Ebs’ Hot Takes: Justify, Triple, Crown, New York Mets, Vegas Golden Knights

May 21, 2018 DJ Eberle DJ Eberle, Featured 0

HAWT TAEK USA – LeBron James has bounced back, the New York Yankees have found their winning ways again and there’s an expansion team playing for the Stanley Cup.

What a time to be alive!

Forget a big build up to today’s column. We’re just going to jump right into the taeks. Make sure your oven mitts are on.

Enjoy the latest batch of Ebs’ Hot Takes.

Justify will win the Triple Crown. I want to make it clear that just because Justify and his connections have set themselves up nicely for a shot at the Triple Crown, just three years after American Pharoah pulled the accomplishment off, doesn’t mean that the honor is no longer one of the toughest, if not toughest feats in all of sports. Because it most certainly is.

Justify is dominant and his competition is, well, not. Some of his biggest threats were pulled out after the Kentucky Derby, leaving Good Magic as his only true challenger in this past Saturday’s Preakness Stakes.

While Good Magic is a fine horse, people are commending the 3-year-old and his jockey, Jose Ortiz, for their fourth-place finish on Saturday. Fourth place.

Justify has absorbed to big blows from Good Magic and hasn’t wavered. And now it looks like the Chad Brown-trained horse won’t be racing in the final leg.

Todd Pletcher could bring back a pair of solid challengers in Audible and Vino Russo in the Belmont Stakes, but Justify handled them with ease in the Derby. The Belmont is Justify’s race to lose.

The New York Mets need to make a trade. The New York Daily News released a story over the weekend that rattled Mets fans.

They suggested trading either Noah Syndergaard or Jacob deGrom to the Yankees for some prospects in an effort to reload the system. Because let’s be real, Tim Tebow’s not getting it done.

While I don’t think the Mets would trade with the Yankees, despite what the Bronx Bombers could offer, it’s at least worth looking into. Not only could the Mets flip one of their aces for a big-time bat like Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson or Bryce Harper – Harper might be a little unlikely – they could also trade for some top-notch prospects and rejuvenate the farm system.

The Mets don’t have the best farm system and outside of deGrom and Syndergaard, do they really have much going? Yoenis Cespedes is always hurt, Amed Rosario looks like he could be a bust and Michael Conforto is always seems to have the injury bug too.

I don’t know.

Mets fans don’t want to admit it and this front office doesn’t often look to make a big splash in free agency, but trading either deGrom or Syndergaard might be the best option in the long run. Because, are they really going to contend with what they have right now?

The Vegas Golden Knights are the best story in sports. The odds for the Knights making the Stanley Cup this year were 500-1. Well, here we are.

It’s absolutely crazy that an expansion team made a championship series, let alone the playoffs.

Just think of how long it took the Houston Texans to be relevant. They still haven’t made any type of serious playoff run yet and they were a new team when I was in elementary school.

This is great for hockey.

The NHL missed out on its big PR push when it chose to skip the Olympics, but having the Golden Knights make the Stanley Cup Finals is a pretty good consolation prize.

For fans of teams that are out, like myself, it provides rooting interest. This is a true Cinderella story.

Who doesn’t want to see Vegas finish the job?

Feel free to comment below, check out Ben Whitney and please follow us on Twitter at @ByDJEberle, @MeetTheMatts and @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram at @meetthematts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.

Enjoying Riding The Rails so far? Here’s Episode 6, which features Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders first basemen Mike Ford and Ryan McBroom. Ford and McBroom aren’t the Yankees’ biggest prospects, but it’s an entertaining listen for sure.

https://soundcloud.com/ridingtherailspodcast/episode-6-mike-ford-and-ryan-mcbroom

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About DJ Eberle 223 Articles
DJ Eberle: The youngest of our team, DJ is also the largest. Offensive Tackle Large. In fact, this Albany native used OT for Western New England University - until he graduated in May of 2014. Like Junoir Blaber, he's a regular on Rugby Wrap Up - his dad played rugby with The Matts. His cross to bear, however, is his love for the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres. As for baseball and basketball, it's the Yanks and Atlanta Hawks. Follow him on Twitter: @ByDJEberle.