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Just when you thought it was over, you're ready to go to bed. Man, I thought this game was over with. And to see these guys come back, that was a big three from Jaylen Brunson right there. That's about when I started to pay attention cuz they were down by 22. Started looking. Um that three kind of dropped in right there. And then it was on from there. Harden missed the big three on the other end. They came down and scored. He actually Harden had a he scored a two right here. Brunton came down and scored. You're glued. I was glued. I actually was glued. And then they won by 11 in overtime. 11 and no T. They're going to the finals.
I honestly I don't think the Cavs are going to win a game now. Like to lose like that up 22 in the Garden game one. They were in control. Like I think they may get swept now. It's over. They may get swept. It is MLB according to CC. That is CC Sabathia. I'm Mohammed Fared. It's over. The first round series between the Cavs and the Knicks is over. Did you ever have a time in your baseball playing career where you had a series where after like one game you're just like, uh, you know, we don't have a chance. Well, no. I No. I don't think you ever feel like that you don't have a chance. But I felt like after game one, I'm like, oh, we're going to win this series.
other way. Um, you know, I don't think you like when you're in the series, you don't never feel like, oh, we don't have a chance. You know what I'm saying? But there's been times when I'm like, oh, after game one or the way we've won a game, like there's no way a team could come back in a series from, you know, losing a game like that. And I just think game one like that, the Cavs up 22 in the Garden, you feeling good, and then they blew it. I mean, you can you see uh Donovan Mitchell's quote this morning. We blew it, which they did. They know it. All right. I guess they can take solless in the fact that at one point they were up 22 if they can figure out how to do that again. But uh yeah,
CC was watching it. He was tweeting about it. But uh but we've got a lot to talk about with the B. Yeah, there it is. Jaylen Brunson. Time to get better. Yeah, it's like you think you're better than Jaylen Brunson. Wait until you got to be better than Jaylen Brunson. Yeah, man. Until he's actually on you're on the court with him and you got to guard him. And you know, people talk about his defense and they can't play he can't play defense and um everything that he can't do and he just shows up every night with the whole city on his shoulders and shows up and balls out.
You're going to game two, right? You'll be there. You'll be cheering them on. All right. So, we'll we'll wait for that. All right. So, it is about the quarter way through the MLB season right now and some things have emerged, some story lines. We haven't gotten to that Memorial Day spot where a lot of people say, "I don't check the standings till Memorial Day." I'm curious as a player, were you like that? like, well, let's assess at Memorial Day or was it different for you? It was always I mean, I was always checking I always knew where we were. Sure. Um I was always checking the standings like from day one. Um especially when you're in New York. I mean cuz you know it's such a big story
if you don't get off to a good start or if you're not in first place or you know if another team is playing good in East um you know that's always going to be our rival for the year. So um you know I was always checking. I always knew where we were. Uh oddly enough I mean I guess that's a sports fan in me. There were some guys I bet you like Guardy never checked the standings. He had no idea where we were, you know. I think that's just a sports fan in me. Oblivious. Sometimes it's nice to be oblivious on some of that stuff depending on where you are in the standings. Uh so we as we asked you what stood out to you after the first, you know, 25% of the way into the season. And one of the things that kept coming
up was some of the superstars. You know, we you say all the time in baseball, they're going to be what their baseball card says they're going to be by the end of the year. Some of these guys, they're quite a ways away from where their baseball card says they're going to be. What do you make of these superstars that have had all these slow starts so far? Yeah, I mean, it's it's been a bunch of guys, right? It's it's uh it's Tatis, it's Bashette, it's Devers, it's Vlatty, it's it's Machado, it's it's the guys that we're used to being staples in our game, being allstars in our game. Um,
