Whether you subscribe to the halfway mark of the baseball season being the 81st game or the All-Star break, the first half of the 2024 campaign is officially in the books. The Yankees started out very strong as one of the best teams in the league but absolutely fell flat on their faces over the past month plus as everything that could go wrong went wrong. The rotation crashed and burned, the bullpen continued being a weak spot, and basically anybody not named Judge or Soto lost their ability to make plays with the bat.

Welcome back to Podument Park! After a short hiatus, our hosts return to discuss the end of the first half of the Yankees’ 2024 season and give their overall thoughts on what happened. The short of it is: almost everyone needs to be better. Judge and Soto continued to prove to be one of the best duos in the majors, but outside of that and a possible emergence from rookie first baseman Ben Rice, there’s not much going right in Yankeeland. They did end the first half by at least winning a series against the Orioles, albeit while also dropping the series finale in awful fashion. Actually, the last play of that game probably recapped the Yankees first half better than anyone could.

Besides just general grumbling about the way the first half ended, this week’s episode looks ahead towards the Trade Deadline and ponders if Brian Cashman has any tricks up his sleeve to right the ship, provides a quick recap of how the Yankees fared at the All-Star Game, and finally concludes with the usual look at the upcoming slate of games, a check-in of where the B-Ref WAR leaderboard stands as they enter the second half -- plus a ceremonial awarding of the Yankee and Manfred of the First Half Awards.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices