hard one. This might be the hardest one on the page. Chris Chambliss. No, Phil Rizzuto. And then lastly, number three? Babe Ruth. Okay. Five? Lou Gehrig. No, number five is Joe DiMaggio. How about number four? Lou Gehrig. All right, that's good. And then the last one, again, a hard one.
I wouldn't have got this. Number 16. Think pitcher. 16 is... You've got no chance. No. It's Whitey Ford. Oh, yeah. But think about it. So all those players... I mean, you're a non-Yankee fan.
Correct. I think you did pretty good, actually.
No, I do, too. And I expected him to get the more recent Yankees, which he did for the most part. There were a couple that weren't so great. But it is interesting that they have all of these plaques. And I didn't realize until this morning... that there were only six monuments. I would have thought there were eight or nine. And I've been through there.
I don't know why that didn't resonate with me.
Do you think there's somebody missing that deserves ace?
Well, I think Derek Jeter will end up with a monument before all is said and done.
Okay.
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Chapter 7: What are the reactions to CC Sabathia's number retirement announcement?
And it makes so much sense to me. The question, not the question, the challenge now, because he's going to get released, which means he'll be a free agent, is if he wants to come here. If he wants to come to the New York Jets and be a part of this. Well, remember this. That will be the challenge that the Jets are going to have to face once he's ultimately free.
I'm going to defend the Jets here for a second and keep this in mind. And this goes for Derek Carr. This goes for Kirk Cousins or any other veteran out there. We know that Kyler Murray is probably going to be available. We know Malik Wills is going to get signed somewhere.
You've got to land somewhere.
There's only 32 starting jobs.
And a lot of them are already filled.
Are already filled.
Right.
So if you're Kirk Cousins, you're going, I don't know if I want to be a Jet. Well, you tell me where's your starting job other than that. Right. Because the carousel could spin. Derek Carr, same deal with that. I want to win a Super Bowl. And you are left without a seat. So, look, that's the way it is.
And as far as any of these guys go, and you bring up Mestemaker, and I talked about Ty Simpson earlier in the week. I'm probably coming at this from a Giants bias because I just lived this last year with the Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston. It is important to note that free agency, of course, comes before the draft, and you have no idea the way a draft board is going to fall.
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Chapter 8: What legacy did CeCe Sabathia leave with the Yankees?
Like that is almost unbelievable. And I think, you know, right now, you know, the Jets every year, it's like believe in the next year and we have picks and we have cap space, but we have no quarterback, no identity. Like, in that locker room, what are these guys buying into? Like, what is getting them to be like, we're going where we need to go?
And I know you have, like, the Jermaine Johnsons of the world who is always like, I want to be here when we turn around. Like, he's a great leader. But we're the Jets, and it doesn't turn around. And just sort of in your experience from that player perspective, like, what are they buying into? Because it's either no plan or a bad plan with the Jets.
Yeah, you have to. It's such a good question. Because I think up until now, meaning I guess let's start in the middle of last season, it felt like it was bad plans.
Yes.
Like, what the hell are we even doing? Do you have an idea? You have an idea? And so it's harder when the plan is bad because you can feel it as a player. It's kind of like... This isn't going to work. This guy, Justin Fields, let's just pick on him because he's the easiest one.
Justin Fields is not good enough to lead us to victory, and it's just depressing because you know every Sunday it's not going to work. No matter how good you are, you can have a great day. It doesn't matter because the plan is bad. You'd almost rather have no plan and just hope you get lucky.
Right, defense creates a couple turnovers.
Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know what, we figured it out. We were gritty. We just found a way despite there being no way. But I would argue against what that last caller, Frank, what his feeling is. I think it's an emotional feeling. I think the Jets have a clear plan on what they're doing. Now, they don't talk at all. This is not a very...
verbose, we're going to meet with the media and give you details on what we have planning organization. We saw it all last offseason. We heard nothing. We couldn't even evaluate the team. No idea what to expect from the Jets going into the 2025 season because they said jack all offseason. They're very rarely doing much of that now, but you're seeing it in the action, right?
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