and yeah, I mean it we're a quarter of the way into the season and you get worried about, you know, if these guys gonna be able to put up the numbers that they need to carry their team. Every guy that we named, you know, their team is counting on them to get them to October. Yeah. And, uh, you know, that's a lot of pressure to not be able to, you know, be performing right now. Let me pick a couple then. So, Tatis. So, Tatis and Machado, we can tie them together. Despite them with the slow start, it's like they're they're neck and neck with the Dodgers is like what, a half a game separating them both. Both of them right
now. good game last night. Um that the Dodgers were able to, you know, score a run off Mason Miller to win that game. But yeah, just watching Titis here hitting 230 with no homers and, you know, 15 RBI's ops at 585 is pretty, you know, I mean, that's that's tough right there. I mean, that's way low for a guy that, you know, is obviously, you know, used to putting up, you know, some great numbers. And I just think for him um being at the top of that lineup, it's going to be tough all year for them to score runs if he's not being able to drive the ball, if he's not hitting the balls in the gaps. I mean, not necessarily home runs, but just getting on base and you know, slugging um is something that's going to be huge for them. You know, last night you saw uh
you know, Machado is getting off to a slow start. Hit a two-run homer last night to tie the game. You just see the energy in the ballpark. You see the energy with the fans. You see the energy with the players in the dugout. That's their those these guys are their guys and you know everybody feels it when they're not playing well. Nothing against Gavin Sheets who has been awesome for them so far leading the team in home runs. We were out there in Seattle and he had two home runs in that game. But it's going to have to be the Tatises. It's going to have to be the Machados. I think I looked at some of the numbers with like Tatis he's actually hitting the ball harder. Like his hard hit contact rate is higher than
it was um last year. And so like of all the guys that we're going to talk about, it's like Tatis's like underlying statistics, it's like so he's got some bad luck, which it seems like he's had some bad he's also swinging at more balls and like that's actually a theme with all these guys. They're expanding the strike zone. They're swinging at a lot of pitches that are outside of the strike. I wonder if ABS has anything to do with that. I wonder that too. Um I just feel like if you look at ABS and just look at like the strike zone, guys are trying to cover a full ball out now, right? Because if you clip it now,
you have to cover a full ball around the whole border. So maybe that's getting guys to, you know, maybe chase a little more out of their zone. I mean, because these are veteran guys, right? Like it's it's weird to see just guys just all of a sudden now chasing balls out of the zone at this stage in their career. Yeah, that's, you know, that's I'm gonna ask you about the ABS because you look at the numbers for ABS and the walks are up a little bit because pitchers maybe aren't getting those one ball outside calls anymore that they would get in the past. But you're right, it's like the pitchers that can spin it, that can clip just a little part of that strike zone, maybe have some of an advantage right here. We have some of the
calls that were overturned, some of the real close ones. And so like CeCe, put you on the mound in the ABS era right now. What do you think changes with your game planning and how you attack these hitters today? I mean, I just think I'm like for me at later in my career, me being able to command my back door slider the way I did. I feel like I'll be able to clip, you know, that outside part of the plate to righties where guys have kind of no idea. I was at that game where Evo was pitching earlier. I mean, and but that's the thing about like Salvi, right? He knows that was two pitches in a row he got that high curve ball right there.
Um so you know these guys are doing a great job of like not just like presenting strikes but actually like you know catching the strikes and uh doing a good job of knowing the strike zone and being able to challenge when you know when it's the right time. But I was watching that Salvi game and I was at that game that Evo was pitching and I mean it you know there's there's a lot of the Rangers do a good job. They didn't challenge at all before the fifth inning and then after the fifth inning it was like they opened it up and then everything that they thought was close they challenged and they were right.
