JTP: Vladdy’s Problems, Orioles Check-In & Dan Shulman

0:00. . Quite day and baseball yesterday as it pertains to the Toronto Blue Jays. Just a fun baseball though. I watched a very, very good Jacob DeGrom start that the Rangers bullpen immediately ruined. The first time in a row and thought Julio Rodriguez got hurt at one point falling down the dugout steps after a home run. Then flipped over and watch O'Neill cruise. Maybe one up Las Montes as the best home run of the season was like 117 off the bat. That it was a we don't have stat cast metrics for sound, but it was the most the swing has sounded like a home run that I've heard in baseball. This year also took a little look at that Yankees game where like we set up yesterday. The Anthony Volpe return is bigger than the Aaron judge return Aaron judge that's out. Volpe has a grand slam and a stolen base as the Yankees run away with one now we get set for a very big weekend of baseball around all of baseball.

1:08But especially here Baltimore. Visits the Toronto Blue Jays for three sets starting tonight at seven seven Chris Bassett will take on Max Jersey. If you are scoreboard watching Houston is at Tampa Bay Houston is still relevant because if the range and this is unlikely now, but if the Rangers were to catch them Houston would fall into the wild card race Cleveland is at Minnesota. That is the most important out of town match up to the Blue Jays as the Jays try to catch Cleveland. However, the White Sox are also at St. Louis and that has become a very important match up because the White Sox are barely holding on to their lead over the Guardians. If the Guardians were to catch the White Sox it would be the White Sox that Jays are chasing and the notable difference there is that the Blue Jays own the tiebreaker against Cleveland. They do not own the tiebreaker against the White Sox the Mariners are quite far out of this, but they are at the athletics. If you keep an eye on that and then the Rangers are at the Diamondbacks who are in a dog fight for the final I know wild card playoff spot as well needless to say there is a lot to cover the Blue Jays despite not playing yesterday up their playoff odds by like a percent.

2:10So they're at 34% as we sit here today and enter this or you'll series we will talk to Rob Long of massing to get the lay of the land with Baltimore a little later. Dance showman is going to join a Cito Gaston is going to be on the show around 11 30 which should be a lot of fun before we get to any of those people let's lower the bar for them. Let's talk to our pal Jonah beer and bomb of the score Jonah. What's up buddy? Doing great pal. How are you? I'm good man. This is going to be great body Ali shirt by the way is that was that what's poking out there. Yeah. Okay. You better believe it represent. Yeah, nothing. I know Christie Pits is done for the year, but that's a that's a killer combo. Okay, so before we look ahead to this or you'll series always a weird spot in high leverage times of year when there's a no game the day before to do the show. Looking back at that Oakland series, they put up a zero against the bullpen day from a last worst, worst pitching staff in baseball. They get a lot of help on the out of town scoreboard, but it doesn't really matter. How did you come out of that Oakland series or Oakland series that athletic series feeling.

3:14I don't blame you man. I keep referring to them as Oakland as well. It's just like when Jose can say goes doing the media rounds to like I don't know the bash brothers are front of mind right now. 100% but yeah, no, that series against the athletics in West Sacramento. I mean, it was a massive missed opportunity. You're going into a three game series against a bottom three team in baseball with Dylan Seas and Jose Soriano slated to pitch. And as you mentioned with the athletics going with a bullpen game on one of those nights, you're thinking about a sweep and you're thinking that two out of three is kind of the worst possible scenario. Instead, you come out with only one win. You kind of self-immolate a little bit in the series opener play really sloppy baseball and then you get shut out in the finale by the team with the worst ERA in the American League. It's the team with the worst ERA in baseball outside of the Colorado Rockies. That's hugely disappointing. Fortunately, their playoff odds are pretty much in the same spot that they were coming into that series because Cleveland also lost two out of three in their series. So Lujase didn't lose any ground in their pursuit of the guardians, but still if they end up missing the playoffs by a game or two, this is a series that look back on with regret. Certainly.

4:20Yeah, and look, we set up the last 30 games of the season and we warned on this show that strength, the schedule is not a static measure and you got to be careful with that and low and behold, they went four and five over the nine games against the royals and the athletics. But the last place teams that they were supposed to be playing and now you're in a spot where you need a little help from those teams of the out of town scoreboard. And yes, you didn't lose ground in the playoff race, but the hold serve and kill clock works if you're the guardians. It does not work if you're the chasing team. You can kill the clock when you're trailing. Yes, that is that is not how it goes. It's football season. So Danny, you football coaches out there getting ready for your season. Good good note there. You can't kill the clock trailing. So as we look at this, Jonah, and we'll get into some of the specifics. We'll talk some some Vlad here and some playing time stuff for this Oreo series, but they are one game out. The playoff odds have them somewhere between 30 and 40% depending on which model you look at. They can control the Baltimore and Texas parts of this. They can no longer control the guardians of white socks part of this.

5:20What do you make? Like if I if I told you today, 33% which is a one in three shot. Do you feel better or worse than that? The way things sit right now. I think I feel okay about that. Look, I mean the truth is if they finish out the season playing two games above 500, they're probably sneaking in there. This race for the third Wildcard spot is an absolute pillow fight. It's really who wants it the least. So yeah, I mean, look, if you had told me two months ago in the middle of July that they would have a 33% chance roughly of making the playoffs come mid September. I would have taken that for sure. Do they do they feel like a deserving playoff team? No, but what does dessert have anything to do with this? Right? Like they are in the mix and moreover, like this is baseball. Right? If you sneak in, you've got a shot. Right? It was the 83 win Cardinals in 2006 that won the World Series just three years ago. It was two Wildcard teams playing in the World Series. It was the 90 win Texas Rangers who took a title from the 84 win debacks. Right?

6:24So for a couple of reasons, like you got to feel pretty optimistic, right? If they can sneak in, they can absolutely I think win the pen it not only because of the state of the American league right now. It's just profoundly mediocre. Even the teams that are kind of leading their divisions aren't inspiring fear, but then also it's baseball anything can happen. So yeah, I mean 33% chance going into the home stretch of the season. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's and like look, this is. It's the emotional swings are pretty big right now, not because anyone I think is going to feel like this team is suddenly amazing. Like we have 147 games worth that says they're fine. They're a league average team. They're cromulent, if you will. I don't think I don't think if they sneak in anyone's going to be like, oh, you know, I believe they can make a run because they're awesome, but you might believe that they can make a run because in a three game series where you have Dylan, season, Jose, Soriano and six or seven guys in your bullpen who've been really good for the last month or two.

7:25You like your chances in a series like that. And if you look at a five game ALDS where you get three off days. So depending on how the wild car goes, you could potentially get three starts out of season Soriano and rest your like Louis, but Louis, you've all been to pitch five games the way of ALDS use last post season. Absolutely. Yeah, but there's an extra off day this time around. So like, it's not hard to squint and look at that. So something that we will, if it plays out that way, like let's play out the kind of 100% I'll come here where they go on a little run and they make the playoffs and the playoffs go well at least in early stages. There will be a little bit of reconciling, I guess, between this is fun. And like, don't get it wrong. No one, no one thinks sneaking in as a 500 team will make this like a successful season big picture. But it's fun. And the game is matter and playoff baseball be really fun and it's good for the fan base and it's good for the team. And so you're holding that in one hand, but you will be also holding that things didn't go nearly as well as you expected this year.

8:26There were a lot of gaps in some of that you can explain by outliers starting pitching injuries that you just can't quite account for on a roster depth chart, but big gaps in terms of offensive performance. How, you know, let's play out the good scenario. How do you kind of hold both of those things at once and and way one against the other if you're this front office. And yeah, you're still stoked to make the playoffs and potentially have an opportunity to go on a run, but it would not be, you know, 2015. Well, we were 500 and we thought we were better and we proved it would be we snuck in and can predict ball. Yeah, I mean, if you're the front office, there's nothing that could happen in October that would change the way that you evaluate this team and its needs and what you need to do. The heavy lifting frankly that you need to do moving forwards, right? Like even if they go on to win a world series that doesn't change the fact that you need reinforcements in the starting rotation. You need another right handed hitting out filter that there are really serious holes that need to be addressed to get this team into a place where they could reasonably be projected to win 90-ish games next year and be in contention for a division title.

9:28Having said that as a fan, as a as a someone who's emotionally invested in the team, that doesn't matter. Like I don't think that the Cardinals 06 World Series title shines any less brightly because they only won 83 games in the regular season. In fact, maybe quite the contrary, maybe it's even more gratifying than the title they won, you know, five years later because everyone wrote them off and they were seen as an underdog. And then when the lights were shining brightest, they put the best teams in baseball. I think they beat the 97 win meds for the pennant and then the 95 win Tigers for the title with one of the most stacked rotations that we've seen in the last quarter century. I think that's immensely gratifying. So yeah, I mean, really, they're two separate exercises. Like there's one, enjoy the ride and try to, you know, squeak whatever memories you can out of October. But then also, you know, from a front office perspective, be realistic about what this team was over the sample of 162 games or 182 games, whatever it ends up being. And don't let whatever, you know, heights they saw to in October obscure the fact that this team was quite deficient for 2026.

10:35Yeah, you can't fall into what I guess we could call the Jerry DePoto trap where in the AL West with less payroll flexibility than Toronto Seattle can say, well, if we went 54% of our games, we are going to make the playoff sometimes and then anything could happen. And, you know, that's I'm paraphrasing the depotal quote, but that is the spirit of a lot of smaller market teams. I would imagine the Guardians would, would tell you similarly, as well. You win a baseline level of above 500 games and get in magic happens and sometimes you're the Texas Rangers or Arizona Diamondbacks and although the backside of that is sometimes you're the first 10 years of the Dodgers dynasty, where you only get the COVID championship. So yeah, the front office has to be careful there and a little, a little more level headed about it as a fan as someone who might have ALDS playoff tickets. You're allowed to just be like, well, that sucked. Let's enjoy what's what's here now. It doesn't it doesn't matter anymore. No, once October starts the slay is clean. Yeah, and that doesn't, you know, again, it doesn't doesn't read. Yes, emotionally, it doesn't re-inform, you know, Vlad doesn't suddenly enter the playoffs within a 50 OPS. He enters with a 680 OPS or whatever it's going to be.

