Him to pull kiptchel.

How's it going everybody, Welcome back, Welcome back.

December fourth.

We are closing in on the winter meetings, and this is the time of year where deals begin to happen for the Yankees.

At least in recent years.

Cashman used to be more aggressive in November, and he switched to kind of a November I mean to kind of a December strategy in recent years.

But we'll talk all about that.

See a lot of familiar names in the chat.

How's everybody going to miss you?

Guys?

I can't wait to get back to doing shows every single night during the season.

Let's get the important stuff out of the way.

Aaron Judge got eleven votes for mayor of New York City, but I'm glad he didn't win.

He's already got a pretty good job, in my opinion, and I'm sure he didn't want to take the pay cut.

Also, I woke up at five thirteen this morning because I had a very realistic dream and I woke up in a sheer panic that the Yankees had signed Troy Tulowitzki once again, and I got up.

I literally dreamt that I got the alert on my phone and I got up and started walking to the studio in my pajamas because I was gonna do breaking news.

This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard of.

And I literally made it four steps out of you know, out of the bedroom before I realized it was a dream.

So that's what happens sometimes when you're just waiting for a baseball news to happen and you're dreaming about it all night, and then it doesn't happen.

So those of you who have been here all year know that every Winter meetings we do a lot of different shows, try and cover everything in detail.

I'm gonna try and lay out everything that's coming up, you know, what we can expect over the next few days, like realistically, who could the Yankees target, Why I think Emi is the perfect fit for the rotation.

We're gonna talk about Tucker versus Bellinger, and we're gonna talk about when Cashman typically makes deals.

Now, somebody just asked me what I thought of Jack Curry on Hot Stove tonight.

I have to admit I didn't see Hot Stove tonight.

So if you have news on that, go ahead and let me know and I'll react to it in the chat.

In real time.

But look, I want to talk a little bit tonight about the front office because they have been acting a little bit cagy and they are walking a fine line.

Okay, they are walking a very fine line this year.

You know.

Either they don't know what their plans are, which I consider to be, you know, somewhat likely, you know, but they also might be kind of trying to construct the roster in a way where they don't drop a humongous boulder in front of their prospects, but they still get a big bat, you know.

And it's tough.

It's tough to get either Bellinger or Tucker right now without dropping a huge obstacle in the way of Jason Dominguez or Spencer Jones.

And I'm not so sure that they're very high on Spencer Jones anymore.

I mean, we didn't even see him in the major leagues this year.

If he couldn't take Domingus' job this year, what makes us think that he'll take it next year?

Brian Bashman says, the plan is that there is no plan.

I mean that could be.

Things have been almost too quiet, right It's been quiet in a weird way.

I think that the Grisham qualifying offer being accepted.

It kind of feels like a gambit that they weren't expecting.

They they were hoping that he would not accept a qualifying offer, and he did.

They wanted to get a draft pick, and instead they're paying twenty two million dollars and kind of harboring, you know, harboring, hindering the way that they're able to construct their roster this offseason.

As we look at the name still available on the board, a lot of guys coming off the board.

But you know, things have been really quiet for the Yankees.

Right.

They need to get better, but the path to getting better is more complicated than usual.

Right, It's not as simple as just writing a check this year, signing a big bat right, or or getting a big arm.

It causes problems this year because of the way the roster is constructed.

No matter what you do, you make a dent in the future.

Right, and even worse, if you don't make moves, you're wasting another year of prime Aaron Judge and another year hopefully an effective Garrett Cole And every financial decision that the Yankees make, right, it it bumps hal Steinbrenner into like an area where he's less and less comfortable.

You know, he's been paying guys not to play on the team for the last few years.

Aaron Hicks, Josh Donaldson before that, Jakobe Aylsbury.

I'm sure he's getting tired of doing that, right, But the Yankees are operating.

Like a.

You know, they're operating like a team that knows one wrong step could lock them into a direction that they don't want to go.

So look around the league.

