Hour 2: The Playoff Roster

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way.
Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:32)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:41)
Well, Spencer Jones has certainly gotten everybody's attention. And for good reason, he's played quite well since being called up for this third time. And Yankee fans have always loved, they've always loved the homegrown player. I get it. But they'll just as quickly turn on that homegrown player, because look what they did with Anthony Volpe. So at this point, both Lombard, George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones, are the flavors of the month. And why not? They've both done quite well. Although Lombard, three errors in three games against Toronto, he's got to tighten that up because he's an extraordinary defender. Yeah, defense sometimes goes into slumps, but he should not have four errors. The errors that he's made, and the error he made yesterday was extraordinarily large because it would have been the end of the fourth inning for Carlos Rodin. And by booting the ground ball that loaded the bases of Rodin, ended up giving up a run and throwing 12 more pitches to get out of the inning, which means that he couldn't pitch in the fifth inning. So those are plays that George Lombard Jr. knows that he has to make. You know, I spoke earlier about people not listening or really understanding the language. So last week, people were asking me, what do you think the move is going to be when Cody Bellinger comes off the IL?
And I said that I thought the move was going to be Spencer Jones being sent down.
Now, at no point did I say that's what I want the move to make or the move for them to make. Never said that. People asked me, what move do you think the Yankees are going to make? And I said, they're going to send down Spencer Jones.
I didn't say they should. I didn't say I want them to. I said that that's the prudent move because you could bring them up in 7 days when the rosters expand to 28 You only lose them for 7 days. If you don't send down Jones, then you would have to release a Med Rosario.
And they weren't going to do that. They like a Med Rosario who has not hit well against lefties this year, but their metrics say that he will.
So I was giving an answer by what the Yankees were going to do. Now that became a moot point when McMahon went on the IL. So McMahon went on the IL. They called it Max Schumann.
So then the automatic move for when Bellinger came off the IL, which was yesterday, was to send Max Schumann down. Now you all know, if you've listened to me on the air, I've been 25 years now on the station.
I love Steve Brzezinski. Love him. He comes to all of our events. Good guy. He's gone through a lot of health issues. So he puts out yesterday on X, Michael Kay, you know, because Spencer Jones has been doing well. And to think that Michael Kay doesn't want him to stay, I'm paraphrasing, wants to send him down. Steve, Ben, if I had a number for you, I would have called you up and aired you out. I never said that. So then you let out the crumb bombs out there. Kay's passed his prime. He should be going. He's awful. For some reason, he hates Spencer Jones. I don't hate Spencer Jones at all.
But I don't look at it the way you all look at it as a fan. I'm looking at it rationally. What is the roster move that an organization would make so that they could keep their assets?
Because they look at Rosario as an asset. So if McMahon didn't get hurt, you mean to tell me to keep Spencer Jones up for seven more days that they would release Rosario, lose an asset that somebody would pick up in a moment so they wouldn't have Spencer Jones on their roster for seven days?
Never would I said. And by Brzezinski putting that out there, that opened the gates of hell for all these cheeto dust fingered, you know, crumb bums to jump me that I don't like Spencer Jones. I think Spencer Jones, first of all, is a delightful kid. He is a weapon in terms of his speed on the bases. He has played a better right field than I thought that he was going to. He's got a really good arm, and he's put some good at bats out there. Now, his strikeouts still concern me. 64 strikeouts and 159 at bats is an awful lot. It's about 35%.