11:46So Jonah, back at the back at late July, if we had worked through, you know, these higher percent that outcomes, what gets the blue J's back in the back in the playoff race back in a wildcard spot after the trade deadline where they bought and sold at the same time. I would imagine top of everyone's list was Vladimir Gerard Jr. figures it out turns it around has, you know, looks at minimum like he looked in April, if not October. And is much better. That hasn't been the case. He sits here with a 682 OPS. He's coming off after showing a little bit of signs of life against the Cleveland Guardians. A really bad series against the athletics before we get into some of the specifics and the historical and lead context of what's happened this year. How are you feeling about where he's at and that inability to build on the Cleveland series via that athletic series. Yeah, not great, Bob. I feel in really, really not great about where Vlad is at. We all hope that that big performance against Joey Cantillo, you know, he went three for four in that game with a homer in a double five RBI's his best offensive game of the season.

12:52We all hope that that would be something of a springboard to some late season surge here that could salvage his season that has absolutely not been the case since that game. He's sitting 22 with no extra base hits and just one barrel. And there's just no matchup, no played appearance where you feel confident in him right now because even when he's in count leverage, even when he gets pitches to hit, he's not driving the ball and Wednesday against the athletic was a prime example third inning against Brady Bassow, soft tossing left hander gets a 1-0 heater at 91 middle away. That's a cookie. He pounds it into the ground right at the second baseman in the fifth runners on the corners, one out big spot in that game. Oh, oh, cutter middle away from Scott blue at 89, not a terrible pitch to attack. It was elevated dribbles it back to the picture for an ending ending ending double play. Blue Jays don't score that in the eighth he gets a hanging 74 mile an hour curve ball from Hogan Harris. It was literally middle middle fly out to left field exit velocity of 96. And really, this is the most troubling thing for me is not doing damage on the pitches that he has to do damage on that big leagueers do damage on and that's been a trend for him all year.

13:59Get this fastballs middle middle 94 miles an hour and under. He's slugging 350 league average is 619. First balls and sliders up in the zone and middle middle so elevated part of the strike zone, but also middle middle. He's slugging 324 league averages 537. I mean, that's that's it's mystifying and when I tweeted out earlier this year that Vlad was on pace to put up one of the lowest isolated powers by a qualified hit or in blue Jays French history. I really didn't think it would happen, but here we are. He has less isolated power than Alfredo Griffin had in 1980 Alfredo Griffin who hit 24 career homers in almost 2000 career games. Now I just think it's inevitable that he's going to finish the season with one of the lowest isolated power marks that a blue Jays qualified there has ever put up. And while you know a lot of things have gone wrong for the blue Jays this year, if they don't end up making the playoffs, Vlad is going to shoulder the blame for that because barring some crazy two week heater here where he hits 12 homers and OPS's 1900.

15:01His 2026 is going to go down as one of the most disappointing individual seasons in franchise history and it hurts all the more considering if he were simply having an average year for him, the blue Jays are probably in that third wild card spot right now and very much in control of their own destiny. Well, this is not how war works or wins above replacement works exactly, but Vlad is sitting here at less than one win above replacement. He should be a walk for three. Yeah, to add two wins of the blue Jays right now there in a playout spot. This is I've done this over simplification as well. A lot of similar issues the Astros have had to the blue Jays. You're done on versus having a six win season. That's the difference of a couple of wins there and again, this is not exactly a wins above replacement works. You don't actually just add wins like that, but especially when you are at the fattest part of the marginal win curve where one extra win would matter so much to your playoff odds and your odds of going on a run. It's hard not to look at that and Jonah, you use isolated slugging there. So isolated slugging is how much slug you're adding on top of your batting average.

16:05We can also just use slug because it would be one thing if Vlad had a low isolated slugging season in one of these years where he's hitting above 300 or at least in the high 200s. He's also only hitting 260, which is a career little batting average as well. So we've even lost the high contact high walk rate Vladimir Gerrard Jr. which was supposed to establish like a very good floor like and I think as we try to contextualize and I know you have some good data that you shared on Twitter the other day about guys who prior to this prior to age 27 performed like Vlad. What did they do in that age 27 season? What did they do beyond? I know you have some context related to that. I think the thing that I am left thinking through with this season and I'll pass the baton to you to explain that stuff in a second is this year has shown that whether there are underlying injuries or mental thing with the approach mechanically whatever the causes of this. The floor is so much lower than we anticipated when we were when we were projecting ahead even when he had a bad 2023 bad quote unquote 788 opus 100 points of opus better than this.

17:14And we and that was believed to be the floor. So when you project him forward you now kind of have to keep in mind that this is 150 game possibility to which we didn't really think was the case before. Yeah, I mean, look, he's slugging 80 points lower than he did as a rookie, right? Like you just can't overstate what an anomaly this is because you simply don't see hitters who had as much success as Vlad did early on in his career. Struggle like this in what is supposed to be you know the early side of his prime. This is the Bill James season that everyone breaks out at age 27. If you go back and read like the 1998 baseball abstract, you know, that's what they say power peaks at age 27 not so much. I suppose he's the exception that proves the rule. So yeah, so I basically wanted to look and see how unusual is it for a player with that kind of pedigree to struggle to the extent Vlad has in his age 27 season this year. In 2026 so I look back to since the start of the integration so since 1947 so from 1947 through 2026 only 51 players have managed a WRC plus a way to run.

18:19Created plus where 100 is league average and every point above or below is one points one percentage point above or below league average. So only 51 players since integration have managed a WRC plus a 137 or better over 2000 or more played appearances through their age 26 seasons so said differently. Yeah, Vlad is basically a top 50 hitter before a top 50 hitter through age 26 since integration said differently exactly exactly that group collectively that group of 50 hitters in their age 27 seasons put up an average WRC plus of 142. So that group collectively was on average 42 percentage points better than league average in their age 27 season the median WRC plus for that group of 51 hitters 152 52 percentage points better than league average. Vlad's WRC plus is currently 93 93 he is 7 percentage points worse than league average offensively and I mean it's so it's an astounding anomaly but what's really crazy is that only one hitter in that group of 51 was worse than Vlad in their age 27 season and that was Orlando

19:31who played only a handful of games in 1965 when he was 27 because his knee was busted no hitter in that group outside of subpoena was worse than Vlad was in their age 27 season so I mean a that is absurd but B it makes projecting him a really almost impossible endeavor because you just don't see this right it just it confounds the projection models because there you just don't see cases like this and I mean I really struggled to find a good comp but I think the best one the best comparison for Vlad and his trajectory is actually one that blue jays fans well older blue jays fans will remember it's John Mayberry so John Mayberry through his age 26 season 142 OPS plus and forgive me I'm jumping between WRC plus and OPS plus but they're very similar. John Mayberry through his age 26 season had a 142 OPS plus he was an MVP runner up in his age 26 season of 1975 he looked like he was on a track to be one of the best hitters certainly of that generation and then at age 27 like Vlad he fell off a cliff that year at age 27 663 OPS 94 OPS plus he had only 13 homers and I think the really distressing thing about that comp is not just how accurate it is in terms of where Vlad is at right now

20:48but Mayberry never got back to being an elite hitter from his age 28 season through the end of his career his OPS plus was 112 so he was 12 percentage points better than lead garage he had a nice run in Toronto for sure don't get me wrong he led the team and homers in 78 79 and 1980 he was the team's first 30 home run hitter but he wasn't the hitter he had been earlier in his career in Kansas City when he put up an OPP of 399 over a four year run with an OPS of almost 400 so you know that's kind of a worst case scenario projection for Vlad but certainly at this juncture he is really difficult to project we just don't know what you're going to get from him and I think the troubling thing is that that uncertainty just lays bare and makes it abundantly clear he's not one of the best hitters in the league he's not your done Alvarez he's not Aaron Judge he's not Kyle Schwarber or Shoei Otani or Pete Kaur Armstrong he is inconsistent and that is something that you know until we see otherwise is going to be his reputation. Well let's hope that there isn't another john Mayberry senior comp and two errors and

21:53getting yanked from a playoff game at the end of the tail end of your I can't remember is that season the next game but very famously got yanked showed up late to a game made two errors and got yanked so don't look regardless of what these numbers say how frustrating it paints the picture as far as projecting Vlad moving forward and again the projection systems by the way are trying to get a handle on this as well and already his future projection has dropped pretty notably because how could it how could it not at this point still projects him to be much better than this year but no the average outcome is no longer like star hitter it's getting back to being a good hitter so the Mayberry comp is notable there but the blue jays are not going to not play Vladimir Gerrard Jr. these next couple of weeks he's probably going to hit third still and I know the text line will be full of anger about it and we'll get tweets about it and things like that but I think it falls into the category of it is what it is at this point. There is a there are other spots in the line up though where john Schneider is probably going to have to ride the hot hand these next two weeks

22:55and whoever's playing the best baseball should probably get the start day to day. Josh Smith is a guy that I know has stood out to you when he's gotten the opportunity he's played fairly well. He drew a start in left field for the first time this season not that long ago. Where do you see the path to getting Smith in there? We're seeing a trio of or we're seeing a couple right-handed pictures in a row here. Where do you see the opportunities for him and who might that come at the expensive right now? Yeah I think at this point they'd be remiss not to start giving him some run at second base. I know they've been kind of reluctant to do that and he's kind of bounced around defensively but Ernie Clement is just really going through it right now and he's been going through it for a while since the australia break he's been the seventh worst qualified hitter in the majors by w rc plus he's hitting 228 with a 265 on base percentage and Josh Smith is swinging the bat really well and this is a team that cannot forego any opportunity to inject more offense into its lineup right now and I mean look they they hit from different sides of the play it feels like kind of an easy fit to get him to get him in there and you know I mean the fact of the matter

23:59is that Ernie's defense has also tumbled off in a big way this year he's minus five outs above average at second base his range has meaningfully declined I know Josh Smith isn't you know the most gifted second baseman out there but I feel like that move would be pretty lateral defensively right now and Josh Smith is is offering you offensive upside that Ernie doesn't have so I think that that's an opportunity and I say that I think the pathways at second base because I think there are other options to play left field to over say hey su sanchez right now who has essentially become unplayable and now is exclusively in my mind a pinch hit option only I mean when on when Anthony santa d'air is ready to go he is I think the logical guy to plug into left field on an everyday basis but in the interim look I wouldn't even mind seeing Sean keys out there I look obviously he hasn't played a ton of left field the blue jays we're trying to give him some reps out there down in buffalo but at this point I just don't know that he could be a defensive downgrade from where he says is that and I think he offers more offensive upside at this point too

