Hour 2: Is Anthony Volpe's Time as a Yankee Officially Over?

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
309 Carton Show, Big Mac.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:02)
Not bad.

**Craig Carton** (0:03)
We went to the break there. Big Mac said he had some issues with some people's commentary.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:09)
Yeah.

**Craig Carton** (0:09)
On the New York Yankees, I guess, sending Volpe down and bringing Georgie Lombard up to be the starting shortstop, we assume, for the rest of the way now. And what was your issue with it?

**Chris McMonigle** (0:19)
Well, I just, there's like this belief that Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees have decided the day after the trade deadline to call up Lombard to shift attention away from the lousy trade deadline. That Yankee fans are so angry and now we're so gullible that they really aren't interested in doing this necessarily, but they're calling him up because it's like, hey, we'll send down Volpe, we'll do all these things that you want done so you forget that we didn't get a catcher, we didn't get a reliever.

**Craig Carton** (0:52)
Do you think Brian Cashman gives a rat's ass when anybody thinks about him?

**Chris McMonigle** (0:55)
Not only do I not think that, I have proof of it in every action he's taken as general manager since 1998 The man doesn't give a damn what we think. He doesn't care about perception. If he did, he would handle things so much differently. The guy doesn't give a damn.
They were either going to hold on. No, but I see it all over the place. It's a stupid take. I see it all over. Everybody thinks that the Yankees are bringing up Lombard. Why wouldn't they do it last week? Why didn't they do it before? They held this in the back pocket in case he had an underwhelming trade deadline and then took it out and said, here, look at this instead of looking over here. It's like the classic bait and switch game. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Here's this nice little thing in front of your face. Instead of getting excited and looking forward to Lombard coming up tonight playing shortstop and seeing what he can be, we're focused on yet another. And I'm as mad at Cashman as anybody. But like we, this is where we go too far.
Now everything they do is nefarious. And it's designed to trick you and fool you. And you shouldn't be happy about this because ultimately they're lying to you. And the only reason they're doing this is to get the stink off not getting a catcher or getting a reliever.

**Craig Carton** (2:12)
For those of you that think the New York Yankees make decisions based on what the fans say or what they hear on this radio station, including our show, they don't.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:21)
They don't.

**Craig Carton** (2:21)
They don't. The broadcast was not sitting there in Tampa going, hey, everyone's attacking me for not making the moves they wanted me to make beyond Garcia, really, right? So let me pivot. What am I going to do? I got to get the public sentiment back on my side?
So I'm going to bring Lombard up? Come on, man.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:38)
They don't care. They played Aaron Hicks for a year and a half while the fans were crying every single day.

**Craig Carton** (2:44)
They didn't bench Volpe last year.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:46)
They call up Volpe again and play him at shortstop every other night. The fan base goes nuts. They do all of this.
Josh Donaldson, you name it, you go down the list. They never kowtow. Sometimes to their own detriment, to be totally honest with you, they're so stuck in their ways. But the idea that now they're like, here, pay attention to this so you don't focus on the bad trade deadline. It's so dumb. Lombard was called up and he was held to the trade deadline in case of the odd chance, and I agree there wasn't much of a chance, that they traded them. I think for Mason Miller, they might have. For Goodman, they might have. They probably wouldn't have, but they might have, or they could have added another infielder. They could have ended up trading for a shortstop or third baseman if that's how the trade deadline went, so they waited to see if they were going to call him up. The minute he wasn't traded, and the minute they didn't get another infielder, up he came, down went Volpe. It's not for any nefarious reasons to trick us.

**Craig Carton** (3:38)
You know, it's kind of like the New York Yankees acquired the top shortstop in the minors, so you have to add that to the Garcia deal, and look what they've done. They've got you a starting shortstop, right?