Yeah. Um so it's kind of something to like to that to like see where the ball is at, see where the strike zone is at, see where a guy's calling something and then wait till later in the game to start deploying your challenges. It's so interesting talking to these managers each Sunday because we get to talk to the managers before our Sunday night game and you we ask them about ABS. We go what are you thinking about it? There's really no set strategy so far. Like they're all kind of like we're experimenting like right do you give like early in the year we go do you tell players they only can challenge later in the game they go no we go if you think it's a bad call challenge it
right then and then you got to tweak and adjust as the year goes on because you realize some of those guys aren't very good at it in the early innings and maybe wait until there's a guy on base or it's the ninth inning. Yeah. I think for me I would do it how to how I watch the Rangers do it where it's after the fifth inning because I would want, you know, to be able to challenge late in the game, you know, uh to be able to have those, you know, whether it's 3-2 pitches or two pitches or something that could change that bat with runners on late in the game. Uh I would want that later in the game. So I So for me, it would be after the fifth, maybe after the seventh in a big game. Yeah.
Um you know, just so we can have those challenges later in the game because it does change in that bat and it can change in inning big time. And even as a pitcher, you would outlaw pitchers challenging. No, I if I was managing or coaching on a team, I would never let a challenge a pitcher ever challenge a pitch ever. Like we are way too emotional. You can't see that. And we all and the numbers even say we always get it wrong. It's it's wrong every time. You're at an angle too kind of sometimes. And then you can even see like when a guy's like when a pitcher if you watch when the pitcher ch it's all out of emotion. Every time they tap it's like out of emotion. you know, they
could kind of feel like, uh oh, this better be right as they do it. Uh, okay. So, of all the players that you going back to the superstars that are struggling, you mentioned Tatis and Machado, you mentioned Bashette, Devers, Vlatty, which is crazy. Yeah. Uh, of all those, who are you most concerned about, do you think? I'm most concerned about I think I'm most concerned about Vlatty because of what he means to Toronto, to what he means to that lineup. Um, you know, not having Bette there, um, you know, this year, I think it he means a lot more to his lineup than the rest of these guys. Like you said, Tatisa Machado are struggling, but they're at the top of their division because Gavin Sheets is
able to pick up some of that slug. Who's going to pick up some of that slug for Toronto? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like who's the guy that can, you know, kind of, you know, bridge that gap until Vlatty gets right. Um, you know, I seen Vlatty. V's hitting 280, but the slug is just not there, right? Like he's got 280 with three um you know 21 uh RBI's and you know 741 ops, but that's not the $500 million extension. You know what's crazy about Vlatty is that like if he had somebody else in the lineup that could get hits just let like then you could just tell him just a slug, right? But he's such a good hitter that you don't want to take that skill away from
him. You know what I'm saying? where I feel like a lot of guys now um in the big leagues are trying to get a swing off and not a lot of there's not a lot of good hitters in the league and I feel like Vlatt's one of the guys that's a good hitter but I feel like sometimes it's to a detriment because it takes away some of his slug. All right, before we go Bob Bashette in New York, new contract, big contract, slow start. You worried about that? No, not really because he's got a lot of guys around him, right? When Lindor gets back, when so when Sooto's right, like there's a lot of guys in that lineup that can help pick up the slack and you don't have to really like hone in on Bette. So, I think he'll get pitches to
hit later in the summer. Um, I think it's hard to come to a new organization. He's never played anywhere else. He got drafted by Toronto, never played anywhere else, and then you land in Queens. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's tough to come here and play. So, uh, I think he'll be fine, though. Well, the good thing we know is that the fans in New York will give him a long leash. the leeway to be good. You know, you got plenty of time. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, I dug into the numbers a little bit more. Some nerd stuff. We're going to do that when we come back.
Swing and a miss. The change up is dancing right now. And he struck him out. High heat. And Trout takes strike three called fast ball got him looking. Here's a 2-2. Swing and a miss. Another strike out for Negro. Pitch swing and a miss. Down goes Sodto. Base is loaded. 3-2 pitch. And that a strike three. Buckled. Got him looking on the slider. They'll leave him loaded. CeCe just wants to keep that on repeat. Just keep playing that over and over again. Those were by run value, if you go by that, the best pitches so far in the first quarter of the season. So there are the guys, there are all the
different pitches. So these are the top pitchers on every pitch as far as run value. How valuable has that pitch been? Christopher Sanchez on the change. Well, yeah. What do you think about that list there? I watched Christopher Sanchez put uh Sh Otani in the slump last year. Uh playoffs, I think it was the division series, change up at the bottom of the zone. Otani could not see it. He was going fast ball change up, fast ball change up. Never seen that on left and it literally put Otani in a slump.