24:59given the way he was swinging the bat in buffalo and given the way that he says has kind of been you know not really an impactful hitter for a while now since the middle of may obviously there was there was an i else in there but since the middle of may he's got a 6.61 op s he's only hit two homers right so I don't know that you know he's offering you much I mean certainly you know the the defense is is a he is hugely problematic but I would like to see Sean I think my optimal line of right now as we await Anthony santa d'air is return is probably against right hand to pitching that is is Sean keys in left field and Josh Smith at second base and you know he's through santa s coming off the bench and Ernie Clement ready to get in there if you know when teams go to the go to the bullpen later in games and bring in left handed hitters he can come in and sub in for Josh Smith but yeah right now I just I don't think you can forego the opportunity to get Smith's lineup pardon me bat into the lineup on a on a regular basis. Yeah the the keys in left field experiment I I don't think we'll see it but they've also they've called them up and he's only got nine played appearances in 10 days up to the major league level like you're not you're not

26:01even getting a look at it. You're not going to play him at first right you're not going to play him at first over Vlad you're not probably not going to the hm over George although they've dh tazus santa is over George springer and Alejandro Kirk last time I know springers banged up and just had three days off other than one pinch hit appearance so maybe it's good to go now but they have done that and then yeah I guess this is all way way simpler against left handed pitching like they'll see Sunday because they just don't have enough righties anyway so if you if you are right handed you'll find the way in that find your way in there. I'm joined a quickly before we let you go the santa on their thing so we went over for us the dh on Wednesday he didn't play in yesterday's game we don't know if that was a part of the plan or if something happened there what let's assume it was part of the plan he's going to be out in the outfield today. What again we did this exercise last year on almost exactly the same timeline like what do you need to see to for your a3 santa on there is the is the reasonable left field option to be like okay you could try this that final week of the season like like what is the next week and a half of Anthony santa our updates have to sound like. I mean look given given how little time there's remaining in the regular

27:06season you know I think that it has to be a pretty expedited expedited timeline of okay if you see these benchmarks then he's ready to go look in his first game back he hit a ball I think it was 104 miles an hour you know as far as I'm concerned he's he's ready to go like this team is so desperate for offense that you know I'm willing to take to the chance that he hasn't fully regained his timing but still offers you know enough upside to justify getting him in there and no he hasn't played the field yet but if you know he kind of makes it out of this weekend without fully embarrassing himself in the outfield I'm ready to go they just don't have the luxury of time and you know given you know some of the imperfect options that they're running out there right now and just how thin their their lineup is in terms of power upside yeah if he's looking like he's not a complete liability in left field and you know he's swinging the bat reasonably well you know get him up here yeah it's we'll see it is again we went through this exact thing last year and it ended up being enough to get him on an ALDS and ALCS roster before you got hurt again but yeah I mean the bar to

28:08the bar to playing time the bar to being on a playoff roster is is fairly low at this point given you know what Jesus and Jesus look at the fact that they're not using shankies even though he's up even if you like him as a pinch hitter or a left field option they're just not using him that way so a lot to a lot to look at on the minor league at a townscorver a lot to look at on the majorly get a townscorver Jonah you down at the park at all this weekend no we're actually heading up to the cottage tonight so I'll be I'll be following from afar nice well yeah have not my cottage to be clear I don't have a cottage no that's my yes you can have you can have Ben and Chris on the radio I will not see you at the ballpark this weekend then but I'm sure I'll be texting with you thanks for doing this buddy thanks Jeremy Pauke good to see you Jonah Bearingbaum of the score you can follow him at beer and ball on Twitter a lot of good stuff there you can read a little bit more about the the Vlad sets that we were going in there but going through there but the take away there that prior to age 27 he was one of the 50 best hitters since integration over that age window

29:09and he is performed worse than all of them in age 27 with the asterisk of Orlando Sapeto who was it's a it's a little sobering and you can have optimism that he'll bounce back next year certainly there's a lot you can do in the offseason I'm sure the mental reset will be helpful but there's a lot going on mechanically there might be you know the back the hamstring the knee whatever and then to the extent that we can measure the psychological side the pressing the expanding the zone kind of that hasn't been there either so probably out of time for me to believe that it can turn around in time here given that there's 15 games left and we've seen 147 games of it but the blue jays will keep open flat will keep open because it would be a big shot in the arm for them in this series if that zero homeruns at home could turn to a one or even a bigger number the jays will get back at action at 707 tonight mac sure is or gets Chris Bassett Saturday and Sunday the jays have TBDs

30:09will talk with Dan Schillman a little later about the sea story on a plan or what else that could look like the Orioles are going to start Kyle Bradish and Trevor Rogers Saturday and Sunday so you get two ridys and then a varying consistent left to use been pitching pretty well lately in Rodgers we will take a break talk to Rob Long of massing about that we'll talk to Dan Schillman later Cito Gaston's going to join us we'll answer some of your texts in the text line as well so you can fire those away 2595 90 center data and message rates may apply Rob Long joins us next to talk Orioles as jays top plus continues on sports at 590 the fan and sports at 360 big opinions and in-depth conversations covering the leaves jays raptors and the NFL the jade bunk is podcast subscribe and download the show on apple spotify or wherever you get your podcasts welcome back to jays top plus 707 tonight matchers will take on old pal Chris Bassett the Chris

31:10Bassett story and stat line are about what you'd expect here a maybe a little higher than you expect but he dealt with a lot of back issues earlier in the year since returning from the iL he's been pretty solid high three is low fours kind of stuff not a ton of strikeouts but a lot of ground balls you know the deal it's also some heavy platoon splits as we experience with Chris Bassett for years here and we just kind of work through some of the what could the righty lineup lineup against a righty look like with Jonah Bearingbaum we'll see a little later today let's get the Orioles lay it on let's talk to Rob Long of massing and the fan in Baltimore Rob how are we doing don't look how are you pretty good obviously the Orioles are most important this weekend but before we talk about that how you feeling about the Ravens this season so the great to be honest with you John Harbottles outstanding coach one of super bowling balls more but I thought the time had passed two years ago I thought the AFC championship loss at home was was it was the final blow of course they couldn't make a move at that time they brought in fresh

32:13blood new voices new ideas I think Jesse Mentor's going to be phenomenal Declan Dorter off as a coordinator I think Anthony Weaver should have gotten his physical coordinator's job when he gave it to Zach Orr I think Zach Orr the fact that he played for Harbott we were did not I think that made a difference so I'm excited and keep in mind every time Lamar gets a new office of coordinator he wins an MVP. I will keep that in mind for sure unfortunately that game on Sunday will go up against Jays Orioles so let's talk about that series as well the Orioles had been hanging really tight around the wild card race they'd gotten themselves right back there but they've dropped seven of their last nine where have they kind of lost their footing here the last two weeks Rob. Oh man the words of Jay Z is all good just a week ago. Kelt and Kyle's are goes up and he makes it tremendous play probably the catch of the year and then after that it's almost like a bottom fell out they lost six in a row after that play they won the series if you will against

33:13the Cleveland Guarding in the series that the sweep was very important was but I don't know the office have just gone stale and we've seen that that's why the Orioles are where they are the office at times is feast of famine you know it was feast when they got to 69 and 69 and it was famine throughout the four gate with the six game losing streak I think Jim Palmer read a stat that Shane Bars they scored 13 or 14 runs in his last nine starts and it's of course the office of onslaught the other day against the Cleveland Guarding but the office has been there wait they can go games and they put up a ton of runs eight runs and eight in the third inning and then they can go eight games and barely score eight runs. Yeah which is that sounds familiar that's kind of how it's been in Toronto the Jays just got shut up by the athletics so it's a tough one now the Orioles thought that they were getting some reinforcements and I only asked this because Blue Jays fans were interested in him has in him as well how was the Louise Robert

34:15Jr. experience for the two days that he was an Oriole. Okay. Oh he had a key base hitting in Colorado double action and drove in a couple of runs and then yeah it's just determined to Louise Robert Jr. Isn't this what we've gotten from Louise Robert Jr. throughout his career? That's a bummer. So that's a bummer because I think he really could have helped the team. You know they've gone on now they experiment with other guys. I just reached Hines and got it they called up from the minor leagues to replace with Louise Robert. I don't think you'll see Louise Robert again this year. Also he Louise Robert was obtained acquired as I say because Tyler O'Neill had the injury injured his shoulder on a great play to see the game and he ended up hurting his rotate of cup as it was all of that. So injuries have been a fact as well with foot of bottom of the world. Yeah and it's never a good sign when two guys you're relying on were guys you got from the Cincinnati Reds off the scrap peep in Christian and Carnazio on the Strand and and Reese Hines but there's still there is still some stuff to like obviously Pitalonzo is having maybe the best season of his career. Kobe Mayo has been really hot

35:19lately after I think everyone kind of forgot about Kobe Mayo. What's you know has it kind of been those two guys carrying the offense for the most part the last little bit. Kobe Mayo is the toughest is the best slugger against left handed hitters in all the baseball. He has like 16 home runs against left handed pitches this year. I was like 22. He's just having sensational season and like you said people forgot about him fact Baltimore World fans wanted to be gone because in April and early May he was just you know statue you know automatic strikeout he's really I'm proud of the way he's really collected himself and become a major league hitter. He's becoming he started going out the way a couple of times as well. Pitalonzo will receive some MVP votes maybe third place MVP votes. The type of year he's putting up. He's the only person that stands between your dawn Alvarez. He's winning the triple crown was right now he leads the league in our be out. I believe at the start of the yesterday he was leaving the league in our be out. He'll be the reason probably

36:20you would all know the wind and the word but other than that office has been a gunner Henderson has not been gunner Henderson. A holiday Jackson holiday has had good times and he has some bad times on top of that and you talked about Christopher and Kenashi on strand. He's been one of the world's more clutch hitters since they brought him over brought him up from the miners. He's been very clutch. So yeah the office just hadn't been the office. Jordan Westberg had played all year. He's who's Colton Colzell finished second a couple years ago. Rookie of the year is batting nothing under 220 now. It's just the office and it's not well. Sam Wolves style. It's coming back from the injury. Has it really hit either? It's it's tough. Yeah. Kobe Kobe Mayo that you mentioned the 16 homeruns crazy. 211 OPS plus against lefty. So John's right you got to be careful with the when to use the lefty's out of the bullpen in this one. You mentioned gunner Henderson there. What was the latest on his foot issue? I know he missed the game or two. He's considered day to day. How how worrisome is what Gunner Henderson is dealing with there? He's paying the foul ball off of his off his foot injured

