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Go to Shopify.com/MLB podcast to take your retail business to the next level today. Shopify.com/MLB podcast. Not that anyone's counting, but we are 27 days away from the trade, deadline, and major league baseball. Which makes it a perfect time to be joined by Odyssey MLB insider Brett Boone, insider calls are presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger is the right product for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Brett is also the host of the Brett Boone podcast featuring the most notable name to MLB and around sports every week. And Brett, thank you as always for joining us. How surprised are you that the Orioles have caught the Yankees before the all-star break? I'm not surprised. You know, that Yankee team's really good. That oil team. I'm surprised I'd be amiss to say, no, I wouldn't be being honest if I said I expected the Orioles to be this good at the beginning of the season. I thought a year ago, they won 101 games. It's great. Yes, there's a lot of young talent, but that doesn't mean they're going to win 100 games. And then I've watched them a good amount this year. And they're really good. And it's not just Gunnar Henderson, it's not just Adley Rushman. It's a lot of these guys and they're good players. They're young. They're athletic. They love playing together and that's an underrated thing that people don't really look at. Joy, come into the ballpark. Can't wait to get to the ballpark. This team seems to have that. I'm over the top impressed with how this rotation is held up, Brad is going down, means going down with the Tommy. John Kramer's been out. I think he's back tonight, bought teeth out a year ago, arguably the best closer in the game. You lose him for the season. Bring Kimbril in. Yeah, Kimbril's going to make it exciting. He did it again last night and see that, but for the most part, he's righted the ship and done a pretty good job for him. Up there in all the offensive categories, the fact they caught the Yankees doesn't expect. It doesn't shock me. I think they're the two of the elite teams in all the game of baseball. Yankees are going through some stuff right now. They didn't have Cole to start the season. He's back, last outing looked better. Nester's been great. Strowman's been a great addition over there. The young kid healed. He was the rookie of the year. They already gave him the trophy, and all of a sudden, that back-to-back, real rough outing. That's called pitching at the big league level and learning. What are you going to do from this? Rode Don, who a year ago, they gave a huge contract, too, and he had a 6-plus earning. He's been great until recently. He's had back-to-back really tough outings. I think he goes again tonight. The key to this Yankee team, and I've said it all along, it's obviously staying healthy. I think that's kind of the thing in 2024. If you can stay healthy, you've got a huge edge, because everybody gets hurt. It seems like every day I'm looking at injuries everywhere. The key to this Yankee team, and he stayed healthy until recently, is not Soto. It's not Judge. I know what they are. They're going to be MVP candidates. Judge is the greatest player in the world. We know what we're getting with them, but a healthy, productive, Giancarlo, stand in the middle of that lineup just to add fear and to be a huge presence. They can't just, "Oh, yeah, we'll get by Judge." Well, Stanton might hit one off a facade. He's back to being that guy as close to 20 home runs before he went down. Him out is bigger than I think people give it credit for Ben. He's been down now. He's probably going to be out another few weeks. That's the key. I don't know. The Yankees have kind of hit a wall. They came through San Diego about a month ago, three weeks to a month ago. I watched that team. I said, "That's the best team in baseball right now. You do not want to play the Yankees right now. Now flip the script. Fast forward three weeks a month later." They've really been scuffling the last couple of weeks. They got too much talent on that team. They're going to get back on track, but this Baltimore Real team, they're for real. It's going to be interesting. They're going to have to add, I think they're going to have to add a starter as we go down the stretch and be buyers, but I think Baltimore is in position to do that. I know they've got a stacked farm system, so it'll be interesting to see how that trade deadline plays out. You mentioned Luis Hill, and I wanted to dig a little deeper there. We obviously pay a lot of attention to the Yankees on this show, and we paid a lot of attention to him, a start against the O's in May, early May, really took him to another level, but he's, I think, thrown a hundred innings in a season once. It was a long time ago, a lot of his minor league seasons were only around 70 innings pitched. Could this just be a reality where he's hitting the wall, he's breaking down a little bit, and maybe they've got to skip him a few times or put him in the bullpen in the second half? Absolutely it could be. I was watching an interview the other day with a former teammate of mine, John Smolks, and he brought up some really good points, and he said, the pitching today, they've thrown out the history of baseball and how pitchers get ready for a season, how they train, how they get their arms in shape. They've thrown that out the window and went all to data points and science, and he said and it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and he was making a lot of good points, and I'm not saying it's 2024, everything we've learned, and as our society goes forward, let's just keep playing like we did in 1950. That's not what I'm