The Red Sox and the Blue Jays are both being aggressive right now.

Blue Jays being very aggressive, adding arms.

Red Sox added Sonny Gray, who you say what you want about his time with the Yankees.

I have a feeling like he's gonna shove when he pitches against the Yankees.

But the Yankees appear to me like they're afraid of the butterfly effect.

Right, you sign one guy, you block a prospect, you trade for another guy, your system gets gutted.

If you eat a contract like Stanton to clear a roster spot and get more flexibility so that Judge can DH or Ben Rice can DH or Domingez can DH, and then you're paying a guy huge money to not be on the team anymore.

And quite frankly, he was too productive last year to do that during the regular season, even though he was hurt for a lot of it.

And I think Hal just doesn't want to do that anymore.

Do nothing, and you're probably a third place team and even their normal signals aren't there.

You know.

Somebody just mentioned Jack Curry and I want to go back and watch the hot Stove, but I have not been seeing the yes talent saying this is the guy or this has got to be the plan, which is usually what precedes the plan.

Right.

They like to put mouthpieces out there to kind of prepare the fans build the hype.

Before Soto, it was nothing but Sodo talk for weeks.

Action VJ says the Yankees desperately need a new creative GM can't say I disagree, but it's like the Yankees have kind of gone into like one of those submarine silent modes where they shut off every piece of equipment, like in the Hunt for Red October right where you don't want the ship that's passing above you to know you're there, so you're just waiting out.

You're just waiting for the market to shift.

Franklin Lopez says, do we really think the Yankees aren't going over the three hundred million dollars payroll, like they mentioned on the Hot Stove.

I didn't see the hot stove tonight.

If they really said that, that's probably a message to Bellinger, to Tucker, you know, it's definitely a message to fans.

But the problem is simple.

The Yankees must get better, but almost every path comes with a cost that they don't want to pay.

Right, if they spend big, it messes with how and his comfort level.

Right, if they trade big, it messes with the future.

Twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, all those prospects.

And if they stay put, well then you got to listen to me rant all year long.

And I don't want to do that.

I've got my own fuck up problems.

Okay, this is the most kg I've seen them in years.

And if they do nothing and Aaron Judge gets hurting us to miss two months, his team is going to be unwatchable, unwatchable.

You know, he had his Scottie Pippen, right, if he's Michael Jordan yet his Scottie Pippen with Juan Soto last year Pippin was gone.

You know, Soto would have Mets, and I thought Bellinger did a really nice job filling in.

But you know, it's gonna be an interesting, interesting decision which way they go here.

Both of these guys would look good in pinstripes for a while.

You know, I love watching Bellinger Tucker.

I think he's gonna have some elite seasons in there offensively, you know, But it's just gonna you know, it's just gonna be a tough decision, a tough decision.

One place where I know the Yankees will we'll spend money is on pitching.

I do expect them to go after TETs, So yeah, you might, and thank you Daniel for the super chat.

If we know that there's one place where Brian Cashman is not afraid to spend money, it on pitching.

That is one place where he will absolutely open the vault.

Garrett Cole got three hundred and twenty four million.

He offered Yamamoto three hundred million.

He signed Carlos Rodin for one hundred and sixty two million last year.

Max Freed got two hundred eighteen million.

Highest paid left handed starting pitcher.

Ever, when Cashman sees an arm he wants, he goes after him.

He believes having good arms in the stable is the key to making the playoffs, and he might be right.

And looking at the Yankees pitching, We've got Max Freed, Cam Schlitzler, Luis Heal, he brought Ryan yarbro Back.

We got Will Warren, Garrett Cole, Carlos Rodin, and Chase Hampton, all guys who will make an impact next year but will not be ready to begin the season.

And then prospects got Ben Hes, Bryce Cunningham, Carlos ogranhe Brock Salvage and Edgar ar Sorry, Elmer Rodriguez Cruz.

And by the way, we're gonna drop the cruise from this because everyone that I've looked it looks like he has dropped cruise from his name.