37:25as me. They say he's day to day. He took the walk the first base on the ground ball with the second base and he had to come out of the game because he just wasn't just didn't have it. Gunner Henderson doesn't pull himself out of games. So when he comes out and said he doesn't have it he really doesn't have it. He sat out the game was at Wednesday. I don't know what the status is today. We've been told several times he and Blaze Alexander came out of the game and to say the same ending. We were told initially Blaze didn't look good gunner was day to day. The next day Blaze goes on a I L was told Gunner was day to day so then leaves me to believe the different levels communication about the two players that Gunner really is day to day and he could play any given day. Okay. Well, we'll look forward to while we won't look forward to that if he's if it's good gunner Henderson. We do know Chris Bassett will start tonight. He had been down for a while there with the back injury but pitching pretty well lately. What's been working for Bassett? What's been different since he got healthy? Can I go in and Chris Bassett off the field first? Absolutely. We

38:28love Chris Bassett here. Man, this guy had back surgery and he showed up maybe the next week and he stayed in the clubhouse staying in dugout travel with the team. It was just a voice this constantly in the pictures ears being that guy he is that guy from as well that guy ever had Tommy Johnson and he's here to run a travel with the team. This having veterans like that man it's huge. I love Chris Bassett. I didn't like the move. I didn't like the three eggs and signing. I didn't just thought why we're going to get this old dude. But what he's added beyond pitching is I have the utmost respect. The utmost respect for Chris Bassett. Now the Chris Bassett that we've seen after the surgery is the Chris Bassett. I think the orals thought they were going to get. I would love for them to go any off season and say look man, you know, page a lot of money. Then get a lot of stuff because of the injury. Could you take a club friendly deal to do one more year? I would love to have him again one more year because I think what he brings to the team, I think statistically he's a guy that can give you

39:33a low four ERA, eat up some, eat up some endings for you. But what he does outside of that, you can't put a price tag on. Well said and he was a big part of the culture and the chemistry. Here we actually had a great chat with him when Baltimore was here last about how, you know, because the J's weren't playing that well. So people were like, well, you know, is it they lost the couple guys like a Chris Bassett out of the clubhouse and he kind of was like, now you have to recreate that every year with a new team even with the same guys. So it was it was helpful insight. So if Chris Bassett pitch as well, we turn it to the bullpen tonight Rob. Rico Garcia has been getting some save opportunities and the baseball card numbers are crazy on Rico Garcia for the season. What's going into that for him? What's made him so special at the back end of that bullpen? We're starting to latch here with Rico. Rico came in bases loaded one out, no outs, wiggle his way out of no runs. And he just was something else, man. He started off this year with numbers that made him look like one of the greatest relievers of all time. Went through a rough

40:37stretch right around the all-star break and then he got back to being Rico. Rico along with Cam Sanders along with you near Canoe. Those guys have no pulse. I'm telling you, man, they have no pulse. They also have no memory. You can rock them on Tuesday. They come back lazy and strike outside. Rico, I mean, it's just something about this regime, this front office, they get guys who who's this guy or the word of the child was walkie-talkie. Who they you know, Canoe, I'm sorry, I was a throw in in the tree that involved Lopez a couple of years ago to go to the twins. And then you go out and you pick up a DFA guy and Rico and you got Cam Sanders and like, what are these guys? These are the guys in the Orioles, even where they are right now will be a lot worse if you didn't have. Yeah, it's a great point. And while they wait for Felix Batista to get back, he's on a rehab assignment now. Garcia and Kitchwich kind of hanging onto the the

41:40closer spot there. Rob, before we go here, what? Look at about Ron Helsley. Ron Helsley's not as well. Yeah. Quite himmited to give this season. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, that's been a banged up bullpen. So Rob, before we go here, when we look big picture, the Orioles have six left against the Jays. So they could do some damage catch up with the Jays, but they also got three with the Yankees and three with the Brewers and the Mets are playing better. They got three with the Mets. There are a couple games out right now. I know that's some of the conversation. I know you've been talking to people on Twitter as well about, you know, what's got to change for next year where the big picture problems are and stuff. But how are you feeling about their chances to get back in the race here? This is obviously a huge, huge series. Three games back with what 15 left. Yeah, if the Orioles get in the playoff, I'll be surprised. Yeah. If the Cleveland Guardian is held on to the third spot, I'll be surprised. The Toronto Blue Jays got in the post season. I'd be surprised. My point is, nobody's running away with it. I'm telling you, we're going to go to the final weekend of the season. And the third wild caught spot may not be decided until that Sunday. You may

42:43see a first team get eliminated from this group of four along with the Texas Rangers. The first team may not get eliminated officially until the Friday of that last weekend series. That's what I think is going to come down to. Someone said to the day that Orioles have to go, something like, what is it 12 and 3 or 13? No, they don't. That means somebody else got high. I would not be surprised if the third team in the wild caught went 80 and 82 to you. You're telling me that you're going to predict, you're going to predict what, based on what you've seen so far, for almost 150 games, that you think somebody's going to get hot in the last 15? Who's done it? I don't think so. I think this thing is going to go down to the team that placed slightly above 500 baseball for the last 15 will be the team that sees his win the third wild caught spot. And that third wild caught team, I wouldn't predict that they wouldn't be in the A L C S. That's what the American league is. Do you know that Orioles, since the first series that they played a Tampa, they own Tampa,

43:49absolutely own Tampa, Tampa swept them in the first series in Tampa back in April. Orioles swept them, then went down the Tampa took three out of four against them, then took two out of three again. They've owned the Tampa Bay race as the very first series and they played. That's why I don't this American league is bananas, man. It's schizophrenic. I have no clue. I'll be at 14 fighting for the number three spot. I would be surprised by the result of any one of those skis. Yeah, I mean, the math isn't 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%, but it does got to feel like that, right? Like you pick, yeah, you'd pick against everyone kind of, but like you said, you could end up in the A L C S if you sneak in. I brought it should make for a really fun couple of weeks. This was really fun. Appreciate it. Taking the time out. Any job? Rob Long of massing of the fan in Baltimore. Yeah, a lot of a lot of fun stuff to talk about. The Orioles are a fascinating team like if the J's were in

44:50more of a playoff spot and Baltimore is more out of it. I think we would have had a more big picture conversation about why the Orioles who had this kind of, everyone thought there was a dynasty at their doorstep, given all the young position player talent they had acquired and how big those upsides were. And it's just it's not really gotten out of second gear here over the last couple of years and they've tried a way. Adley Rutchman who kind of got hot against them for Boston. You know, they're constantly doing the starting the veteran starting pitcher churn because they've done a they've had a tougher time on the pitching development side than the position player development side. And then you know, you look at their guys individually and the guys we thought would be, you know, potential stars before long and Jackson holiday. He's still only 22 years old, but he's yet to have a year where he hit at even a league average level over two and a half years. Gunner Henderson has been below now. There's a lot of value to Gunner Henderson beyond just the bat, but he's been a below league average hitter this year. Adley Rutchman is in is in Boston now.

45:55You know, Kobe Mayo looks like the short side of a platoon guy and a lead short side of the platoon guy, but that's not, you know, that's not a awesome, awesome outcome given where expectations were for him at one point. I know he was a fourth round pick. He wasn't one of their their big pile of first round picks, but expectations got high at one point. Colt Couser can certainly hit a home run and catch a ball and center field over the wall, but he's been a below league average hitter here in his age 26 season. So like we talked about with Jonah earlier age 26 27 kind of when you're supposed to, you know, start figuring it out from a hitter standpoint. So they're a hard team to figure out. They've also dealt with some injuries. So like Ryan Mountcastle, Merce of the Lee, since he's a blue J skiller is on the IL Tyler O'Neill. They tried the Luis Robert thing plays out under Jordan Westberg, but any team that finds himself in the position that the Orioles or Jays or Rangers or whoever and is probably going to be a team that dealt with some injury stuff along the way. You know, the Rangers are bringing back potentially native Aldi and lighter as Jack lighter as relievers because they don't have the timeline to get back as starters and any innings

46:59in the similar conversation to what the Jays are going to be dealing with with Traeus Abbage, heading into that last week of the season. The Cubs are bringing back up with Cabrera as a reliever. It sounds like in the early returns of him as a reliever in the minors are interesting. Anyway, this is not no longer Orioles related, but it's such a fun last couple weeks and these teams that are in it or on the fringes and need and every single out could be the difference between in or not or if you're the Cubs, you're trying to figure out who fits where when you get to the playoffs. It's it's so much fun. Also so much fun. We're going to talk to Dan Schillman and Ceto Gaston in the second hour. We'll do a couple of text line questions now. I'll do a couple on our way out as well. Mike from Adora said, I think Vladie will have an MVP season next year. He's still recovering from last year's world series. I don't know about the recovering for the world series. Like lots of guys have won a world series and been really really really good after like Chauhé O'Tani won an MVP coming off of a world series and then won another world series and now dreaded. That's maybe a bad example because he's hurt this time, but he had multiple world series runs. Aaron Judge didn't win the world series but put together multiple MVP seasons after

48:05deep playoff runs. You know, the world baseball classics in there too, but like the Dodgers are just fine for the most part. Lots of championship teams have come back in their players. But good. So anyway, I appreciate the optimism. I obviously we talked about how Vlad has displayed a new floor this year. We also know what the ceiling is and you know, you can you are well within your rights as a fan or an analyst. I think that his ceiling is still reachable at some point. I just wouldn't use the 11 months later. It's because of the world series last year because that's just the, you know, I think that's given him a little too much of kids glove treatment for the way this season has gone. Mike from Bolton says unrelated but suddenly relevant. Some teams that Jay's are playing to finish the season are out of the playoffs and we call it minor league pictures to see what they can do. This is a real thing and it used to be a much bigger thing when September Rossers expanded to 40 players because you would see guys who just are not remotely major leaguers. But we are starting to see some teams shut guys down the pirate shutdown, Braxton, Ashcraft. Yesterday we've seen, you know, the twins move corner pre-lip to a bullpen

