 Hi everybody, I'm Michael Kay and welcome to another edition of Yes, We're Here. We're thrilled obviously that baseball is going to be back and I'm joined by my colleagues and I'm most importantly my friends Kent Singleton and David Cohn. So yes, there will be baseball, which is amazing, which is good, which is all the things that we've wanted for a long time. So Kenny, you must be happy about this as well. Yeah, Michael, I think for a while there we were all concerned that there was going to be a season due to the circumstances of just what's going on in the world, but the fact is that the players and the owners, it seemed like the era of good feeling was over. And it sort of reminded me of the days when I was playing, I was part of three strikes and two lockouts and it just seemed like we were going back to the 70s and the 80s. Now I remember you told me a while ago, David, that no matter what the length of the season, you'll take it because the country needs the game. So it's a 60 game season. Obviously it's always 162, but you know what, 60 games could be great. Yeah, you take what you could get. I mean, everybody understands that this is going to be different than anything that we've ever seen before, even during wars in the past. You know, baseball had a continuity to its season. There was one time the World Series was canceled, as you know, Michael, that was, you know, back in the mid 90s over labor, labor disputes. But this is take what you can get at this point, you know, especially when you consider that there's been a lot of bad PR on both sides, you know, how this thing sort of played out. And it reminds me back in the 90s, Michael, that this is really a three-headed battle. This is large market owners against small market owners. And then the players are the third head here. They're the third party. And that's a mistake a lot of people make is, you know, the large market, small market owners have to agree first before they can get a deal with the players. I agree with you, David. I call it the triangulation strangulation because it's not as easy as other sports where it's just the owners against the players. Here it is. It's a three-part situation now. So it's a 60 game season. It's not what we are used to. And there have to be some concerns when you look at the way this is going to play out. David, what are some of your big concerns with the way this is set up? You know, for me, I think, you know, two things come to mind. The stars really need to shine. You know, your superstars really need to step up. You can't afford extended slumps. And, you know, this is kind of like a winter ball season. I played winter ball in Puerto Rico, ended up playing the Caribbean World Series. And we didn't even quite get to 60 games. When you start getting to a 40 to 60 game schedule, it is a real sprint. And if you get out of the gate two and eight, well, that's going to be hard to recover from. So you need your superstars playing for the Yankees. That means, for me, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton need to be, you know, dominant forces in the middle of that lineup. Kenny, because everything is so compacted, I think it was Jason Stark and the athletic who figured this out because he figures such things out. A seven game losing streak in a 60 game season is equal to a 19 game losing streak in 162 game season. And all the teams that have had a 19 game losing streak or more with just hard teams that I think finished about 40 games out. Last year, the Astros had a seven game losing streak. And ended up winning 103 games. So as David just said, Kenny, you cannot have a slump because the slump could kill you for the whole year. Yeah, when you think about a 60 game season, I would think you think like you do during a regular season, you're trying to win two out of every three. You're trying to go 40 and 20 or better in these 60 games. And a team like the Yankees can do it. I think with their bullpen, although one thing I think works against all these teams in the East, I mean, the National League East is no party. I mean, they're going to have to deal with this some pretty good teams in the National League East who are all contending type ball clubs, not alone the teams in the American League East they have to deal with. This is going to be a tough schedule over the 60 games. You're going to get to play teams like the Orioles and the Marlins. But just about everybody else you're dealing with can or possibly could win a World Series. Now David mentioned health and that's going to be really important in a 60 game season because you go on the 10 day IL, you've missed a six of the season. So you can't just slump it off. But there's not much positive that you could take from the pause that the world has been on. But when you look at it strictly from a sports angle, David, it's actually been good for the Yankees because if the season would have started on March 26, as we expected it would, there would have been no Aaron Hicks, there would have been no Stanton, there would have been no Paxson. Those would have been big, big, big negatives. Now they'll all be ready when baseball starts at the end of July. But also on March 26 there wouldn't have been an Aaron judge. So David, that's a big deal now. Is there going to be an Aaron judge now? Has that upper rib healed to the fact