On Tuesday afternoon, recent baseball retiree Carlos Beltran joined the Players’ Tribune’s R2C2 podcast with Ryan Ruocco and CC Sabathia to reflect on his time with the Yankees and the World Series champion Houston Astros as a veteran leader in the clubhouse. Here are some highlights from the episode, which can be accessed in full by clicking on the audio player below.
Beltran told newcomer Didi Gregorius he wasn’t replacing No. 2
When the Yankees bid farewell to Derek Jeter during the 2014 offseason and acquired a young work-in-progress shortstop in Didi Gregorius from the Arizona Diamondbacks, the franchise made a conscious effort to discard the lofty expectations that a 24-year-old was going to immediately pick up where the future Hall-of-Famer had left off.