 for those early risers the field will open every morning at 7 a.m. 7 a.m. which doesn't affect too many of you but just note to cells seven o'clock you can get in the building 815 for the clubhouse with that Aaron thanks for taking the time who has questions for mr. Boone Meredith in the middle do we have the wireless mics if you just thank you Aaron you have the opportunity today to get your first official look at Garrett Cole throwing the ball what was your impression of that bullpen yeah really good day you know good for him to get here and to see him see him put on the pinstripes and get out there and I thought have a very efficient day of work you know throwing throwing aside you know 25 pitches and then to you know get to have a conversation about it with him and and to see you know kind of him confirming all those things we we saw from him this winter when we got to meet with them just how specific he is about you know everything he's doing and just that understanding of you know every pitch he makes what it's doing what it needs to look like his mechanics that are involved with it you know his attention to detail is special and so it was a good first day for him to to get out there and get on the mound and in a good uniform front row Brian Aaron you mentioned the conversation with Garrett seemed like he was pretty animated at times what kind of things was he going over with you guys what did he want to get across yeah I mean that's him you know you you can get into a conversation about the the craft of pitching and you know what so we're talking everything from you know how he's shaping his change up and how he wants to throw it and you know what is our action should be doing and where his misses are and you know we it's just a really good baseball conversation with with with a great player that again understands who he is really well and in those conversations you know are important to take place because I think they speed up the process and allowing us to kind of grow together to kind of hopefully continue to aid him and help him you know get acclimated but also you know continue to improve in his game and you know he's one of those guys like a lot of great players that you know expects a lot of himself and and and works really hard to continue to be great at his craft from Roe Bruce what does the addition of Cole mean to the rotation in general and to this entire ball club in your mind well he's you know arguably the game's best pitcher you know so we're adding a bona fide ace to an already what we feel like is a really good rotation you know we're obviously excited about Seve coming back and Massa and Hap and you know feel like everything went pretty well with Pax and know we're gonna get him back and you know with Monty coming back and we feel like the depth of some of our you know young pitchers that are coming up in the system that are gonna start to people are gonna start to know their names as well we just feel like he's that anchor at the top that you know it when you have an ace it's not only the greatness that they obviously provide on that day but it's you know because usually there are guys that are eating up a lot of innings and pitching deep in the game so you know it has that trickle down effect of hopefully making a great bullpen even better because you know you're preserving them and using them and roles that they should be in more often and we're just we're just really excited to have them and and it's exciting to see you know him come in here and know this is a place he absolutely wants to be and feels like was a little bit of destiny him finally getting here Andy to the right Sanchez was talking today about some changes he's trying out to his catchy mechanics you've always been a defender of his yeah receiving but how much room do you think there is still for him to grow I think there's still a lot of meat on that bone and he's he's improved I feel like a lot over the last couple years and we feel like you know with Tanner coming in and the work they've already begun we feel like there's more there to be had and you know him being open to it and continuing to work hard at that craft you know I'm confident we'll see the those results as the season unfolds Kenny right here in the front and did you see or read about AJ Hinch's interview with the network and the question about the devices got a lot of attention because you talked around it are you fully convinced that the answers were not using any sort of devices in last year's no I mean I mean that's certainly you know one of those great unknowns and certainly you know I've spent time as I'm sure a lot of people have you know wondering all the things that could have potentially been going on and and probably will never know for sure frankly you know the exciting thing about it is you know with with how major league baseball I feel like has dealt with this and obviously has dealt with it with a heavy hand you know I do feel like it's something that will aid our sport moving forward and make our sport better moving forward and and that's kind of where my focus lies you know obviously these last several weeks has been a lot you know and we've had a lot of time to kind of process all this and the range of emotions has been huge you know you're mad frustrated disappointed but you also know there's a time to move on and there's you know I don't really dwell on the things that I I don't really am able to control so I look at it now as it's time to move on and look forward and we have a great team in that room and we know the sky's the limit for that team and we have championship aspirations and so as we you know kick things off in earnest tomorrow the focus is on you know eliminating distractions and making sure we're we're in a position to start laying a foundation to be a champion do you think Gary taught a little bit about you know that the commissioner's conclusion about 2017 yeah and you had some funny lines and he seems you know kind of enjoy I mean are you okay with as each guy walks in here like on day one yeah letting it out and then moving on yeah absolutely and I think you know I think