49:09roll. These things are happened. The twins are like still on the periphery of the playoff. So maybe a bad example there, but you are going to see some of that stuff. The load management or guys aren't going as deep into games or you phantom eye out a guy because you want to shut them down for the season. But I would warn I would hazard a couple things here. One, it's not as extreme as when there were 40 man rosters. There just aren't that many extra guys up and going in there. Two, the J's don't have that many games left against, you know, really bad teams like they've got six left against the Orioles who are still in it. The choice pretty out of it, but like one of the guys are giving opportunities to his Jackson Joe, one of the top pitching prospects at baseball. Texas is still in. He got three against Texas. That's in C series at the end of the season. Probably a good example of it. The third thing I will point out though is that the Blue J's just got shut out by a collection of those guys by the athletics. You cannot look past any group of pictures. It might be nice to get a minor league call up starter. The J's just got handled for four shutout innings by one and part of a bullpen day from the athletics where maybe two of those

50:13guys who shut them down are major league caliber guys. The rest were what were probably the type of people that you were talking about. There are more types than that we'll get to the menacea second hour and take a break here. We'll talk to Dan Schullman who's back on the call for this series and the rest of the way on sports that he joins us next as J's talk plus continues on sports at 590. The fan and sports at 360. Teeing up the biggest games of the night. It's the fan pregame with Aelish Four of our and Justin Cuthbert. We've days at 6 p.m. on sports net sports net 590. The fan in wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to J's talk plus Blake Murphy with the UJ's back in action hosting the Orioles this weekend. They'll host the Detroit Tigers Monday Tuesday Wednesday and they hit the road for six. Then they close it out at home against Cincinnati on the final weekend of the season.

51:15Pretty much sellouts down the stretch here for these final nine home games if you're not going and you turn the game on television. You'll hear our pal Dan Schullman voice of the Toronto Blue J's on sports net back for this series and the rest of the way Dan joins us now. How are we doing? Good Blake how are you? Pretty good. The scheduling gods. Look the games are all fun this time of year but they they you got a you got the right series off as far as the athletic series go. I got a bunch of texts from people I know who are like, oh pulling rank are you that sort of thing? But but that aside, yeah, the right series off in the sense that it was a frustrating series. There's no doubt about it. I mean, you you need to win that series. If not sweep that series, I think just about everybody would agree. Both the losses were winnable games. They were both lost in different ways. They could be tied with Cleveland. They could be a game up on Cleveland. I'm sure Guardians fans are saying, man, how can you lose two out of three to ball to more? Yeah, this guy on the Mount, yeah, that guy on the Mount, that sort of thing like this is this is not

52:19the baseball's most glorious and it raised him right now with these teams all around 500 battling for the final playoffs by like the Guardians, the Blue J's, the Rangers, the Orioles should all consider themselves very fortunate to be in this race at this point. But yeah, they didn't play great in Sacramento, hopefully kind of a day and a half of rest and sleeping in their own beds and getting reacclimated to the Eastern time zone. Hopefully they'll play well against Baltimore because the Orioles are still fighting for their lives as well. Yeah, it's certainly not the the couple of years where the J's 186 games and weren't even close to a playoff spot because the pendant races were so good to talk about. Oh, three and then oh, eight and even 2021 where they were very, very good and missed out. So as we sit here, Dan, they are one game out. They hold the tiebreaker against Cleveland, not against Texas, TBD against Baltimore because they've got six games left and if the Guardians catch the White Sox, they do not have the tiebreaker against the White Sox, because they got swept really early in the season, which felt awful at the time and looks a little

53:19bit better now. So when we line all this up 15 games to go, the playoff odds have them around a one and three shot to get in. How do you size it like this is a vague question, but how do you size up their chances at this point? How do you feel about, you know, how the next two and a half weeks could look for them? Yeah, maybe a little bit better than one and three, but like not overwhelming because there are multiple teams in the race. So that's why the playoff odds are what they are. I looked at them this morning and I don't look at them very often, but I think Cleveland was 50 something I believe in. Texas was in the the 20s Baltimore very slim. Again, even just one more win, I think, would have made the world a difference in terms of how I felt about it. You know, this Baltimore series, they're bringing in Chris Bassett, Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers. Bassett, we all know very well, capable of a big game. Absolutely. Pitching well since he's come off the I.L. decent. Did he have a good one against the blue chase a few months ago? Absolutely. Wouldn't Chris Bassett love nothing more than to have a good start tonight? Kyle Bradish has not had his best year, but he's still

54:20as capable on any given night of pitching very well. And Trevor Rogers is pitching very well right now. And obviously what we don't know about the blue jays is will it be season sorry, honor or will it be figure it out and cease tomorrow and Sunday? So I mean, every game is huge. So it's a silly thing I'm about to say, but this series is huge and there can be no overlooking these Baltimore Orioles. And so I think they got to win this series. If they win this series, they kind of sort of put the Orioles to bed. And they pretty much win the tiebreaker with the Baltimore unless they get swept there next week. And obviously winning two out of three, you figure you're going to at least hold serve against the other teams. But I kind of get the playoff odds being less than 50%. They're going to have to play well. They're going to have to play clean. They're going to have to string some hits together. They're going to have to get some some good outings in that four and five spot in the rotation. And they're going to have to play pretty well to make the playoffs. They're not going to back in as far as those Saturday and Sunday starting slots go. And I know you weren't in Sacramento, but I know you were following along and Dylan Cease's velocity was at

55:25a three and a half year low when we look at the average four-seam or velocity. He didn't touch that top end. You know, didn't rear back and get 98 the way we've seen him sometimes do when he's throwing more on the 94 range. How do you like what do you make of this situation? They're in here where Cease and Soriano are each only going to start three times the rest of the way. The number of outings does not make a difference, but it could be the difference between Cease's last one coming against Baltimore who could theoretically still be in it or Cincinnati. There is also the trickle down effect of what if game 162 really matters? What if you want to set up for Wild Card One because game 162 doesn't matter? What kind of things are you thinking through as you try to put yourself in the head of John Schneider and Pete Walker? It's kind of a fun little Rubik's hub right now actually because it can still go a lot of different ways. You and I talked about this couple of weeks ago and I was at 180 degrees wrong on what they were going to do. But the first point or one of the points you made was great. This is not going to impact how many starts Dylan Cease or Jose Soriano get the rest of the way. They're

56:27both going to get three. And unless there's something really wrong with Cease, he is going to start in this series. It would just be on Sunday instead of Saturday. So is your first priority? How is Dylan Cease feeling? And I think that has to be the first priority. How is he telling you he's feeling? How do the medical and training staff feel about how he is feeling? If they push him back, it's not even pushing back, if they use the off day and start him Sunday, then Soriano doesn't start in this series. They can still get them both into the Texas series if they want Friday and Saturday or even Saturday and Sunday if they want to use the extra day again. But what I think they want to do, Blake, is target Cease's last start to be Wednesday and that would be on the road in Baltimore because that would line them up for Game 1 of a playoff series. Now maybe you can't think that way. Maybe that's chicken and egg cart and horse, that sort of thing. But I would guess they would want to get them into that Wednesday game to get them against Baltimore and to have them on an extra day of rest for Game 1 of a playoff series.

57:31So I wouldn't be surprised if he's Sunday and Soriano is Monday and then they kind of kick the can down the road a little bit and decide next weekend, do they want them to go, do they want them to go Friday, Saturday or Saturday, Sunday, they could even get really creative and flip the two and move Soriano ahead of Cease and get Soriano into that last series against Baltimore, give Cease an extra day if they feel he needs it. So I still think there's a lot of different things at stake here. We'll find out about, as you well know, we'll find out about 415 this afternoon in John Schneider's office. If I had to guess, Cease goes Sunday, but listen, if he tells him he's feeling great and they side off on it, maybe they'll pitch them tomorrow. And it's such an interesting thing because in addition to all the stuff we just kind of touched on, you know, the other thing about the Wednesday Orioles game is, and I think they would only do this in an emergency situation. But if Cease starts the Wednesday Orioles game, maybe there's a couple innings out of him if game 162 matters, right? Like he's lined up for Wild Card One, but maybe you

58:31you cobble it together that way. The upshot is he is going to get an extra day of rest. If they make the wild card, let's say, he will get an extra day of rest twice, but somewhere in here, it's just a matter of kind of picking one and seeing, you know, based on how he feels and how you think your chances are, you know, with the Orioles in that final series and things like it is a complicated situation. It would be probably easier, Dan, if there were a fourth starter somewhere in here. A trayous average, you know, through through the live hitters yesterday, we'll get an update on that around 415 today as well. Shane Bieber sounds far enough behind that. I don't think we can think about him even for that last week of the season. Right. Kind of, however this shakes out, they and this might be as soon as tomorrow, they have to find a way to get a little bit more from Spencer Erigetti, right? To like no matter how they structure this, there are still five to six bullpen slash Erigetti slash Lorenzen days on the schedule. And whenever those come, they've

59:32got to find a way to get a little bit more out of him. Yes, there's no question. And even if that means five innings, three runs or something like that instead of four innings, four runs, that's a major help. But even five innings, three runs make so challenging for an offense that's 29th in the majors in a run scored. You know, we've talked about the injuries all season long and they have been a big factor, but it's almost like we've forgotten, not forgotten, but to have discounted a little bit. Oh, yeah. And then you Savage and Bieber got hurt months after everybody else did. Like even if one of those guys was healthy, they might have another winner too. And I'd certainly feel a lot better about their chances. And I agree with you, I think you Savage is going to come back before the end of the regular season, but he's not going to be able to give him 80 pitches or anything like that. Like could you Savage be a factor on that final Friday, final Sunday, two, three innings, bulk roll, cobble it together. Absolutely. I think that's very possible. Bieber, I agree with you. It seems unlikely he's back before the end of the regular season. So yes, they do need more out of Spencer Erigetti and whatever more like they're not expecting seven

1:00:36scoreless, but again, can it be five innings instead of four, two or three runs instead of four, that that helps them a lot. They've got these off days coming up. So I think it's not really about the bullpen being burned out as much anymore. It's more just about keeping them in the game and giving them a chance to win the games in which he's pitching. Yeah, and the bullpen has actually, it's not fresh. Like Michael Lorenzins down for a little bit because he threw 49, but you know, they'll enter this series with Barlin's hasn't pitched in back-to-back games in a little while. Rodgers hasn't, Fisher hasn't, Spencer Miles is pretty well rested. They're actually in a spot where the top six or seven guys in their bullpen, if you go back like six weeks, I think collectively have like a sub to ERA and are no longer like redlining. So I guess that makes you a little bit more confident to pick up the back end of an Erigetti or Lorenzins day. I guess too, if they do cease on regular rest Saturday, maybe you're a little more comfortable shortening him up where he's in that 85 pitch range because the leverage guys in your bullpen aren't quite as gas as they were a

