Luis García Jr.

Morales gets the pinch hit and hits a home run.

I know Ortiz has cooled off recently here, but the Nats have something going at first base, and I just love where they're at considering they just traded Luis García Jr. less than two months ago.

I just criticized Paul Tamoni on the Luis Perales, Jake Bennett trade.

I will give him credit on this, and I don't know how calculated it was.

It was about a month ago.

Luis Garcia Jr. of the Yankees took him deep back on August 22nd.

That is it.

That is all Rodgers has given up.

Once a judge gets hot, it's whatever.

Anyways, you would be DH-ing judge, a judge who is not ready to face postseason pitching out of nowhere, making him the DH and then losing one of Ben Rice or Luis Garcia Jr.

So against righties, if Judge is DHing, the only way

either Rice or Garcia gets in is whichever one of them is playing first.

Whereas with Judge and right, we know Judge and right

field, Ben Rice is your DH and Luis Garcia Jr. is your first baseman.

But obviously, if Judge were to DH, one of those two is lost against lefties, which... just imagining a world where Judge is back for the wildcard series.

I'm not putting that out there, but that's his plan.

You have Aaron Judge dealing with injury once again, so it's been all sorts of bad there.

But that said, you still do have a guy in Luis Garcia who's been able to give you 30-plus home runs this season.

You have to love what you've been able to see out of Ben Rice, who continues to give you a 37-plus home runs, right around about a 350 on base.

Now these guys, like Paul Goldschmidt and company, have just gone straight down the toilet bowl here in the back half of the season.

And then what do they do? Neither of those things.

Luis Garcia Jr., Elia Ramos.

No pitching at all.

And if it weren't so important, then it would be an interesting experiment to say, okay, who's right? Brian Cashman, who hated the cost of bullpen arms and is saying, I can do better on the waiver wire and I can do better with my own internal pitchers and my injury recovery pitchers, or the rest of us who are like, yeah, but...

They have a big postseason series ahead of them to maybe tell me how they can go.

Again, let's challenge those dudes.

You want to tell all those guys I listed earlier, Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, Luis Garcia Jr., Cam Schlittler, David Bednar, you guys are screwed.

You guys can't win without a judge.

That means you're going to have to have Ramos step up, and he's been playing a lot better of late.

Garcia has gone in the tank.

He's going to have to step up.

Ben Rice has played very, very well.

So let's say he DHs.

Do you realize the problems that causes? If he's a DH and the Yankees face a left-hander, okay, so they're going to have Paul Goldschmidt at first base.

That means you're going to have on the bench in one of the biggest games of the year, Ben Rice and Luis Garcia Jr.

So you're going to bench about 200 RBIs.

Blame Canada.

In an auction draft, which first base would you rather aim for? Stewart, Vladdy, Kurtz, or Garcia Jr.? I mean, this really is going to depend on the pricing.

But from that list, honestly, probably Vladdy.

Vladdy should be the cheapest, so I'm totally fine with that because that's how I've lived my life.

Stewart and Kurtz would be my top two priority analysts.

Garcia Jr.

I still like a lot, but I'm always concerned.

So, yeah, Vladdy, but a guy that kind of reminds me of Vladdy that I was very high on this last year, and I'll be back in on this year, Vinny P. I think there's a lot of similarities to those two right now unless Vladdy finds that 40 home run pop again, like very close to each other.

And meanwhile, in the American League, you have the Rays, you got the Red Sox, you got some, like – Good teams there, but nobody who really stands out is like a dominant elite team alongside those those three teams there.

So it's still very much there for the taking and getting Luis Garcia Jr. at the trade deadline was a big move for them and gives them additional power, even while Judge is sidelined here.

A big thing for them, they're going to need Trent Gresham to be meaningfully better like that is no surprise.

Like him, they need Jazz Chisholm to step up.