saying. Yeah. But I'm saying the way they bring these kids up, the way they handle them with kit gloves in the minor leagues, and oh, you can only throw a certain amount of pitchers, now they get to the big leagues and they say go as hard as you can, as long as you can. If you break, we'll find another Paul Skeens in the draft next year, and we'll just rotate you through. I just think the way they prepare these guys, and I remember it was coming to a head for me when I first retired, and Steven Strasburg was coming on the scene, and they said, well, we're really going to be careful with them, if we get to the postseason, we might shut them down. That blew my mind. I'm thinking, I'm listening to a big league organization talk about their number one starter. If you get to the postseason, Washington Nationals, you're going to shut them down. My recollection, I got to play 14 years, and if you get to the postseason, it's all hands on deck, because you might not get there again, let alone get into a world series. So the writing was on the wall back then, on how the game was progressing, and what those front offices were thinking, how were they going to handle in the future. This may well be a case of that, where, hey, he just hasn't thrown this many innings. And I watched him a couple outings ago, and he seemed a little off to me, something was different. I couldn't pinpoint it, but now it's been two or three, back to back to back, where he's really struggled. But the guy's on, I'm going to leave that to my brother right now to make that determination on how they're going to handle him going forward, because obviously he's on the ground running with him, and he sees it on a daily basis. But I noticed a couple outings ago, and this is not because he was getting, he was getting raked. It was just, he looks a little different to me, and I can't really pinpoint it. Brett, the Yankees lineup has definitely been struggling outside a really judge, but Soto as well. But Anthony Volpe focusing on him since June 1st is their lead off guy. His on base percentage is just 229. He's really cooled off after that hot stretch to start the season. Any concern with Volpe? Not concern, but it's just another growing pain. You know, I think a year ago, he was around 200 the entire season, and I think the organization made that determination that this is a, this is a guy that's going to be a New York Yankee shortstop for the next 10 years, and we're not going to send him down no matter what, because we think he can handle the adversity that he's about to go through. Well, he did that, and he got a full year of service, and he got, he got some, some experience under his belt going in this year. He got off to a great start, has been a great player, and all of a sudden, he's fallen out a little tough times. I think his defense has even improved, but this is the growing pain that we all go through as young players at that level, and especially add on top of that, you're at the top of the lineup. You're the lead-off hitter at a real young age in the Bronx. That's a lot. You know, when I was a young player, just getting the big ones, I'd hit six, I'd hit seven, you know, in a comfy spot down, down the, down the lineup. As I got, you know, as I got some more years and put up some numbers, I started hitting fifth, and I was hitting third in Seattle, but I was, you know, I was well traveled by that point. I had a lot of experience. I was a mature man at that point. To be a young kid, and being at the top of that order, I give a lot of kudos to those guys. For a veteran guy that's been there, done that, leading off is tough enough, because this game comes at you. We play every day. It's 162 games. In that lead-off spot, when times are good, you can't wait to get to the ballpark. You're whistling on the way to the ballpark, because you know you're going to the plate five times. But when you're seeing the ball good, you're getting hits, teams winning, that's a lot of fun to get up there five times. Let me up there six times. I have a chance to get four hits tonight, but when things are going bad, teams not winning. You're going through the dog days of summer, and you're struggling, and that ball isn't a beach ball. Guess what? You're going to the plate at least five times tonight, so there's a lot of pressure at the top of the lineup, let alone the Bronx, the Yankees, but I think this is a kid that's been resilient. He was resilient his heck a year ago. He's going to learn from this, get up, and I think you're going to see him thriving. But that, that top of the lineup, people don't talk about it enough. Being the lead off here, there's a lot of pressure, and you've got to be really have a short term memory to, to get through that lead off spot. Like I said, there's a big difference between going 0 for four and going 0 for five. Believe me, from a psychological standpoint with, with a. Brett Boone, always great man. Thank you so much for your time. We will talk again soon. You got it. Thank you. Thank you. instead of calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry Granger has the right product for you call clickgranger.com or just stop by all star closer Kenley Janssen we have a question what's the best podcast of all time this boy isn't boring baby i'm Rob Radford and every single day i'm sitting down with the biggest names to show you this great game is the greatest game it's my podcast it's my passion it's a cause i started more than two years ago and it's now the most prolific national daily baseball pod there is another fact so jump aboard the bib express follow and listen to baseball isn't boring presented by wasabi hot cloud storage on the free honesty app or wherever you get your podcasts