1:01:38few weeks back. Could be they did that two starts ago, right? Where I think they were up three, he had pitched six innings and I think it was three to one, then I think they got to run to make it four to one and they didn't bring a back out for the seventh, but I think they had already made that decision. So to your point, if they've got enough in the bullpen of the high leverage guys available, where they feel confident getting into the finish line, then they can shorten up Dylan's sees, but that's all game dependent like what if today goes sideways on them and they need six relievers and then he's starting tomorrow and he's at 85 pitches through four, like the, you know, baseball is the king of what if right and I just laid out probably a worst case scenario tonight going poorly and and him being inefficient tomorrow, it could go the opposite way. Sure, there could be great and they could get out to a big lead and not need any of the high leverage guys and then they've got them all rested for tomorrow, but I've got to believe they already know the cease decision now, or certainly will by four 15 today. I don't think they're waiting until after tonight's game to decide what happens tomorrow and Sunday. That would be my, my guess on that. So, but yeah, the

1:02:44the relievers generally are arrested as the wrong term, but they're a little more rested than they have been for most of the season and they don't have more than six consecutive games between off days, the rest of the way. It's six off day six off day three. So, and they've got an extra arm because it's September. So they're in pretty good shape there. It's about getting quality out of their starters, in my opinion, and having the offense contribute enough where they can win two out of three and in every series going forward. The other thing they could do to help with the bullpen decisions at C-Sport clothes and stuff is score a bunch of runs. That's we saw this now. This is a, I believe they Apple TV game, but they were up six, nothing or eight, nothing or something. And we're able to take Dylan Sees out early issue and that one too because the offense did that now. The offense just got shot out by a bullpen day from the worst pitching staff in baseball. So you can't bank on that. As I know that you sit down each day and try to do what your lineup card looks like. We know to be Chris Bassett on the mound tonight. We know he's a platoonee guy even when he's going. Where are you right now in terms of some of those tougher decisions? You know, a way to get Josh

1:03:50mits batten the lineup is Hazus Sanchez a guy that you're even trying to get into the lineup right now. Granted, you know, Bassett projects as a good matchup for Sanchez, but he's running a sub 700 OPS for a couple months here. It's kind of a any port and a storm offensively right now, but there's no doesn't feel like the answers are any more obvious today than they were, you know, a couple weeks back. No, some guys are doing okay, but other guys are not right. And in my mind, Josh Smith, 100% has to be in the lineup tonight 100%. I mean, he hit three home runs on the road trip walked four times as an OPS of a thousand as a blue chair over 21 games. And he's a left handed hitter and Bassett, as always, has big splits between righties and lefties. So Josh Smith has to be in there. The question mark for me is, is George Springer okay? If George Springer is okay, then he's in there. If they decide to give Springer another day, then you're going to have Smith and left in Sanchez DH. If Springer is in there, then my guess is Springer DH is and Smith, my guess is Smith is in left either

1:04:52way. Okay. And the question is just either Springer or Sanchez are DH. You know, they can get a little creative. Ernie Clements has been struggling. Do they give him a day either tonight against Bassett or tomorrow against Bradish Smith can play second base, but then you've still got a left field issue. I don't think Sanchez is in left field tonight under any conditions. Mac sure is pitching and coincidence or not, it was the Mac sure is your game that happened down to the trope when Sanchez had the issue. So my guess is Smith in left and either Springer helped permitting or Sanchez DH and then figure it out tomorrow. You've got a lefty Sunday, right? So they plan ahead by several days. They have an idea of what they want to do. Like Ernie Clements obviously going to play against the lefty. Mac could do might find his way in there. Springer, if you're picking two out of three, Sundays one of them. You want them in there against Rodgers. So I think it starts with how Springer is feeling tonight, but in my mind, Josh Smith has to be in there tonight and tomorrow, really, the way that you swing in the back. Yeah, and I think that's you can find paths for him as far as Ernie goes. The, you know, and he's been a little self deprecating about this. Who I think you referred

1:05:55to his historic August. So he is aware of this. We're not breaking any new ground. He's running about a 500 OPS the last six weeks or so. He's played a lot. Obviously, we know he played through a hip thing earlier in the year is there, you know, obviously getting him a day down for rest or load management purposes is there. Does he have enough equity with this team where they're not going to scale back his playing time more meaningfully than that because they trust the defense and they trust the bat to come around. Like, like, could it come down to a merit decision or is Ernie come and, you know, more solidified as he's in there most days guy. I think he's in there most days, but I don't think he's in there all days to be eye and again, Josh Smith is a part of this, right? Because Smith has been so hot. If Smith's running a 500 OPS, then I don't think we're having this conversation. But Ernie will always play against lefties. I can't imagine that he wouldn't. And even in a game into which he doesn't start, he's likely to find his way in there. But I think there's a chance, again, either tonight or tomorrow. Maybe he's down for one of those. I haven't looked ahead to the pitching matchups for the series after that. But, you know, I could, I could see

1:07:00Ernie playing 11 or 12 instead of 14 to 15 out of the final 15 games. Because right now he's just not swinging it well. And hopefully a couple of days off, you mentioned the hip thing. He also had a quad thing. And I am always sure that, you know, Clement is playing through stuff and just being quieter about it than most guys and springers this way too. They just don't want you to know what's going on. And that's that's their prerogative. I think both guys want to be in the lineup. You know, we all talk about Ernie and Rochester and hockey mentality and all that. And that's true. But it's easy to see that he's struggling. That he's not lacing the ball into the left field corner. He's sitting more pop-ups, fly balls to the right side. I looked at his bat speed. It has slowed down since the first of August, kind of, you know, in concert with the production falling off. He and Kazo Khmato have been the two guys that have played the most this year. I think once ahead in games, the other and played appearances, whatever. But like they've played a ton of baseball or Ernie Clement played a ton of baseball last season. And he's playing more this season. So I think it's possible that, you know, a couple of occasions, a few occasions in the last 15. If they think

1:08:05Smith is a better matchup, if they want to squeeze keys in there, like if they want to get every left handed bat in, you can move guys around who's de-aging. I think it's possible that, you know, Ernie sits for two or three of these games. And, you know, maybe it's best for him and for the team. Maybe he's fighting something. And again, hopefully a day off yesterday and a couple of nights in his own bed helps him because when Ernie's hot, as we've seen, he can be a big, big part of this offense. And right now he's not. And right now Guerrero's not. And over the last week or so, spring or just not. Like these are these are key guys on this team. They need some of these guys to get hot. Yeah, it's a lot of knots. It's a lot of knots for this time of year. Looking at it, the Tiger series, they have some uncertainty. Like there are TBDing it tomorrow. If they stay on turn, it would be three righties, but they could also move fromber up a up a day somewhere there. It looks right now like Melton Anderson, Cater Mottaro, but who knows at this time of year, especially as the Tigers fall further out of it, how they manage that. I'm Dan, this time of year, we're within two and a half weeks here. I know you say you don't look at the playoff odds all

1:09:05that often, but you did this morning. What is your like out of town scoreboard process? Do you have it up while you're doing the call to take a peek? Are you after the game or morning coffee the next morning kind of guy? How closely do you monitor those things from here? Right. Right. So during the game, one of the sites I have open MLB Research, which is an awesome site that MLB has set up for the media. It's got like a scoreboard band across the top. I'm not looking every half inning, but I am looking a little bit in our booth. We have one TV to our left. So we will strategically pitch the get our pick the game that we want to watch and all of the other contenders start a little bit later. The wild card contenders start a little bit later. Somebody starts at 810 tonight. I can't remember exactly who it is. It's not technically minutes. So I would guess as of 810 on the TV over my left shoulder. The Guardians will be up and I'll sneak a peek every now and again. I can look on my laptop every now and again. And then with teams playing later on like Texas is that Arizona. They started at 940 on the drive home. I'll have my serious XM going and I'll be listening

1:10:09to that game and knowing me all probably at this time of the season, give it what's given what's at stake. I'll probably stay up until that game is completed. I was I wasn't sitting in front of a TV for Texas Seattle yesterday. I had other things going on, but I was checking the score on my phone quite a lot and it was three to nothing for the longest time. And then I couldn't check for like half an hour and boom, it was four to three. And I didn't even know how it happened. And then I didn't have a chance to check again until it was over. But of course you check like that. This is all part of it, right? The you know, the blue jays results are incredibly important, but so with the results of the guardians and the rangers. So I'm into it. I like a race. I like excitement. I like drama. I like the games I call matting. And so yeah, I'll be I'll be check it. If they ever catch me on camera looking like this, you'll know I'm sneaking a peek of the guardians game on the TV. You missed a good one. Yes, to drama 12 strikeouts over six one hit innings. And then the second he came out, they blew it for him. So it was a it was a fun way. There was

1:11:11nothing else going on in my life. Three o'clock on a Thursday yesterday. So I had that one on a damn before we let go here. The other thing I am sure you will try to keep an eye on or an year on in serious XM driving home on Sunday. The little Packers helmet is over your left shoulder in this screen. First game this season against the Vikings. So pretty big right out of the gate. How you feeling about your Packers this year? Well, I've got a bit of a Sunday issue. So let's say the game ended about four 15. I mean, the card for 30 kickoffs for 25. So I might listen to the game on the way home, but then we're we have a family dinner planned with with my in laws and family on Sunday night. So I've got to make a decision. You know, do you have your phone out or you kind of following it at family dinner or do you try to do the impossible? Put your phone away, take the game and watch it at like eight o'clock at night. And I'm going to try to do the impossible. I'm not sure I'm capable of that. I have to silence all of my notifications and my son because

