 Mark, you saw with Cece Sabathia did it cost him $500,000. Your thoughts? I feel bad for Cece because he's doing what he was supposed to do. I mean, I don't like what the Rays did. Yeah, they had a couple guys hit the last few days, but the Yankees were not trying to hit Kiermeyer or any other guys. And then you throw it Rowe Mein's head. I've been on this show multiple times, Michael. I don't like it when pitchers throw at heads. And there's just no reason for it. Cece did exactly what he was supposed to do, kind of threw it at the hip area. And he knew he was getting thrown out, but he had to do it. Now, are you surprised that he would sacrifice $500,000? Because he had 55 pitches. He could have pitched two more innings and did it than in the eighth inning. But he wanted to do it right away because the catcher was up and Roman's the catcher. Are you surprised he sacrificed half a million dollars? Yeah, my guess is he didn't know what was going on. That's what I would think. That being said, Cece's made a lot of money in his career. He might have said, forget it, I'll sacrifice the half a million bucks and make a point. And he made a point. There's no doubt. And I think this will be a very cool story. It might actually galvanize the Yankees, bring a little closer together to talk about the selflessness of one of their veteran pitchers. I give Cece a lot of credit. Whether he knew or didn't know, he did the right thing there. And in the end, he's probably not gonna miss the half a million bucks. He's done well for himself in his career. Yeah, I'm sorry, Michael. Did you know, I mean, just being in the room with him, being his teammate, is he that sort of guy? I always hear Cece great things about, he's the best teammate possible. Of course, he's one of those guys that's gonna stand up for his teammates on the mound. I played with plenty of pitchers that no matter what was happening in the game, they were not gonna throw at a hitter. And again, I don't like that whole part of the game. That being said, if I'm getting beamed, or my teammates are getting beamed and we feel like it's unfair, the pitcher that doesn't stand up for us, we don't love it. Now, I don't think it's a huge deal. I don't think you see a lot of fights on teams because of that, but it just does, it kinda puts a feather in Cece's cap to say that, you know what, I'm gonna put my teammates above everybody else here and sacrifice, get kicked out of this game. Now, I'm not sure the Yankees will give them the $500,000 anyway, that would be awful generous, but do you see maybe Aaron Boone giving him two innings in the Red Sox series so he can hit that threshold? That's very interesting, I love that. Because you know what, it's gonna keep him fresh and it'll also keep him, you may wanna call it a test run for the playoffs. I'm not sure how Cece's gonna be used. For me, he's probably the fourth starter in the playoffs. That being said, in that wild card game against the A's, you might need him for an inning. I mean, who knows? So I actually really like that and you kinda kill two birds with one stone there by giving them two innings in that series against the Sox. Mark, do you believe, I mean, we had on Aaron Boone yesterday, that they still haven't made a decision who's starting one, say? Uh, yes, I do believe they have not made a decision because- Isn't that alarming? Yeah. You have, you almost have a no win, no lose situation depending on how you look at it. If I look at it, that this is a bullpen game anyway, then if my pitcher goes out there and like Severino did last year and gets in trouble at all, he's out. So in essence, it's a bullpen game. If the guy goes out there and does well for an inning or two innings or three innings, it's, again, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's Severino, Tanaka, or Hap. Whoever goes out there and struggles early is out of the game. So to that point, I can see where they have not made their decision. And Boone told us that it's a three-way tie. Like he doesn't have a one, two, or three, which I also find difficult to believe. Even if he hadn't made the decision, don't you think deep down in his mind he's got an order? Yes, Hap's the best pitcher on the team right now. Tanaka was not good last night. Hopefully it was just, I felt that Masahiro Tanaka was a little bit distracted last night. And maybe he's looking towards the next start. Maybe he was told, hey, if you pitch well here, you do get that game, whatever it might be. He just seemed like he was not locked in. That being said, I would actually, I think Jay Hap's the best starting pitcher on the Yankees, but I would actually start with my bullpen in this game. And this is why. If I believe that I'm gonna have to rely on my bullpen anyway, why wouldn't I try to get through that Oakland A's lineup a few times, with maybe Green, Holder, whoever it might be early on and then say, okay, we have a two or three or four run lead, whatever it might be, I might wanna save Hap for that game one. Or I might wanna say, if the Yankees win seven, nothing and burn Hap and he can't pitch until game three of the division series, they might be kicking themselves saying, ah, man, you know, we beat this team by seven runs, but Hap can't pitch in game one and I should have held him back. So I wouldn't mind them starting their relievers to begin that game against the