So we're gonna go ahead and drop that off of his stat on the screen in real time as we see how the sausage is made.

But you know, if you have enough pitching, you can survive almost anything else, right, I mean, you know, if you have if you're holding the opposition down, you can manufacture runs.

Hopefully, you know, you can win the game with a big three run home run, but you can't be given up six to seven runs a game.

So that's why Cashman typically invests in starting pitching.

Right pitching keeps your floor high and it allows you to be in contention every year, which is the Yankees goal.

And I've been watching a lot of footage of this guy Emi, and I gotta say I'd be pumped to have him in the rotation.

Daniel says, do you think Kideki Matsui slash Massi or Tanaka will help acquire Emi like they did with Yama?

Well, it didn't help.

It didn't help with Yama, but I'd expect the Yankees to yes use the assets they have at their disposal, you know, to try and recruit this guy.

You know, the stuff plays, the poise plays, the competitiveness absolutely plays.

Modern analytics has gotten so much better in recent years at projecting Japanese pitchers.

They're not the gamble they used to be.

You know, Teams aren't squinting at grainy footage of the Deki Irabu or Keayagawa.

They're running real data in real time.

They're looking at pitch shape models.

This is why Yamamoto walked into the league and helped the Dodgers win two straight World Series.

The transition risk just isn't what it was fifteen year years ago.

There's a couple of things I really like about Emi, and the first one is big.

He wants to beat the Dodgers, not join them.

That's the mentality that I want.

The That's like, you know again Michael Jordan, that he wants to take down the sho Heo Tani Goliath, not join his fan club.

Right.

And I cannot tell you how refreshing that is as a fan.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to having another psychopath in the rotation.

I'm not worried about clogging up the rotation.

I think you can never have enough pitching.

I think that's a luxury problem.

Will Warren has a trade market.

Luis Heal has a trade market.

The Yankees pitching prospects absolutely have value.

Depth is flexibility.

Depth is how you turn one signing into two or three roster improvements.

And so I'm all in on am I.

And if you sign Emi, it has a positive effect across the board.

Your rotation gets stronger and you get more trade chips, right, because you can then use more of your you know, prospects or back end guys like Warren Louis Heal in a deal.

Right.

It gives you more creativity, more flexibility.

There is no downside to adding a legit arm unless he gets hurt.

And that's the only real concern I have with Japanese pitchers, because the workload is just different.

You know, in Japan you pitch once a week.

In America it's every five days.

Even Yamamoto got hurt in his first season with the Dodgers Masi Hero Tanaka.

Remember he started off like eleven and one with a one point nine to ninety yard He was unbelievable, and then he got hurt.

You know, he almost needed Tommy Johnny.

He was able to avoid it, but he missed a lot of that first season, and after that he dialed back the fastball.

He wasn't thrown ninety seven anymore.

He was thrown ninety four.

But if you're serious about maximizing the Judge years, the Garrett Cole years, stabilizing the rotation, Cashman should lean into something that he actually does pretty often without hesitation, and that his pony up for some good pitching.

I don't think he's much of a gamble.

I think he's an upgrade.

I think he fits the blueprint that Cashman trusts more than anything, stack pitching, stack depth, and let the rest of the roster catch up over the season.

I do think that, you know, there are possibly some trades coming.

Let's talk about trades.

Let's make a deal.

Because this is this is gonna be difficul call, this is going to be difficult.

You know, every winter we focus on the free agents.

But the truth is Brian Cashman has always been pretty comfortable making deals, making trades, and historically he used to be aggressive.

In November, I looked up some of these trades here right.

November twenty fifteen, he trades for Aaron Hicks.

Twenty sixteen, he traded Brian mccanna the Astros.

November two thousand and seventeen Michael King, he gets for Garrett Cooper and Caleb Smith.

November twenty eighteen, he traded Justice Sheffield, who I thought was going to be a stud for James Paxton.

November twenty nineteen traded Nestor Cortes for international bonus pull money.