that's important and some guys will want to talk about it and give you a lot some guys have already moved on you know I think again it's it's something that guys have processed now for a few weeks so the the emotions aren't quite as raw but I'm confident I'm also aware that you know everyone should be able to answer the question and and be on the record about how they feel about it but but at some point very soon it'll be important for me that would that we move forward and start getting after it with with that in the rearview mirror Eric and Christie Aaron I think it was after game one of the ALCS last year AJ was asked in the in the interview room about some behind the scenes thoughts that maybe they were whistling or passing signs right some way shape or form and he called the question in the topic laughable which I'm sure you became aware of mm-hmm seen things you know retrospectively does that reaction bother you offend you irritate you no because I know what we're dealing with at the time and you know I know we're addressing things at the time because we're justified in doing so now there's things that happen all the time in the course of a game where there's there's gamesmanship where we're sometimes people are trying to get in your head or trying to make you think they have something so you don't always know those kind of things there were saying some things we addressed in that game that we felt like you know work weren't okay we addressed them and and kind of move forward it wasn't necessarily an accusation of anything the reaction was interesting but I didn't really get all that been out of shape by the reaction frankly I felt like we handled it the way we needed to and and our focus was on playing Christy what gives you confidence that this won't happen again um yeah I mean that's a fair question hopefully we continue to put in I think frankly it's been more difficult the last couple of years with some of the some of the things that Major League Baseball has done to clean things up I think that's already started to happen frankly the last couple years obviously the penalty the the severity of and the repercussions of some of the things that have gone on you would think would be a deterrent I think they will be and hopefully as an industry we continue to get better at at just being able to police things behind the scenes to where this doesn't happen and I am confident that we will continue to get better and better there's always going to be and frankly we're always looking for an edge of trying to you know you're trying to decipher things and and you know pick things up that the other teams are doing you know hopefully it's done above board from teams now and and I feel like this is a giant step in doing that right Aaron kind of an interesting offseason for you guys and not a lot of additions you lost a few guys is cold the the missing piece in your mind and that coupled with some of the guys coming back from injury does that give you enough now to finish what you started last season look we feel like we've been a championship caliber team now for a few years and I've been knocking on that door haven't pushed through yet I obviously adding a guy like Garrett you know there's no running from the fact that this is an elite player you know and and away from one of the teams that we've been competing with so so heavily so we're excited to have them and and know the kind of impact he potentially can make coupled with the fact that you know we've got a great team in there of guys that are you know in the primes of their career and hopefully be a little bit more fortunate on the injury front this year and and hopefully that'll be something that shows up for us as well but but we also understand we have a long way to go between now and even the regular season but even getting ahead of ourselves to October i mean there's a lot of foundational things to be laid you know starting in earnest tomorrow that hopefully will put us in a position to to make another serious run at this thing James and Sweeney over to the left Aaron obviously the precedent was set that like management is responsible for like policing the clubhouse and the team you know the players were given immunity and the two investigations like do you have to like go out of your way to make sure and stress to them like these are the rules i know there was some gray area before in the past before this was clarified in 17 are you going to go out of your way to stress that to them explain to them i mean about that um i don't know necessarily out of our way i mean i feel like you know we've been a team that have done things above board already you know certainly make sure we understand exactly what is you know with within the framework of the rules and i don't know about necessarily specifically addressing but you know hopefully our culture is something that handles those kind of things all the time with how we interact with our our players our staff and what we're trying to to gain each and every day Sweeney right here in the front Aaron you spoke in the past about how much you respected AJ Hinch Alex Cora Carlos Beltran how much of that has changed in the last two months um look those are still guys i consider friends um you know i've i've struggled like i'm sure a lot of people have with kind of making sense of it all and trying to kind of wrestle with my emotions and in a way get some clarity i don't think you ever totally get there and and that's that's okay um um you know i think as human beings we all fall down and we all fall short and none of us are perfect so there's always you know hopefully i treat people with a grace that would would reflect that um but you know it's it's been a little bit of a struggle for me and and how i make sense of it uh pete and dan to the right Aaron how do you see your number five competition starter going into the spring is this sort of Montgomery's to lose or do you see a little more wide open than that you know we'll see um you know monies monies in a good place um he's worked really hard this winter i think him coming back at the end of last season i think was important for