 We're joined now by Jim Henry special assignment scout for the Yankees gym You join us every year and every year we talk about how great your farm system is Yeah, Yankees have always been highly rated But you've had to deal a few of your top prospects justice Sheffield recently comes to mind for Paxson Where are you still feeling about where? You are in the organization. What kind of depth you have well the whole plans really has come to fruition pretty well I think the last four or five years under Damon's direction who you just had up here You know, we went from, you know, maybe in the bottom third of the game up into the upper echelon in our system Tremendous job by him and our amateur staff Donnie Rowland and our international staff, but we're the New York Yankees I mean you get to a point where a Main reason why you accumulate so many assets as you know in this environment We're here for one reason one reason alone and that's the win championship So you're gonna need as many assets and many prospects you can to make certain deals I don't think it's any secret. We're so fortunate now to have made that deal for Paxson The way the free-hand pitching markets going and where those dollars were going that it's a way bigger deal today I think even it was a month ago, you know when we made it so Yeah, we've given away some guys and not every trade is a Is a you know a boom sometimes you have some that don't work out But I still think our system is you know, you can listen to the Magazines and the baseball Americas and they've got us down in the middle of the pack But we have a whole lot of people in the lower levels and some great arms coming We've got people that threw as well or is better than Severino did when he was a young kid So we think we've got a handful of huge pitching prospects. They're not household names We probably won't give out those names today to if we need to make some other trades But you know, we still have a huge collection of people like you really nobody talked about and a hard three years ago Yeah, you know, we feel like we've still got a real good surplus and have a lot of faith Obviously in Damon and his staff and Donnie and his to keep that pipeline coming. We've proven that we don't Judge was a 32nd or 33rd pick of the country, you know, the other night people saw Damian got a tough job this year You're picking 30. We'll get a hell of a player 30. I can promise you that just like we did when judge was 32 or 3 So it's all part of it. Hopefully we'll make another trade or two before either this You know off-season's over during the deadline and puts us a chance to be world champs again I'm glad you talked about trades because you've had so many titles in your career, including being a GM Brian cashmere one said to me that he's got to ignore all the noise that's surrounding everything How do you stay disciplined when you're in that room? And there's probably an urgency to make a move, but you want to make sure it's the right move Yeah, you know what we have and this is all credit to Brian. We have a tremendous Variety of people in our inner inner circle. We have cash has done this job tremendously for 20 years You got great baseball people like Tim Nairing and Jade Arnell We got some rising stars coming up the Matt Ferries of the world and Kevin Reese our farm director Danny Geiss and and Matt Daly the pro scouting directors and a tremendous analytic department. We don't always agree. It's a very healthy Environment you have things around you agree you disagree and what cast does as well as anybody I've ever seen is He ties a whole lot of different kind of people together and in the end usually makes a real good decision. So it's very healthy It's very it's very You know open-ended open-minded and when we hit the streets everybody's on the same page the way should be You know what Jim? You're a great guy to ask about this But why are things happening so slowly at this winter meetings? You have so much experience as a general manager making deals Is it because of what you're saying there are just so many opinions in these organizations now? It's tough to get everybody on the same page to make some deals Well, I think the game's changed we all know that and and a lot of it for the positives a lot of it is You know we can all debate how the collection of talent now is maybe different than it used to be I think I think we're going through an environment where there's a lot of great young arms high velocity arms I think a lot of clubs Feel maybe the depth of great hitting prospects you don't have in the game like we used to That maybe start at the lower level travel ball the NCA rules are different We're not getting as many great athletes as we should play in our game because a lack of scholarships It's over 15 or 20 years It goes in a cycle that we're not getting the same great athlete consistency So I think what happens out with me have a good young hitter Or a great young hitter you see a lot more guys tied up earlier You know like even two three four years before they hit free agency So the people that are available The depth of offensive type people aren't what maybe it used to be you know Maybe arms are maybe relievers are but quality major league hitters Those guys when somebody knows they've got one she would hold on them as long as you can Well before you would have in the old days Jim you mentioned some of the personalities that are in that suite Discussing different deals Can you kind of take us through the process on how you go about it and how you do get everyone to agree on one play? Yeah, well, I said Brian just has a unique way He's he's so good at like everybody speaks their mind Without the roof ever getting raised and without him tipping his hand all the time and he'll he'll test your conviction He'll he'll he'll he'll take a statement that you make and he'll challenge you on it a little later on in the day And and you know if you want to pound the desk for somebody you better stay with that same conviction And it's it's also a healthy environment that look, you know People call the nearing's and Henry's and Darnell's the old school guys, you know, we've come a long way to and learning From the younger people things that we didn't understand or know and I'd like to think that seven years later after I was a GM I'm better now in my overall Repetoir from learning from some of the guys that I knew nothing about the world there And I think they treat Tim and Jay and I the same way that you know, we might be old fossils of them in some ways but they also They lean on us for some experience that they don't have to I think you can still outrun them in some ways I cannot run them on hours 20 a final quick question sit down to me when you said the word conviction It's easy to pick out the kid who's six six right picture throw it through a brick wall But have you ever tried to sell a guy and been successful? Maybe a finesse guy. Maybe hey, I think we need to take another look at this kid. Sure. Absolutely You know at the end of the day you want people to win baseball games for you and not everybody does it the same way and There's different ways of skin a cat If you if you're only gonna evaluate players by how you use a radar gun or how you check the home run column You're not gonna win championships It takes a variety of people a full roster a full different kind of people It takes winning type players that aren't necessarily the most talented, you know, Brett Cartner's had a tremendous career You know, he was a great seniors signed by Damon, but he wasn't this Phenomenal tooled-up guy that everybody in the country loved you win baseball games You win rings with people like that and every ball club's gonna have four or five guys that don't fit the mold of high Prospect high tool guy. They're just winners. All right, Jim great stuff as always