Nester found his way back though, and then nothing in twenty twenty, nothing in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, or twenty four in November, so he has shifted to a December buying mode.

December fifteenth, twenty twenty two, who signed Rodin.

He also signed Judge in December, traded Lucas Litke for Indigo Diaz and Caleb Durban.

Durbin ended up becoming part of the Devin Williams deal.

Had a pretty good year last year December twenty twenty three.

Obviously that was Juan Soto month, Alex Verdugo, Victor Gonzalez, Yorbitt Vivas December twenty twenty four, Cody Bellinger, Max Free, Devin Williams.

Going further back, you know, twenty seventeen, John Carlos Stanton deal was December eleventh.

Montero for Pineda was in January.

But that kind of aligns with what Cashman likes to do.

He likes to wait for a while and then strike.

Mark Watson says if he's available, he would trade for Tatis.

Non zero chance that it happens.

We'll see.

I'm seeing more smoke around that.

I want to talk a little bit more about Tucker and Bellinger because both moves to me have downside right, and both I go back and forth right if you ask me Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I might say Bellinger.

You ask me Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I might say Tucker.

He asked me Sunday.

I might say stick with Domingos.

Right.

Tucker is younger, probably the bigger long term offensive force.

He's entering his prime.

He draws, walks, his swing is built for Yankee Stadium.

And if you're projecting who's going to be a better hitter at age thirty two, which by the way, is further away for Tucker, it's probably Tucker.

And then there's Bellinger, who plays baseball, which is what I want the Yankees to do.

He hustles, you know, he just his swing for the situation.

He has a cannon for an army.

He won multiple games with his defense last year.

He plays the game with the kind of intelligence and the kind of edge that I just find personally enjoyable to watch.

Dude is a gamer.

He's a ballplayer, and the Yankees need more ballplayers.

But the problem is, for both of these guys, if you trade for the if you trade for or sorry, if you signed either one of them, you gotta probably trade Domingez or he becomes your fourth outfielder and Domingez is my favorite prospect.

Now.

He does have problems right He's still trying to learn how to hit against lefties right now in winter ball, and it's not going well from what I hear.

He's also a terrible outfielder by the metrics, although I thought from the eye test he made some strides last year.

As a left handed hitter, he's dangerous.

He's a good bass runner, something the Yankees could use more of, and signing either Bellinger or Tucker drops a giant boulder right in his path.

If you sign Kyle Tucker, you almost have to trade Dominguez.

There's no room.

Tucker is your left fielder.

Judge is not moving from right field.

They're not gonna eat Stanton's contract.

It's unmovable Grishams in centerfield, and that's it.

Bellinger goes elsewhere.

Domingez either becomes a fourth outfielder on a team that already has big time power at all three outfield spots if you go in that direction, so he's not gonna get a lot of playing time, and you stunt his growth, and you're not gonna use him for like defensive purposes because he's not a good defender and then once Tucker is signed, everyone knows you're overstocked and your leverage disappears.

Right.

That's the tight rope that Cashman's walking right now.

And if he signed Bellinger, there's still a path where Dominguez stays because Bellinger can play first base and Ben Rice moved to catcher.

But then you got to move Austin Wells, which I know the Yankees don't want to do.

Right Austin Wells is a better defensive catcher than Ben Rice, and they don't want to.

The Yankees valued, you know, defense from the catching position a lot.

Tucker, though, makes Dimingez expendable.

So if Tucker ends up signing, or if Dominguez ends up getting traded, those could be like signs that the other thing is about to happen.

Take a few voicemails here.

I know you, honey, steady.

I cannot believe had the.

Ball, but do it.

Brian Bashman says that Domingez had a better first year than Bernie Williams did.

Statistically, you're probably right, but you know, defensively, they're just different universes.

Bernie was a great defender from the very beginning.

He never had an arm, but he could run down anything, and if he could run it down, he'd catch it.

All right.

We got Steve from Maine.

Yes, my Derek.