him to gain a little bit of momentum and and for his mindset heading into the winter um he's had a good off season he's ready to go he's proven himself at this level so we we know he's certainly capable of it um but we also are very excited about a lot of our young pitchers um that you know a lot of people already know their names but but also that people are going to start knowing their names you know a lot of the guys that we've added to our 40 man that we've been excited about now for several years a lot of the high-end pitching prospects that you've been hearing about at the lower levels are starting to you know they're in camp with us now you're starting to see them and and it wouldn't be far fetched to at some point see one or more of those guys impact our rotation our bullpen whatever it may be um but i guess my point is we feel like we have a lot of good options and and and we're a ways away from making that decision um monies certainly is very much obviously in that mix because of this track record and because of where we believe he is health wise but we also want monie to not feel like he's got to go out and win the scion award and his first outing in fact you know it this is a process and and we're trying to get individuals ready for what is a very long season and um you know when the time comes at the end of spring we'll we'll hopefully make a good decision Dan to the right Aaron uh both of your seasons as manager have ended against teams that have now have at least a cloud of suspicion over them how much does that bother you does that make you think about you know what what might have been if things were different um honestly not as much as you know when i answered the question about kind of wrestling how i feel about it all um you know i feel like we lost you know we didn't quite push through there's always that human nature of you know what exactly was going on but i don't it doesn't eat at me that part of it you know i felt like we fell we fell just a little bit short the last couple years um and i'm confident that this is the year we'll we'll push through um and looking forward to seeing um how that unfolds Brandon to the right where is where is Domingo Huron and what will he be doing this spring he's in uh he's in the Dominican um i was actually as some of you know i went i went over there a few weeks ago with a few of our staff members and and got to see a lot of our guys Domingo is one of the guys that came out to the complex so i got to see him for the first time since all this has gone down and talked to him um so the the plan is for him not to be here during spring training as of right now i i guess that could possibly change but as of right now we're not planning on him being here with you know the fact that the earliest he could be back with us is in June um so we feel like you know the work he's able to get in over there he's he's been going to our complex now a few times a week for i think the last three or four weeks um you know feel like he can get the work he needs to to get in there and and that's kind of where we're at on it right now no not worried about the distraction part of it but just the you know as i think as an organization right now we've kind of decided that it's best for him to be there right now where we feel like he's able to get the work he needs to get in there and and then hopefully put himself in a position when the time comes to to start ramping up and hopefully join us at some point buster to the right erin you've talked about the emotion about the astros and sort of the reaction to it uh how do you think those games will be against them this year and i know they're later right but especially in yankee stadium um yeah when i don't when do we play the uh september i think we play them in may in houston i think it's going to be an interesting i'm sure season for them i'm i'm sure the reaction is going to be you know a story everywhere they go and who knows how it all plays out you know but at that point in the season you know depends where the two clubs are i mean there's there's there's it's certainly conceivable you know that us and them could be fighting for a spot in the playoffs you know so those could be you would expect very important games um what the reaction will be who knows i mean it'll be i'm sure interesting in a in in a storyline all season long for them jack in the back and then james to the left erin one of the themes last year when you face the astros in october was how long your relationship dates back with hench back to when you guys were teenagers have you had any communication with him individually and if not is there a desire for you to have a discussion with him um i texted with him um right when the news broke you know maybe the couple days after that um i i sent him a text message he texted back i have not spoken to him though since um uh yeah at some point um i just haven't necessarily been ready to go there james to the left um i know you when you when you're a dominican i know you also met with miguel like what makes you think that he is capable of of handling a multi-positional role like why why why do that why you know give him that task right um first of all his openness i think to do it is is one of the things that we liked um you know when we first brought the subject with him he was excited about it and even told us he had started to do some things on his own um feel like he has the athletic ability to do it um to be able to move around and you know hopefully add to his versatility and you know with the quality and the depth of our roster um you know it could be something that that's important not only for him but potentially for us too to have those moving parts and so you know part of this is out of out of need because we have a lot of really good players that are capable and and um you know i know miggy's gonna work work his tail off at it and you know hopefully it's something that um can add to his value you know because there's no denying obviously what a what a special bat he is uh andy and then brian you talked earlier about at a certain point soon your players need to move on from