 Today's the day that Mandy Machado is meeting with the New York Yankees. Ah yes, and I've been doing this for a long time Peter, and I really do not remember the Yankees pursuing a free agent that really has the fan base split on whether they want them or not. And it's really polar opposite the opinions. Now I'm listening to some phone calls today driving in. He's a cancer in the locker room. Why would you want to bring him here? He's no leader. He's a dirty player. He doesn't hustle. This would be a huge mistake. All right. That's one into the spectrum. And they have people like Michael Kay who thinks he's one of the top 100 players in the history of baseball or could end up being that if he continues to play the way he's playing. So where's the answer? When any other free agent was available everybody's on board. Right? When the Yankees are pursuing the top free agent everybody's excited about the possibility of him landing here. It is 50-50. We did the poll. It was pretty much was a 51-49 in favor of not signing him. So how would the Yankee fans feel about this day today? Are they excited that they're meeting? Or are they disappointed and just hoping this meeting goes off the rails? I've never seen anything like it before. I believe the downside of Machado has been vastly overhyped. And I am expecting to see as time goes on, assuming he signs here, a lot of fraudulence done. A lot of people are going to come around on Manny Machado. Yeah, I have a feeling that when the signing does happen, we're not going to get that much negativity. I agree with you. I think if he signs that I think people will try to learn to love him. But right now, what would be a very exciting time for the Yankees where Manny Machado is a guy that could be right now being convinced to sign a 10-year possible contract with the New York Yankees. I'm getting a sense that a lot of fans are just apprehensive about it. Now, the apprehension comes from a bunch of different things. Mainly, it seems to come from, it means that Anduhar would probably be gone. Now, maybe not right away because DD is going to be hurt for the first half of the season. So Anduhar would stay at third base and they would play Machado at shortstop. And then when DD comes back, they would then move Machado to third and then Anduhar becomes a role player or gets traded away. So I can understand Yankee fans and I'm actually one of the people that agrees with this is Anduhar as good a player as Machado? No. Could Anduhar become as good a player as Machado? Possibly, but it's not guaranteed. But you know what? He'll be a heck of a lot cheaper. You know, the whole idea that gets brought up all the time, well, you know, DD is going to miss the first half of the season, so they're going to need somebody. But you don't have to give a guy a 10-year contract or replace a guy that's going to miss three months. You still have another nine and a half years you're going to have to deal with if you give him that contract. That is not the reason to get Manny Machado. No, but it is it is a reason, not the reason. So I can understand a lot of Yankee fans and Peter, you haven't been in New York your whole life and you've been here long enough to know that New York fans love the homegrown guy. They love the guy that gets called up plays plays well for them. They love it. Whatever the sport is, they really love the young guy rather than going out to get the free agent because I do think a lot of Yankee fans feel this apprehension that they don't want to be looked upon as the team that buys their stars. They want to have homegrown guys. Yankee fans will always remind you all the free agents to all the salary dump trades the Yankees made back in the 90s. It was still about Jeter, Pasada, Rivera, Padet guys that were homegrown guys that helped them win the championship. Here's a homegrown guy that helped you win 100 games last year and you're going to trade him away to go sign Machado who's never won a thing. He's a great player, but he doesn't necessarily hustle. He might be a dirty player. He's an unknown quantity as far as what he's done for the Yankees where Andrew Hart was a known quantity. So there's that part. And then there's the other part where he doesn't hustle, which is a major problem in New York because to an outsider, New York is this glamorous cosmopolitan town deep down inside. It's a lunch pail town. Yeah, especially with sports, especially with baseball and they want their players to hustle. They want their players to get dirty. Meaning that they're going to go out there and they're going to get the front of their jersey dirty and they're going to hustle and they're going to break their back to win the championship for Old New York. And Machado isn't that. Now I hope the Yankees aren't sitting there today trying to convince him to be something that he's not. Hey, you know, Manny, we'll give you the contract, but you're going to have to hustle. I hope they're not playing that game. It's a matter of the Yankees just accepting who he is as a player and embracing who he is as a player. But New York's not going to embrace that. You said everybody's going to get excited. The Machado ends up signing here because they'll see the forest through the trees and look at the numbers and get excited. And the Yankees will have like every team does their dog and pony show. They'll bring them out and take all the pictures and they'll hold the jersey up and the fans will get pumped up and excited. But the first moment he doesn't hustle down the first base