He could not find the bottom of the zone. That change up is disgusting. So when you look at So it's that pitch obviously it's like the eye test, right? You don't need run value to tell you that pitch is one of the best pitches out there. But when you look at it, sometimes when you do that, it's the pitch before the pitch that gives that change up some more of its value. It's like setting up that nasty pitch, which makes the change up even better. But with all those that we just listed there, Christopher Sanchez with the change up, you talked about that. The four seamer with Freddy Peralta, number
one, the splitfinger with Nathan Evaldi, number one, the sinker with uh Nolan Mlan with the Mets. How about that? Great start to his career. The slider with Jacob Deg Grom, Cam Schlitler's got a couple of them actually. The cutter and then one of his four seam fasts is up there as well. And then Mason Miller with the highest slider. Like I think it's just the gap in between. I think it's the gap in between this fast ball being 101 and the slider being 80. Whatever it is. I think that's that's why you get so many swing and misses with that. Yeah. With Mason Miller. Check out this with Mason Miller.
The slider swing and miss. I think when I checked it, it was 72%. I think it's come down a little bit. That's insane. That is insane. 72% of the time he throws that someone swings. It just speaks to how hard he's throwing his fastball and how uh how it looks like it's in his I mean how his fast ball is in the zone and how much his slider looks like it's tunnneled just like the fast ball to look just like the heater and is in the zone the whole time. Yeah, my producer Jason it's down to 68 now. 68%. So, let's get going. Uh Mason here once again. All right. So, Nathan Evaldi, the split finger fastball. We've seen it for such a long time with him.
It's been a dominant pitch. You know him. You knew him growing up. Yeah, I had a chance to play with Evo. We were, you know, good teammates. I'm still really close with him. Had a chance to watch him pitch uh actually on Sunday, uh a couple of days ago. Um and something about Evo's uh split was uh Larry Rothschild taught Evo that split. I think it had to be 2016. Okay. Um Evo was with, you know, the Yankees. Always threw hard. He threw hard before anybody was throwing 100. Evo threw 100. He's very durable. Yeah, he can go out there and pitch, you know, seven innings um at start and then two days later he can come out of the bullpen. That's just how he is. He's got
a rubber arm. Um but he didn't have an out pitch. So Larry spent the whole year teaching him how to throw that split. They got it down. Evo gets hurt. He I think he ended up having Tommy John. So we non-tender him a contract. the Red Sox end up uh signing him, rehabbing him, bringing them back, and then in 18 he's the main piece for them to win the World Series. And it all started in Yankee land with Larry Rothschild. And just to watch, I mean, I love Evo, you know, he's one of my favorite teammates, but it hurt so bad to watch him go to Boston and kind of carry them to the World Series and be able to, you know, pitch out, start, pitch out of the bullpen, do whatever you need. Um, and just knowing that we could have used him and, you
know, Boston beat us in the division series that year. So, um, use your intel against you. But, but it's great for him and it's kind of extended his career. I mean, it's cool. It's like some of these guys that's a decade ago we're talking about with you guys and now he's he's still running. All right. I wanted to show this too as well because this is the two different ways that you can get it done as a batter. You got Junior Camroero who swings as hard as anyone in Major League Baseball. Literally he is about 80 m an hour is his swing. And then you got Louisa Rise who is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Get this
CC. Of the 400 players who have taken like 400 swings, it's Louisa Rise is on the bottom last in Major League Baseball. 62 m an hour on the swing. But you look at these guys, you know, yeah, OPS a little higher for Junior Camero. He's got more power of course, but 320 a thorn in the side of any pitcher out there. It's really cool how in baseball you can do things completely different ways and still be a valuable hitter. Yeah, absolutely. I just wish that people would like value Lua Rise, right? Like every year he's going out trying to figure out how can he get a job, where can he play? People talking about his defense. The guy goes out every year and
puts up, you know, numbers where he's going to be at the top of your lineup. He can hit, you know, 320. In the World Baseball Class, he was hitting homers. You know what I'm saying? So, he can kind of do whatever your lineup needs. And it just sucks to see him fighting for a position and fighting for a job every year when he's so valuable when you get him in your clubhouse. He's a great clubhouse guy. He's got a lot of energy. He's a veteran. Um and I just think he's good on any team, man. And it's just it just sucked that I have to see him every offseason, you know, you know, begging for a job. Who was who is tougher to face?