1:12:11Betelby text Ben is a maniacal texture during a Packers game. So I'll have to tell him I'm shutting it down and we can't have any communication until until I watch the game. But I think I'm going to give it a go given the situation the late game or that when it starts and the family dinner on Sunday night. So I'm if you text me, I might not answer because I think I'm going to give it a shot Sunday night. Well, now that I know I won't also I'm not a Packers fan. So my text would pretty much exclusively be about Tucker craft who I am once again heavily invested in from a fantasy football perspective. Yeah. So I will be rooting for Tucker craft specific. I don't care what else happens in the game. But that is more the football fan that I am given that I've cheered for a completely irrelevant franchise. That's going to win the FC South this year but has generally been Jacksonville right? I'm a Jacksonville Jaguar. You're the guy. Yeah. So yeah, I'm the one guy. I'm okay. So go Packers, go Jags, go Blue J's Dan. Thanks so much for doing this. We'll see you at the park a little later. All right. Like sounds good. See you later on. Dan Schillman of Sportsnet Voice of the Toronto Blue J's. He will be back on the call for this one

1:13:14with Joe and Arden. Jamie Madison have Blue J's central for you for this series. Mike Petri L will be on there tonight. I'll pop up on there tomorrow. Abentialman and Chris Leroux on the radio side. 707 start tonight. We'll see. There will be as Dan and I kind of alluded to there. A batch of updates from John Schneider pregame Fridays tend to be a big one. First game back off a road trip after an off day. A lot of injury questions out there. So we should get a little more clarity on James and Tyrone who was visiting the Keith Meister earlier this week. Presumably done for the season. A little update on Shane Bieber who was throwing a flat ground this week. Don't know what the next steps are for him. Treyis Savage who was scheduled to throw two innings of live BP 30 to 35 pitches yesterday. We'll see how that progress. Luis Arias who I don't know how much where he had that setback with his quad. The only real question for him is at least as far as I'm concerned since he's not rehab games yet and they run out of rehab games next week is. Is he done enough that you 60 day? I'm to create a 40 man spot if you need it somewhere on the 60 day.

1:14:15Maybe we'll get a Jonathan Klaus A update or not expecting one on Patrick Corbin or Cody Ponds. Anthony Santander did not play yesterday. He went over four with a strikeout as a D H on Wednesday. We don't know yet if that was part of the schedule. I thought he was supposed to play the outfield yesterday. Maybe that's today. So we'll get a little bit of an update on that as well. So lots to ask Josh and I are about and then most importantly probably or most imminently anyway. We will ask him about Dylan season Jose Sauriano plans for Saturday or Sunday or Sunday or Monday elsewhere in the system. Vancouver Canadians game three of the finals is tonight. So 935 start its free to stream on M I L B TV and I think on the Valley Sports app. Landon Muroudus will start against Hunter Dryden. The Canadians have three cracks to win it. There are two games and nothing in that best three out of five. A fun chat with Jake Casey about it yesterday. We will keep an eye on that as well at AAA. Gage Danifer made his debut for the Bisons yesterday through two innings. A lot of run. Walked about her struck out three over 36 pitches. Josh Winkowski also got the bump to AAA as he

1:15:15works his way back after more than a year down two innings of shut out ball with two strikeouts also up to 36 pitches. So can keep an eye on those guys as well. Right now we're going to take a break. We will continue to get you set for Maxures or gets Chris Bassett. We'll take a couple of your tax but very excited that after the break your Cedo Gaston joins us as J.S. Talk plus continues on sports at 590. The fan and sports at 360. Unrivaled insight analysis and opinions on all things Blue Jays. Blair and Barker. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to J.S. Talk plus. Blake Murphy with you as we get set for Jays Orioles. Pretty big series. Needless to say, the Blue Jays have a two game edge on the Orioles but the series could change things quickly. The Orioles are three games back of the wild card. If the Jays do a job here and take care of their side of things, you also do the job of probably

1:16:21putting the Orioles further out of this then makes them a relevant part of the conversation from here. Like if you take two of three, they are not only three games back of you. They are either three games back of you in the wild card or four games back of the third wild card team, depending on how the other series shake out. And these two, they'll have three games left against them. But anytime you can put one of the teams in the mix with you further out of reach, that's important. Cleveland will play Minnesota. Minnesota is also on the periphery of this race. They're four and a half back of the wild card spot. So they will at least be, you know, they could sweep a series and be right back in it and right on the tails of the Guardians. But I don't think the twins have played good well enough that you can expect the Guardians to do too poorly. I think you're probably hoping, you know, if the twins could take two or three or something like that. The Texas Rangers, by the way, will be at the Arizona Diamondbacks. And that's a really fun series in a lot of ways. Both of those teams are very much in the playoff. Mix here, the Rangers fell two games back yesterday. The Diamondbacks have been half a game behind

1:17:23or up on the Padres for like a month now. They're currently half a game back of the Padres. And that's a 2023 World Series rematch. So fun one there as you're doing your Editown scoreboard watching. I mentioned a little earlier Houston's at Tampa Bay and the White Talks are at St. Louis. Those are peripherally relevant because if the Rangers were to catch the Astros or the Guardians were to catch the White Talks, those would be the teams that we think about with who the Blue Jays are competing with in the wild card here. And the Blue Jays do not have the tiebreaker against the White Talks the way they do against the Guardians. So while you're happy, if any of these teams are losing because it gives you more teams to potentially catch, you have to catch the White Talks more than you have to catch Guardians since you don't own that tiebreaker. We are hoping to talk to Ceto Gaston at some point this segment. No, no, no, no longer be joining. That's okay. We've got lots of texts in the text line. So fire away to 59590, standard data and message rates may apply.

1:18:24Hopefully we can get Ceto a future time on. I have not gotten the honor of talking to him in the past. Obviously a huge part of Blue Jays history was here the other weekend for the Hall of Excellence unveiling and Buck Martinez Day and a guy who knows something about a playoff push and what it takes to manage down the stretch and manage into the playoffs. Maybe we'll get him next week. We'll try again with Ceto. We'll wrap up the week then doing some of your texts in the text line. So you can keep sending those in, but we had a bunch left over from the week. So we will get into those. Nolan in Huntsville had asked the other day. It feels like Brett Bateman's style of play has turned around Toronto's offense thoughts. I don't think one guy can do that. I think it's great to have a guy who is having good at bats at the top of the lineup. And you know, if you're not going to have, and I know Bateman's stat line is that of a semi prototypical lead off hitter so far because he's sitting for contact not stealing a ton of bases yet. But you know, there are a couple ways you can chop up a lead off hitter for me. I, I like what modern teams do

1:19:27and just hit your best player at the top because no, he won't have anyone on base to start the game, but your chances again and base runner on are really high and he's going to get the most played appearances. So if you're looking at, you know, Aaron judges let off a time show a is let off a time. Shorvers let off a times that is one type. You can have the high OBP guy who's just making sure he gets on for your big guys. That's a good way to do it. But if you're going to have a contact guy like a bread, Bateman, I do like and I like the boba shed find as a lead off hitter where even if the OBP wasn't that high, that's a high pressure at bat for the opposing pitcher. You know, you're going to have to battle and if you're around the zone, that's a guy that's going to put bat to ball and put pressure on your defense right out of the gate. I think there is a benefit to that. Personally, I would like to see Bateman get a little bit more aggressive on the base paths. I know that the blue jays over the last couple of years, person L wise haven't had a lot of base dealers and philosophically have not wanted to risk running into outs when you have springer or Guerrero or Kirk up or something like that. The offensive environment with this team is low enough, their slug is low enough that I think those 90 feet are pretty valuable. And if you have a guy

1:20:27like Bateman, a guy like Miles straw who doesn't steal a lot but has been fairly effective, already command almost never steals, but I think he has that in him a little bit. I would I would dial up the aggression just a little bit when it comes to those guys. So I don't think Bateman is fundamentally changed what the team's offense looks like they are better over since Bateman got called up, but they're still not slugging around and like that. But I think he's just hit well and having one extra guy who's hitting well goes a long way. Michael and Burlington said clearly a rookie season from Okamoto, what is his next step as a hitter defense can be better to? Yeah, I don't know if the I don't know if our expectations defensively can be much, much higher. You know, the book on him coming in was that he was okay at third base and would be really good at first base. And he's been okay at third base. He grades out, you know, the advance metrics have him slightly below average defensively at third base for a 30 year old power hitter who was playing first base before he came over. I think that's about what you can expect. You know, it'd be great

1:21:28if he's better because you don't want to have to use your DH next year on, you know, just Okamoto and Vlad. I think ideally you add another bad or it's a rotating Okamoto Guerrero Santander thing so that you can keep offense in the lineup while improving your defense some games. And again, you want to keep the option open to just sign a guy who can put a swing into a ball. So defensively, I don't know that you can hope for a ton more than what he's shown because this was kind of the higher end of what the book on him was. Offensively, the thing that you were looking for is for the strikeouts to come down and the batting average to come back up as a result of that. I think when we were, you know, projecting what Okamoto would look like at the major league level, people looked more at the 327 batting average than they did the, you know, 30, 40 home runs that he did a bunch of times. This is a guy who came in with a reputation for not striking out for being a pretty high contact hitter. That's why when we were talking about 2026 free agents last year around this time, you know, Murakami is fun too and hits a lot of bombs, but I had said that,

1:22:31you know, Okamoto strikes me as more of a blue jays guy. He's more of a, he can be a contact guy and hit for average. And then, you know, if he hits 20 home runs, awesome. You know, the J's are more of a 280 average with 20 home runs kind of team than they are a 30 home run with 230 average kind of team. Turns out Okamoto very similar stat line to, to Murakami here with 30 home runs at a 232 average. So I think that's the area for improvement is, you know, he's striking out almost three times as much as he did last year in Japan. If you look at the bulk of his Japanese career, he's striking out a little bit like around twice as much, maybe 80% more than he was there. So you hope that in year two as he adjusts and knows how pictures are going to attack him. And we've seen it this year, you know, they've been pretty high highs and pretty low lows. I think that's rookie adjustment, even though he's 30 years old. It's an entirely new league with pictures who pitch different and are going to attack you different and have a different level and type of stuff. So I think that'll be it. Trim those strikeouts back at that batting average back up. And