that he could play? Yeah, that is to me the biggest question mark surrounding the Yankees is where is he in his rehab? Has he started swinging a bat? Is he taking batting practice? Is it soft toss? How close is he to actually turning it loose and really testing that injury because we're running out of time here? And Aaron judge is not only just a huge part of the Yankees, but what do you think about what Michael and you know with all the PR hits that the game has taken on both sides that you really need your superstars on TV? We need Aaron judge on the yes network. We need to be able to show him and have him be a draw to help not only heal our nation but heal our game from what we've been through in recent history. Now Kenny, there are reports that he's been swinging off a tee of late in Tampa. Is that a good sign because I would assume that if that rib was still problematic he would not even be swinging off a tee. Yeah Michael, those are sort of like baby steps. Eventually you get into soft toss. Maybe after that you get into a little batting practice but you won't really know until you're facing somebody who's throwing 95 miles an hour. I think it's a good sign that he just feels comfortable enough to take this step which wasn't there back in spring training. So I think that maybe there is some healing going on and David is exactly right. We need Aaron judge. He's a focal point not only for the Yankees and their fans but just nationally. When the Yankees go on the road people want to see players like Aaron judge. They want to see what he can do. He's one of the most popular players in baseball. I think his jersey sold more than anybody else's over the last couple of years in the major leagues. Now it's interesting that a lot of people will look at the 60 game season and say well you know it's such an aberration and it is an aberration. And it changes the way baseball has to be looked at in 2020 because one of the beauties of baseball is that it is a marathon. And 162 games usually will allow everybody to see the flaws of a team. So you can get off to a good start and end up being out of the playoff picture. But a 60 game season now it becomes a sprint. And Kenny when you look at that you would say that you know you might have some outliers but I checked it out. Last year after the first 60 game of the season the 10 teams with the best record. Seven of those 10 teams ended up in the playoffs. So usually you can get a decent indication. Now sometime there will be an outlier but I think you'll be able to get a pretty good indication of what team is good. You might be able to find that out after the first 20 games. You know if you win 15 of the first 20 you've got a pretty good shot of making it to the playoffs. I also think that you know there's a taxi squad situation and players are going to get hurt just like they do during a regular season. And I think it's going to show the overall strength of the Yankee organization who they can bring up wherever the taxi squad is going to be. I heard Sprint and Wilkes-Barrick that these guys would come up and be able to help the team. Maybe other teams aren't as deep as the Yankees and they could sustain a couple of injuries. You hope it doesn't happen. And another thing we always see Aaron Boone give players days of rest during a 162 game season. What is he going to do in a 60 game season? Does somebody get a day off that you know no maybe not. You're going to have to keep playing especially if their record isn't where they want to be. Yeah and one of the things with baseball as we finish up David is that you know every game there's so many games that sometimes you could miss a game and say oh you know okay what did I miss. There'll be 150 more. But you guys started off 1-4 in 1998. You start off 1-4 this year. There's going to be some panic because every single losing streak is going to be amplified. It's going to be magnified. Every game is going to mean so much. I think that could be a fun aspect to this whole run. It really is because it's so different. And if we embrace it for what it is and not try to compare it to you know whether it's a legitimate full season or not or where does it rank in the history books. People we've already way ahead of that. The baseball universe understands that. You don't even need to put an asterisk on this year. We get it. We know. Base runners on second base and extra innings. It's a good time to try and do things. Just kind of go with it. Try to have some fun with it. But the thing about baseball is in Kenny's right. You know even though it's an abbreviated schedule it's only 60 games. Of course it's a sprint but we're going to fill the airways for two months. You're going to have baseball every night for two straight months and Kenny's right. I mean players that aren't used to jumping on that that wheel and getting right back into a full full six schedule. Usually even in April you get a lot of off days built in. You can kind of ease your way into the season. There's no easing in here. You jump on and you start running as fast as you can from the first game on. Well I'll tell you what I'm pumped up to have baseball back. Hopefully everything goes well with spring training number two and I can't wait to see the both of you obviously from six feet away and do some baseball guys. That'll be fun right. Oh sure.