Obviously those guys that can change the game with one swing of the bat, three-run home run. That's devastating. But what was it like facing a guy like him? It was always tougher to face guys like that. Um, and even him when he was young. I faced him when he was young and, you know, left on left, you know, there was pitches that would be close and he would, you know, he's spitting on them. So, he's always had that good eye. He's always, you know, had a great approach at the plate and uh just been a guy that's that's always been tough to face. But these are always the guys that were harder for me to get out. Um
and like I said, you know, talking about lineup constructions, um you know, he's somebody that you will always want, you know, to put in your lineup because he can put the bat on the ball and do whatever you need in any situation. And you say this loving like Camo, too. I like appreciating what he does and everything. Junior Camro is an absolute superstar. I think people got kind of lost in what he did last year because he did it at George M. Steinbrer and it wasn't a big league stadium, but that kid's a superstar. He's on pace to hit 40 again. Um, just the energy that he plays the game with, the love that he has for the game, um, his love for Manny Machado.
Uh, I just love this kid. I got a chance to watch him in Dominican uh, last summer. I mean, last winter. Yeah. Um, you know, I love Junior Camro. Um, it's just tough that he plays for the Rays at Yeah. Exactly. That Rays team is fun to watch, you know, depending on your allegiances and who you follow in Major League Baseball. One more for you. What I was digging I was telling you this is nerd stuff. I was digging through all the numbers. I was like, "What's changed out there with some of these superstars out there?" Bryce Tang for the Milwaukee Brewers. He's taking a jump this year. I think the game you were at, did he have the walk-off home run when you were Was that not there?
No, that I wasn't there. No, but he hit the walk-off on That was on Sunday night. I was there Friday. You were there Friday. That's right. You were there Friday. So, it was that Yankee series. Uh I looked at he has increased his swing tilt six degrees. So, increased his swing tilt from last year by six degrees. I don't know exactly what that looks like or what that does, but whatever it does, it has turned him into a guy that's really good to maybe one of the emerging superstars. And I also seen where he's got his uh pinky over his knuckle almost like a golf hitting grip. Yeah. Um like a golf swing grip, but he it's not interlocked.
Um so I seen that he give him a little more whip on his swing, too. Um, so it's cool that these guys are able to, you know, go into the offseason, whether it's drive line, maven, whatever, wherever they go, and figure out, you know, helped you guys for a long time on the mound, right? And it, it seems like it's starting to help some of the hitters out there. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it's starting to catch up, right? Cuz I feel like pitching's been ahead of hitting, you know, as far as technology um for a little while. Um, but now it's starting to catch up where guys are starting to
figure out how to get on plane and how to be able to keep their swing on plane to be able to kind of, you know, combat that high fast ball. Was there anything you ever did as a pitcher where you saw someone swing plane and you go, I know exactly where to attack? That was my whole thing. I never watch video. So, I can literally I had to watch you swing before I could see where to throw the ball. Um, and it was just kind of a thing that I kind of developed over the years. I never really liked watching video cuz I didn't want to watch a bunch of videos you hitting homers.