line and gets thrown out or the first moment he styles and hits the ball off the wall and has to be stranded at first base for a single. What do you think their phone calls are going to be the next day? Hammering the guy. Well, you know what? I think I have the perfect comparison here. People get fed up with some of the extra... I can't say extracurriculars because it's during the football games, but some of the things that Odell brings to the table, right? And they love to complain about it. Honest question though for you, Don. If the Giants had been 12 and 4 in the last two seasons, made the playoffs and won a game, Odell had been good. Still had the histrionics, but would they call up and complain about Odell? No, they wouldn't. So it'll be the same with Machado. Right. They're going to win. The difference is the Yankees will be winning and they won't be complaining about Machado. But here's the difference though. It's a long baseball season and as great as the Yankees might be next year. They won 100 games last year. There was still plenty of negative to talk about. How do you lose to the Orioles? Two out of three. How do you drop three out of four to the Tampa Bay Rays? So there's going to be moments even in a championship season where there's going to be a week where they don't play well. All right. And there's going to be a stretch of a period of time. It happens to every player that joins the Yankees. They get off to a slow start. They get boots. They ain't got boot last year. Struck out four times in a game, gets boot. They win the game. He still gets boot. He's not a New Yorker. He can't handle New York. That's going to happen. It happened to Tino Martinez. It happened to Giambi. It happens to all of them. They come here, they struggle, and then they have their quintessential Yankee moment and everything's okay. But until that happens, especially the expectations being as high as they are, where it's championship or bust, you don't think in a great season there's not going to be a couple of weeks here and there where he's struggling. He's over his last 15, didn't hustle. Yankees drop a series to a team they should beat, and the fans are going to moan and groan about it. Of course they are. Of course. That's true. They did it again. They did it with Stan. Stan was a no-brainer. They got him for practically nothing. How dare he strike out four times in a game of Yankee Stadium. He raked in Toronto on opening day, comes back to Yankee Stadium, strikes out four times, fans want him hung up. Yeah, that's true. That's going to happen. Yeah, I'm guarantee it's going to happen. But it's also, that's why I mean about it being overstated though. It's not going to happen every day. The non-hustle moments, first of all, I think he's not an idiot. He'll be aware of it, and I think he will look at it a little bit differently and try to, even though we didn't see it in the postseason in LA, I think we'll see him put in an effort. But also, I don't think it's going to happen so frequently. It's being discussed during this off season as if it is a constant thing. It has become a storyline. I don't think it's going to be so in people's faces all the time. But I could be wrong. Now, Dro tweets, Yankee fans are driving me insane, an infield of Andujar Torres and utility of Voight Byrd will not get us anywhere. Andujar's glove is a huge question mark. No idea what Byrd Voight will do. That infield will not get the job done. But why is Andujar being judged on a rookie season where Brian Cashman even admitted he was up a year early? They didn't project Andujar to be a major leaguer until 2019. Because of injury he was called up in 2018 and absolutely slugged one of the great rookie performances of all time. Now, he doesn't have a great glove. He committed 15 errors. But why don't you think that he can actually improve in that? Now, I don't think he's ever going to win a gold glove. But why couldn't he get better? You know, Bernie Williams wasn't the greatest center fielder in the world. He did win a gold glove or two, but he didn't have a great arm. He wasn't a great center fielder. But the guy hit and he won championships and the fans loved them. So Andujar's defense. So think about this for a second. Here are some of the things that we hear about. Well, you got to sign Machado. Didi's going to miss the first half of the season. Andujar is not a great defender. So I got to give a 10-year contract to a free agent because of those two things. Because of a guy that's going to miss half a year because Andujar didn't have a great glove in his rookie season in which he was brought up to the major leagues a year early. And that's going to be a 10-year contract for Machado. Maybe they get them cheaper. I don't know. Maybe that's what they're trying to convince them today. Hey, take seven instead of 10. I don't know if that's going to work, but I'm sure they're trying to do that. And then you've already got the 10-year nine years left on the contract of Stanton. You eventually going to have to pay judge that never gets talked about. Yeah, it's going to be a few years before they're going to have to pay him. But it's still going to be in the body of the contracts of Machado and Stanton. So these all have to get figured out. I said, I like Machado and I think the Yankees are better by signing him in the short term. But in the long term, it's another one of those long contracts so I can understand fans not loving it. And that's why it's so debatable and it's such a great talk show conversation.