A's. Which I want Mark to share his weekly spot on the Michael K Show. Now, Mark, I agree with you that Hap has pitched the best since he's come over here, but David Cohen said on the end of the last couple of games, he said, it's gonna be very hard for the Yankees to keep the Ferrari in the garage for the wildcard game. He's saying that Severino has the best stuff, he's the Ferrari, do you see what he's saying? I agree with Cohen, I mean, Severino has the highest ceiling of any pitcher on the Yankees, but we've seen what happened the second half of the season. If, you know, if my Ferrari all of a sudden starts smoking or gets a flat tire, I gotta bring it into the shop. And we know what happened last year against the Twins. It might have been a complete fluke. But could you imagine, Yankee fans getting on Aaron Boone and the Yankees organization, if they put Luis Severino out in the first inning and he gives up a three-run homer in the first inning to the A's, and they lose that game. They, Boone would be crushed and it'd be, you knew he was struggling the second half and boom, boom, boom, and all these different reasons. I think there's way more downside for the Yankees organization if they start Severino in that game. I gotta tell you what, I think because of the uncertainty and the fact that they don't have a favorite, there's just three games left in the season, I think this thing is right for second guessing. So whoever you pick, better pitch well because if not, there are two other people that every fan is gonna say they should have started A, they should have started B. This is a tough call for the Yankees, that they don't have that one guy that just jumps out and say, okay, must win, I've gotta start him. Bingo, and again, so I think you just proved my point, Michael, if that's the case, I bring out the best part of my pitching staff right now is my bullpen. And so if you don't have a clear number one, you run out your bullpen out there early on and if you have, and you figure it out as you go, you basically go into that game on, it's Wednesday, correct? Wednesday in the Yankee stadium. Yes, yep. On Wednesday, you tell every single one of your pitchers, you're available tonight and you start, whether it's Green or whether it's Robertson or whoever you want early in that game, heck, it could be Zach Britton, I don't know, it could be your oldest Chapman, who knows, but you set up your bullpen to get through the first few innings of that game. Hopefully the Yankees give you a lead, hopefully Oakland, because you're throwing literally different pitchers at them, they can't get into a rhythm. You get a lead and then you figure it out as you go. If you get a five or six run lead in that game, heck, maybe Sabathea goes and pitches a few innings. You know, maybe you save some of those guys, maybe you get Severino in that game for the middle innings because you know you wanted him to be the second or third game starter of the division series, but it just creates a lot of flexibility if you go in there with your bullpen first. Well, he's sticking to his guns with Gary Sanchez, he gave us all the reasons why Frames pitches gun for an arm, calls a good game, and of course we know his potential offensively. But Mark, do you believe two-one Yankees top of the ninth inning Sanchez makes the last out in the previous inning that he's gonna catch that ninth? I do, I do, and the reason is, is in this instance you have to stick to your guns. And if your guns tell you that Gary Sanchez is my catcher for this game and really for the rest of the playoffs, that's kind of what you're saying, right? I mean, you're saying that in the big games of this playoff run that Gary Sanchez will be my guy, you cannot take him out of that game and just basically say, well, he's only my guy until he's not. That would just, I think that would just discredit your entire thesis of putting Gary in that position. You've seen it all in so many years in the big leagues. I mean, what is the deal with Luke Voight? How do you explain this? He's 27, he's 27 years old. You know what, he's a lot of fun to watch. Sometimes guys just need the at-bats and the confidence. I think he made a point early in the season when he came over from the Cardinals and basically just saying, I finally have gotten the chance at the big leagues. And that might be the easiest answer to this question, who is Luke Voight? What happened to Luke Voight? He got a chance to play. And confidence in baseball is so important. You can take a great player with zero confidence and he's gonna stink. And you can take an average player, a journeyman, that believes in himself, believes he belongs in the big leagues and you're a big strong dude, you square up some balls, good things are gonna happen and that's what we've seen. All right, Jacob DeGrom, I don't know how you felt about Cy Young going into last night, but do you think he nailed it down with that performance against the Braves? He did and we had this conversation all year long, and middle of the season I said no, really three quarters of the season I said no, now yes. And the reason is there's two things. One, it may not be a big deal to a lot of people, but having a winning record matters to me. Just to say that I am a winning pitcher, I had a winning record this year I think is important. So last night helped that argument. But number