Why would I want to watch that? And it's not f it's not against me. You know what I'm saying? Like, so I don't want to watch, you know, whoever it is against change ups or somebody's sliders, not my sliders, not my change up. So, it was best for me to just go out and I could read swings and then figure out where to throw the ball from there. So, you see one swing, what will you change? You know, depending on what the swing was, but you'll be like, I know he has a hole here. Yeah. So, if I could if I see a swing or whatever, it's like, oh, I know I can throw a ball at his hands. Or if it's a lefty and, you know, he's aggressive or stand on top of the plate. All right.
Well, now I'm going in. I'm not going to go away. So, it was just those little things like that um you know, I was able to just read, but I had to it was always better for me to face you so I can you know figure out where to throw the ball. They go, "Hey, he hits the slider and CC goes not slider is that slider." Exactly. I'm throwing the slider. I'm throwing the slider today. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, #cccme your questions answered next. This is how you can be part of the show.
Hash CCM meccabathia personally responds to every one of his Twitter mentions, right? Yeah. You get out there. Uh that might not happen, but you might be part of the show. And so that our first tweet comes from a Yankees fan here. This is V saying, "How do we get this kid on the Yankees?" We got a Carson sighting. Yeah, man. Carson uh played his last game as a senior down in Houston. Um, man, kid had a good year. He hit 290, 970 OPS. He had six homers. Um, he had limited opportunity, but I'm excited for him. Look at him. Looks lean right there. He does. Looks lean right there. He had a good year and uh excited for his journey, man. I'm so happy. I'm so proud of that kid. He's uh his mom raised him right.
You get to see this side of it, which is really cool, right? This whole process. Yeah. And like to be a fan, you know what I'm saying? like going to the games and like watching as a fan. Uh it's really fun and then after the games being able to break down his at bats with them and kind of talk the game. The conversations we have are really cool now. That's cool. All right. Our next one is comes from a Brewers fan and this is talking about those great Brewers pitchers that we've seen. Giving props to the pitching coach and coordinator Chris Hook, Jim Henderson, the Magic. Uh how amazing has it been? I guess it's more of just a rhetorical question, but it's they've been awesome.
They have been really good. Like you said, Kyle Harrison's been really good. Mizarowski, obviously he's been great. Aaron Ashby's been disgusting. He's throwing Zack Britain like sinkers out of the bullpin. Um, watched Mizowski pitched last night against the Cubs. Um, his velocity was down a little bit. It was only 99.9. But I think if he can learn how to pitch with less velocity, whether it's 97 or, you know, 98, which sounds crazy. Yeah. And then he can hump up to, you know, to 101, I think he'll last in games longer, I think. You know, cuz he's even said he throws every pitch that he throws as hard as he can. You can only do that for about five or six innings for sure. So, as you learn as he gets older, he's
23 years old, 24 years old. As he gets older, he'll be able to learn that it's location over velocity, right? like you can throw the ball as hard as you want, but if it's down the middle, these guys are turning around and they have they've you know, we've witnessed that. So, it's location over velocity. So, if you locate a 97 mph fast, that's better than throwing a fast ball down the middle at 101. And I think as he gets older, he'll he'll understand that and be able to pitch deeper into the game. That's interesting with more stuff with better stuff. We work with Jake Peavey uh for this last game and he was talking about that the changing of speeds. I mean, I remember growing up a Tiger fan,
Justin Verlander. He'd start a game 91 92 93 eighth inning he was throwing 100. Yeah, that was Bartolo Cologne. Same thing Bartolo Cologne. He would start the game throwing 94 95 and by the eighth ninth inning he was still throw he was throwing 99 and it's just like having an extra fast ball, right? Like these guys have been seeing you throw 94 95 the whole game and then if you could pop a 99 in there, it's like having an extra pitch. #cccme reads them all. He'll write back to them all. He might even show up at your house if it's a really nasty tweet. So, watch out. Don't do that.
