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00:00And as you mentioned, Top Heavy is definitely the way to describe it with Aaron Judge and
00:07Juan Soto both having MVP type seasons.
00:10That's not been the story.
00:11The story has been who else can contribute.
00:14Volpe has taken a step back.
00:16Verdugo, you know, honestly, is kind of who I thought he was going to be right now with
00:19the Yankees.
00:20That's who he is.
00:21Gleyber Torres took a step back.
00:23DJ LeMahieu, at this stage of his career, is probably on the back nine, if not on a
00:27whole eight team with Max.
00:30And so the Yankees are going to have to make some sort of moves, you know, but it's a strange
00:36deadline coming, Max, here.
00:37You know, like, I'm not positive that all these teams are just like so far in that are
00:41going to make crazy moves.
00:42The Yankees can convince themselves Stanton's going to come back, the Bingas will come back
00:45and some others.
00:46I would expect something, but Max, what do we have, five teams out of it?
00:52Like, I mean, who are these teams even trading at this point?
00:57That's what I was going to say.
00:58And you hit on everything there going through the standings.
01:01First of all, the National League is loaded, right?
01:04And can you really justify being only four or five games out and selling at this point
01:09with the extra wildcard spots?
01:10I don't think so.
01:11I think it's a case by case basis, obviously.
01:13But the American League, there are a couple more teams that might be able to sell off
01:17some valuable pieces.
01:18But I think across the league, one, there are more teams buying more clubs that want
01:23to get better at the deadline and far fewer teams that are just trading pieces away.
01:27So what the Yankees may need to prioritize is just getting bats and not really focusing
01:32on positions and maybe just, you know, figuring that out once they bring some positive pieces
01:37in because you hit on everything, right?
01:40You look at this lineup and other than Judge and Soto, and then maybe Ben Rice, who's been
01:46ice cold since that three homer game and Austin Wells, who's been really good in the clean
01:50up spot, everybody else is below average in terms of production, no matter how you
01:54look at it, OPS, WRC Plus, how advanced you want to get, some of the metrics are even
01:59more grotesque.
02:00If you look at their Statscast pages, something's got to change.
02:03And I think at the end of the day, you can't fill all of those holes at the deadline, especially
02:08nowadays with the wildcard situation that we just touched on.
02:12At the end of the day, this team needs to get better from within.
02:15And if Verdugo, LeMahieu, Torres, Volpe, all those guys and more don't start to produce
02:21and start to recognize their potential in the second half, it's not going to be everybody.
02:25But if maybe two or three of those names start to produce better, then you can strengthen
02:30that lineup from within.
02:31You bring Stanton back, who was a threat throughout the first part of the season before he got
02:35hurt in the cleanup spot and really good with runners in scoring position.
02:39That's been more of a concern of late too.
02:41You're not going to win a championship, no matter how good Judge and Soto are, you're
02:46not going to win with just two guys.
02:47And that's what Luis Severino said the other day about his old team.
02:51We'll see how the Subway Series is these next couple of days, but he's right.