Ste's calling from Maine.

I'd like to add my approval to a suggestion I heard on your show a little while ago.

I Getsishem Jazz Chisholm should be our next centerfielder.

He's got the speed, he's got the arm, he's under contract.

Doesn't look like we're gonna get Tucker, doesn't look like we're gonna get Billinger because the Mets are gonna steal him because Cashman's asleep at the wheel.

And it also takes Chisholm's crazy approach to second base with the backflips and the throws into the spans, takes that right off the equation.

It's always been said you need strength up the middle to win, to be a champion.

We don't have strength as defensively as Casher, not even offensively.

We don't have it at shortstop.

We don't really didn't really have it at second base the way Jazz plays his crazy game, and centerfield was poky slow hamstring, fifty pounds overweight, cool as a cucumber, too cool for school.

Grisham put Jazz in centerfield, get one of those durban callum durban types I think were him away to play second base, or even puts boltist second base.

That is all good day.

So I gotta say, I really like Steve from Main's calls.

You know, they're always very cogent and realistic and tell he tells it like it is.

And and and you're not wrong.

The Yankees were not strong up the middle last year, right, I mean, wells I know he rings, he rates out good for framing, but blocking in his arm.

I mean they're not overly impressive in terms of second base.

Yeah, Jazz was not great at second base.

He started out at third base.

He wasn't great there, but I thought, you know, I I liked him at third because I think the arm plays better there when he overthrows one.

At second base, he's a lot closer.

It feels like, you know, he's putting people's lives at risk in the third row.

But you know, centerfield, You're right, the metrics did not like Trent Grisham last year, although I think he'll be better this year with the hamstring heeled.

So you're not wrong.

And I think that's a really interesting take.

Here is Doug Row.

Hey Derek, it's Doug Row.

Happy holidays.

Listen.

Maybe I've had too much turkey that's been enought over in the fridge a little too long.

This might be a crazy idea, but what if we call the Seattle Mariners and offered Jazz Chisholm for George Kirby and Victor Robaz.

Yeah, Kirby takes care of the need for a starter.

Ropaz is the right handed fourth outfielder we need who can cover all three outfield spots.

Or Chisholm for Randy a Rose Arena, and then go out and sign Bob Bashett as a second baseman.

Just some thoughts.

Like I said, it might be bad turkey.

I don't know.

Let me know your thoughts.

Fie now now.

Brian Cashman likes to talk about heavy lifting.

Right, heavy lifting when he has to make moves and make deals.

That's not even heavy lifting.

That's like when a mother sees her child get hit by like a semi truck and lifts the entire truck herself to pull him out, like lifts like an eighteen wheeler with one hand.

You hear about this like ridiculous strength that moms get at some point like that, that's the kind of heavy lifting that would be.

But Doug, I like your creativity.

Here's Matt on Devin Williams.

Going on Derek.

This is Matt calling in this one to get your thoughts on Devin Williams' recent comments that he shared with Yankee fans on his Instagram story.

Pretty pathetic in my opinion, this guy gives us all heart attacks.

For five months of this season, he had the worst body language I've ever seen of a picture on the mound.

Just don't like seeing those comments, man, But I just want to get your thoughts.

Appreciate it.

Let's go.

Yanks only got one thing to say about Devin Williams and then final question, Hey, Derek, I got a good one for you.

Would you rather have Sonny Gray or Marcus Stroman.

Wow, that's like asking me if I would rather, you know, be in a burning building or a sinking ship.

Both options are pretty bad, right, and I would rather neither one of them happened.

Now, Sonny Great least can still get major league hitters out.

Somebody still wants him.

Marcus Stroman can't.

But I wouldn't want anybody who doesn't want to play for the Yankees.

So I mean, you're asking me the impossible question, right, What happens when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force.

That's this question.

But I think i'd have to say at least Marcus Stroman's hasn't said he hates the Yankees this week, so I probably go with Stroman.

All right, Land and gentlemen, reminder to like and subscribe.

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