two, the ERA continued to go down while Scherzer and Nolas continued to go up and Scherzer and Nolas team halfway through the season and three quarters of the season, we're still in the pennant race. And now they're not. Those teams aren't going to the playoffs. So if you have three teams that aren't going to the playoffs that you have three pitchers and one stats are so far and above the other twos, that's why DeGrom is your Cy Young. Got some text messages before we let you go. Matt and Carney in New Jersey said, will we see CeCe and Pinstripes next year? It's a poll and that really, I think so. I think so because it's not like the Yankees have four or five young arms that are just knocking on the door. They have to be starters next year. He's a great insurance policy. You're probably going to come relatively cheap. You know, that's again, the word is relative, but if you only have to pay him between five and 10 million bucks and he can come and be a solid four or five starter swingman type guy. If he wants to pitch, why not bring him back and have that? He's almost like your Neil Walker insurance policy that if some things go wrong, I'm going to need that veteran presence, that veteran guy in my rotation to make sure that I can get some quality starts. How about this though? You don't bring them back. That's 10 million. You don't bring back Gardner. That's 12 million. And you don't bring back Robertson. That's 14 million. That's Corbin. Under that scenario, then yeah. I mean, if you have to make the numbers work, you better believe Brian Cashman already has this thing mapped out. Right. I mean, the Yankees, they don't just kind of willy-nilly make decisions based on, oh, I kind of want that guy on my team. I'll give him whatever it takes. You know, they're going to map out their entire off season. They're going to know that Cici's not going to be, you know, he's not going to have to sign on day one of free agency. He'll wait around for the right deal. And if they have excess cap space at the end of the season, that's when you bring in Cici. But if you've already spent that money on Corbin, they're not going to go over the luxury cap just to get to, you know, just to get to a fourth or fifth or sixth starter in your rotation and pay that penalty. This is from Ash from Howell, New Jersey. How do you change allegiance from the team you grew up following to the team you play on? I think I can answer money, but what's your answer? You know, for me, it was really simple. You know, I grew up an Oriole fan. I, the first game that I ever played in Camden yards, I felt no attachment to the Orioles. I'm playing for the Texas Rangers. I went through, you know, a whole year in the minor leagues with the team the year before and spring training. And, you know, I'm not sure, you know, what month of the year it was in my rookie season, but I showed up with the Rangers uniform. There was zero affiliation, zero connection I had with the Baltimore Orioles because I was worried about performing on the field. And it's just kind of the way it was. Two problems, sorry, you got another one. No, no. I was just two problem question. Who is gonna, who's the best team in the National League? And do you give that team a chance to win it all? This is, that's a very tough question because nobody in the National League is wants to be the best team, right? So last week, I would have told you the Cubs. They might not even win the division. Everyone else is saying, oh, it's the Dodgers. They may not even win the division. You know, by default, the best team in the National League might be the Braves because the Braves are the team that, you know, they know where they're gonna be, you know, next week on Tuesday and Wednesday. But I just think that the five or, you know, the five best teams in baseball are all in the American League. Yeah. Those five teams that are gonna make the playoffs in the American League, any one of them can win the World Series. I would be surprised if the Brewers won the World Series. I would be surprised if the Rockies won the World Series. I'd really even be surprised if the Braves won the World Series. That's a long non-answer, but I'll just say Cubs. I'll just say Cubs are the best team because they won it two years ago and their roster still looks good. You said they don't, you don't think they would, but does hot matter because the Rockies are up 3-1 against the Phillies right now? That'd be their seventh straight win. If they carry a 10-game winning streak into the playoffs, end up winning the West because of it. Is that enough to get a team on a run? It can, but remember what happened to the Rockies back in 2007? They were the hottest team in baseball. I remember playing them with the Braves in 2007, in August when I got traded over from Texas. And I'm like, this team stinks. And they went on an amazing run. 22 and two, I think. Yeah, they went on this incredible run second half of the season, rolled through the first two rounds the playoffs and got swept by the Red Sox. So I hear you and I do agree that a hot team is important, but at the end of the day, a kind of hot Red Sox or kind of hot or a decent Astros team, it's still better than a hot Rockies team because of the starting pitching that the Astros have and the depth that the Red Sox have. Good stuff, Mark. We'll talk to you next week, buddy. Always fun, guys.