Hour 5: McMonigle Questions Yankees Postseason Grit and Boone's Future

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Yes!

Chris McMonigle (0:01)

I love Lovely Reader.

888-808-1019. McMonigle here with you, the last stop of The Carton Show. Little Sergeant Pepper, get us going.

SPEAKER_1 (0:11)

Taking advantage of Craig not being here.

Chris McMonigle (0:13)

That's right. While the cat's away, the mice will play, I suppose. But...

Never mind.

Never mind.

888-808-1019. We'll take your calls. We just did a little bit on The Yankees there. And again, it was... It's frustrating to watch anyone play and beat the Rays after The Yankees couldn't handle them and didn't show up for that series. And we'll see when The Yankees decide to speak. I do not believe that Aaron Boone is going to be gone. I do not believe, certainly, that Brian Cashman, who doesn't have a contract, by the way... We mentioned Boone has one more year on the contract. Brian Cashman does not. He's not under contract, I fully expect. My guess would be he's going to sign a four or five-year deal and that that would be the last one. But I don't know that for sure. But if he wants to come back, I don't have any doubt that Hal will bring him back. Boone... I don't know how strongly they're contemplating it. I think you have to think about it. I mean, again, I think and I've defended Boone long before I ever talk to him here or join this show. I've been defending Boone since Boone took over. Let's be honest, I think it's just what I do in general. I defended Joe Girardi against people all the time. There used to be a guy, Brett Wishnear, who worked on the Mic App, who worked on the show with us, and he told me, every day, Joe Girardi is the worst manager who ever lived. It's embarrassing. The Yankees, they're run by an idiot. We forget, we don't like a lot of the managers. It doesn't matter. It's not just Boone. He's not the first one. I used to defend Joe Girardi and I was pissed when they decided not to bring Joe Girardi back. I was pissed when they fired Thibodeau. I was wrong about that. I was the last guy hanging on for Brian Dable as well. Maybe I just don't blame the managers and the coaches for stuff. Maybe it's a flaw of mine. I do not, it's not just defending Boone. I usually put a lot on the players and I am usually the last one on board to get rid of a coach unless there's real, real incompetence, which I don't think you can argue with Aaron Boone despite you wanting to. But that doesn't change the fact that him is the leader. These teams do not perform. And to me, I know people are going to get mad and say, how could you say they're better than Cleveland? Because they're better than Cleveland. Everybody knows it. Every time they beat Cleveland, it almost doesn't count. Like, you know how I know they're better than Cleveland? Because every time the Yankees beat Cleveland, we don't count it collectively as a fan base. It's not counted. It's discussed as almost as if, well, that, I mean, so they beat Cleveland. Every single time you get a Yankee playoff statistic, it comes with the beginning of outside of the AL Central. Like every time. Outside of the AL Central. Excluding the AL Central. When they play anyone not in the AL Central. How many times have you heard that? Over and over again. 2024 was the easiest path to a world series in history. And it went right through Cleveland.

So like, I'm not trying to knock Cleveland and anybody, and we all thought that they would beat Cleveland if they played them. I still think they would have.

But that's what's frustrating because Cleveland is not better than the Yankees. And yet, they were capable of putting forth a performance that at least, and they ended up winning the game, but at least was showing up and joining the series and knocking around some pitching. Like, it's, that was frustrating for me is that, I mean, why is it consistent? And say Cleveland gets hot. And to me, that would speak, like, if Cleveland gets hot here and beats the best team in the American League, that has been the best team in the American League all year, despite me and others saying differently about the Yankees, I'll own that. But the team that had proven on the field to be the best team in the American League all year, right? Win the division easy. If they needed those games at the end of the year, they probably won 100 games. Go through the Yankees like a hot knife through butter. If Cleveland, who was one loss away from getting swept by the White Sox, gets hot and goes through Tampa Bay, you know, look at me in the straight face and say, there's no element of crapshoot in this. And it's not all crapshoot, right? The Yankees are proving that it's not necessarily a crapshoot. If you continually come up small and soft minded, like that's how I view the Yankees right now. Under pressure, they fold. And that's why I was speaking about Rizzo. Tell me how the pressure of being a Yankee or the pressure created in that clubhouse or the pressure created by the roster or whatever else, what about that pressure led you personally to make a mistake? Explain it to me.