thinking about this extra stuff how much did you personally have a role and over the off season helping them deal with their feelings about this obviously guys are texting each other videos tweeting about stuff you did you talk in text with a lot of guys through this yeah yeah i've texted and talked quite a bit with guys and you know a lot of times you just kind of raw emotion and talking through it and what you're honestly feeling at the moment and i think that's important and healthy and um i want guys to to be able to express themselves on it and kind of make sense of it for themselves um but there is there is a point where you know and i may or may not need to address it you know my hope is that you know i i know you guys are gonna ask those questions of guys you guys have already done that with some of our guys and you know they're gonna answer it you know but at some point it is we got to lock in on we got too much at stake moving forward um to have to have it just be this distraction that you know you know brings any anger or disappointment into our room you know we don't want that kind of culture it's it's full throttle forth on 2020 has the player anger about this both with the yankees players and league wide surprised you at all or is it the kind of reaction you'd expect of that scandal this big no i i i think it's i think it's very understandable um you know we're playing for a lot you know and and some guys have potentially been intimately impacted and so those emotions are going to be strong brian do you have an idea of how much you want stanton to play defensively in left field and is he fully healthy coming in this spring training yeah confident he's healthy not sure yet on what that'll look like about games you know kind of depends a lot on the day's matchups you know health of our roster who's playing well who's earned certain playing time so does he fit in more that day as a dh in left field and right whatever it may be confident he's healthy um you know i do think there'll be a fair amount of dh days for john carlo probably even best case scenario if if everything's working out and you know we have a lot of good people to put put in the field um but certainly feel good about him playing the outfield and feel like he'll be healthy enough to do that on on a regular basis if we need it take a couple more sweeney from what you know about paxton's injury and surgery how confident are you that you get him back sometime in may or june or whatever yeah the early returns are good you know he's he's getting around here pretty good right now um i i think when do you have have it last friday not wednesday it's probably been about six six days out right now and i think early returns are it went really well he's moving how it should so at this point you know obviously we got a ways to go but at this point feeling like uh you know the timeline should be a good one for him i think he's the least a couple more weeks i i feel like it's a three or four week before he starts throwing so um but feel like he's probably on that timeline i'll take lindsay and bruce to end it can you walk us through the timeline with paxton's back and why the surgery ultimately took place so late in the off season yeah so i think goes back to um the his last regular season start in texas where he kind of felt it and it was at the time it was something that we felt like and he felt like you know initially wanted to stay in the game it felt like he probably could have you know powered through but obviously at that point in the season and we're you know with the playoffs next week we were like not not messing around so we got him out of there he was obviously able to to uh to pitch and pitch well in the post season um and then you know as the winner went on you know it was something that was bugging him a little bit but not to the point where you know certainly we didn't think surgery but it was something that he was just dealing with and he was able to do his his workouts and his exercises and he was throwing so just getting more and more tests done and specialists getting involved you know it eventually graduated to a point where he got the the last injection you know three or four five weeks ago um and there was some confidence that that would probably be something that would do the trick and i think he saw the improvements from that he was throwing again but there was still that lingering issues that he was having at that point he us i think everyone decided okay let's go ahead and get this knocked out feel like you know i think it was removing that cyst would be you know obviously something that's going to cost him a little bit of time but something that hopefully puts an end to it and it's not something that he has to kind of grind through all year and lindsay just to follow up on that we were following the protocols of the doctors who were employing what should be done with paxton bruce did you have a last one new everyday position for one of your star players glaber torres uh at age 23 how do you think he'll respond what are you looking for from him i think he'll respond well he's he's uh he's had a decent start to his big league career you know he's kind of handled everything uh that's been thrown his way and then some um i think he's really excited to in a way go home you know to his natural position where he's always played um you know i think i think that and you guys have heard me talk about this with glaber the thing that continues to get me excited and 23 is a young man obviously but um just his his intelligence and his continued um improvements from from day one that he got to the big leagues to now you know just the maturity that he's um developed within his game within his routine within the way he prepares the seriousness with which he takes his off season preparation um so you know i think the only thing he has left now to do is to go show that he's capable of of doing being an everyday shortstop for an entire season uh we know he can handle it but now it's just going and and and doing the routine all the time and confident he'll take that next step okay erin thank you clubhouse