1:23:34if the 30 home runs are still there, you're looking at a really good offensive player. Tracy Vigkuber had asked, do you know why we can hear so much of the heckling on the broadcast when the J's play the athletics? Is it because it's a minor league park? So we have a pal who does the sound engineering for the Blue J's who is filming on some of this stuff at the home park in the past. I would think and he will DM me and correct me if I'm wrong. But my guess would be the home team is responsible for like, Mikey up the park sports center doesn't like go into Sacramento and Mike everything up themselves. So it is something to do with the combination of the minor league park and the way the athletics have theirs. It also no offense to the athletics when you have fewer than 10,000 people on average at a game. One voice is going to cut through a little bit more. I don't know that when 40,000 people are at the game tonight, one guy yelling would cut through that much. So I don't have a satisfying answer, but I will look into it. Tracy Todd in sudden says, if the J's limp into the final Wildcarts bought a make a run in the playoffs, does that camouflage the needs and change Toronto's plan for next season would it be better if they didn't make the playoffs at all? It's a

1:24:37great question. Jonah and I touched on it a little bit earlier. I think this is where the team in the clubhouse right now and the fan base and the front office are all handling all need to handle this differently. And the team in the clubhouse needs to 1,000% believe that if they get in, they can go on a run and they believe in the guy next to him and we did this in 2025 and it's mostly the same group. And look, we got Dylan C's and Jose Soriano starting two games of playoff spot. They have to have the utmost confidence that what has happened over 147 games is not reflective of who they are. They have to believe that and they have to believe that to get into a Wildcarts spot and they have to believe that to go on a playoff front. From the fan base perspective, I'm not going to tell anyone how to be a fan, but how I think I would handle it is this has been a disappointing season and you hope that a playoff push does not change the evaluation of the team and filling the gaps and addressing the needs for next year. But if they get in emotionally, mentally, you can reset. You could just be like playoff baseball, baby. And try not to let the disappointment of the season

1:25:41bleed into your enjoyment of playoff baseball because again, 2023 happened to Wildcarts teams to go to the World Series. Anything can happen. Anything is plausible. The front office has the hardest part of this or maybe the easiest part of this where they have to be cold and analytical about this. They have to remove emotion and momentum and things like that from the decision and they have to look at the larger picture, which has 147 games. This team was not good enough and you could acknowledge the starting pitching health and you know, work through how to better insulate yourself from that, but acknowledge that appreciate that it's an outlier injury season. But you also have to look at the offensive side and say 2024 didn't really work. 2025 it worked famously. 2026. It didn't really work. And some of the pieces changed. Some of the pieces are the same. Some of the players change. Some of the players are the same. And you have to look at that and address that. Whatever happens. Like they could go to the World Series, but you would still have 147 games that say they didn't hit for enough power. They didn't hit for enough slug. The lineup wasn't deep enough, particularly in the middle parts. And you'll have to strip any emotion or momentum from those decisions. So

1:26:45that's kind of the three different groups. I think things fall into. As I understand it, this front office does a lot to make sure that the emotion is removed from their decision making. So for better or worse, I think they will remove that. They will, you know, how could you? And I know people will point to the Ross Akins quote from I think it was 2024 that power is low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit is delicious. Home runs rock. Bitting for extra bases is really I love low hanging fruits. The easiest fruit to grab. It's the easiest way to get some calories. So yeah, there needs to be more power in this lineup when things come back around in 2027. John from Musco got two questions. Where did the Blue J's rank in ABS challenges? Was the first one of those. So let me bring that up here. And we're going to separate this. We'll look at the entire leaderboard and then we'll separate it into components. So the Blue J's are right around the middle of the league. They rank 12th in total challenges versus expected.

1:27:45So they have gotten 55% of their challenges correct, which is 10th in the league. And then when we look at which, you know, they measure versus expected based on which pitches you challenged and, you know, should you have challenged those? What is the opportunity cost? Which pitches didn't you challenge and things like that? The Blue J's grade much better as batters than they do as catchers, which is surprising. So the J's are seventh as a position player group. And I've actually won at just as high a rate as their catchers have at 55%. So they're on the higher end. They actually have the third highest success rate and the seventh best challenge versus expected. On the position player side, the catchers haven't been quite as good. They rank 16th. Now I will note that within that, there is a pretty big gap in who is performing how? And I say that because Alejandro Kirk is all right. He's been above average. He ranks 20th in the league and has gotten 60% of his right now. It hasn't always been the highest value challenges,

1:28:50which is what he gets damed for. But his actual success rate is pretty good. Brandon Balanced Willa ranks near the bottom of the league. He is minus 12 over turns for six-pected and has only got 45% of his challenges correct. So that is one of the worst marks in all of baseball. Believe it's fourth last among, third last among qualified catchers. So some room for improvement there for Balanced Willa. The second question from John was in the dugout. I see Demarlo Pied and probably others marking things down on their game cards constantly. What are they writing down? Probably a bunch of stuff. You are limited in what tech you can have live in the dugout. Obviously, guys look at the video for the swings and stuff like that. I would imagine Walker is marking down pitch counts, sequencing, looking at that kind of stuff. Demarlo Hale probably looking at how hitters were attacked. There's a million things they might be looking at. They might just be scoring the game. Also, that's not something they are going to reveal to us if we ask I don't think. Sure, there are a lot of things that are taking notes on.

1:29:54By the way, speaking of taking notes, I mentioned this after the Hall of Excellence got revealed, but because the Blue Jays are back home for six, if you haven't gotten to check out the Hall of Excellence yet, it's in section 104 in right field. All of the lockers are really cool to check out, but Carlos Delgado having his notes from his four-home run game out there. So Carlos Delgado, we've talked to other hitters in the past on the show, Sean Green, a big one who took notes after every play appearance and was different guys might mark down different things, but you want to have a memory of that and before you had access to MLB research or whatever tools the Blue Jays have to bring all this stuff up. And I didn't think guys would take those notes themselves. It's so cool to look at what Carlos Delgado was writing and you could see fastball up and in and that kind of stuff against which pitcher and how they sequenced it, where they located. It's really cool. I strongly recommend going to check that out. So I'm sure P Walker and DiMarloharell are doing some version of that in addition to pitch counts and things like that. Adam from Port Elmsley

1:30:55asked the question that I just kind of asked, Dan Schultman. Is there any command in every day player with Smith now on the team and needing more power? Should he be used as more of a platoon utility guy going forward to get the best set of him? This is a bigger question for 2027, I think. Right now the Blue Jays are probably going to play or any command most days. His defense wasn't good to start the season. It's gotten better as things have gone on. The bat has been really shaky, but he's definitely starting against lefties. And when you work through the lineup against righties, one of unless you are willing to punt on defense in a way that I don't think the Blue Jays are going to with mac sure is around the mound or really at all because this is who their identity is. One of any commander miles Strahas be in there. Even if even if you bench Hazus Sanchez or D. H. Hazus Sanchez to put and bench torch bringer for the game, you need to implement at second base or miles Strahan left field because Josh Smith can only man one of those positions. You know, miles Strahas also not hit particularly well. We all love the defense. We all like the guy. He has had some highs at times and seems to have an act for for big moments at the plate. But

1:31:58you know, the overall batting line is not that of a guy who demands to be in there every day. So you can you could start a miles Strahan left field tonight and Josh Smith at second base and the Orioles might have seven lefty or switch hitters in the lineup and you say, you know what, the second base defense, I think overall we would say Josh Smith is probably slightly less second baseman than Ernie Cement, even though Ernie's had a bad season. You might disagree with that, but for the sake of this argument, you say you'll take a little bit of a ding even with a lefty heavy lineup because mac sure is there such a fly ball heavy guy in the outfield defense should be the priority in this one. You could also say want the more sure handed second baseman because they have a lot of lefties in the pull side of the infield. So Ernie Cement starts and then Josh Smith plays left field instead of miles Strah. Anyway, all this is to say Ernie Cement is going to play a lot because one of those guys has to be in a lineup even if you're trying to maximize lefties and he's Ernie Cement. He has a lot of track record of being better than this at the plate and having some equity with the team. Longer term where I think the question

1:33:01becomes interesting is the blue jays have Andre Cement as a short stop. Kazumoko moto at third base Vladimir Gerrero junior first base Anthony Santander maybe in left field. There are spots for there are opportunity for Guerrero, Okamoto and Santander to get D.H. reps if they don't sign a D.H. Maybe Addison Barger is back covering some of the third base and right field. But as you start to work through next year, you in a hurry run out of spots where you could drop someone in without there being a ripple effect positionally. This is where Ernie Cement's versatility and maybe his numbers trailing off as he's played a ton of baseball the last two years becomes relevant because if you could, I'm not saying that a second baseman becomes available on the trade market and that is your only path to getting better. But let's say a second baseman becomes available and you really like or let's say this is not I don't think this would be the blue jays kind of guy. Let's say for whatever reason Rossack is becomes enamored with jazz jism and wants jazz jism at the second base next year he's a free agent. Well, the fact that Ernie Cement is really versatile and can

1:34:05backup him and as a third base and backup jazz jism at second base and backup Kazemoko moto at third base when he's playing D.H. or getting a day off or whatever and that you wouldn't want Ernie at first base because the defense good enough elsewhere but could also like that one guy moving back into a super utility role a tenth man role if you will is really valuable. So even if Ernie Cement were still defined his way to 450 play appearances next year, which is a lot of play appearances, you could do that without him being locked in as the everyday second baseman and maybe it ends up more valuable. Again, this is probably not the best example because there aren't a lot of second baseman out there this off season. It's a lot of corner guys who you don't love to defense on. But yeah, I think the versatility and the fact that you would probably like to get him back into the 450 play to appearance range could impact how you're working through some of these off season decisions. Luis in Monk that says that been noticing that every game each guy comes up and does exactly the same thing isn't working obviously. Have the hitting coaches given up or the players being stubborn. I just don't think this is true. Like if we look at, you know, I look the one thing that you could say about the

1:35:08Blue Jays overall is that they have a lot of quick at bats and they have some pretty aggressive hitters. And so you'd expect some of that Ernie Cement's one of them Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has tried to be a little bit more aggressive. It hasn't always worked out. But Alejandro Kirk is a way different hitter than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Who's a way different hitter than Ernie Cement. I think the thing that they are doing consistently up in dead line up is they haven't been particularly good. But if you look at how they're going about that and how pictures are attacking them and how they're getting out, there's not like a uniform across the team thing. So I don't think it's fair to say the team has given up or the players aren't trying to make adjustments. I think hitting is hard and it's not a particularly good offense. And some days it's going to look like everyone's going up there and swinging at the first pitch and getting out because maybe that's the book on that starter. That's the way it works out. But I don't think, you know, you look at batements at bats and Lucas's at bats and Cement's at bats and Lads at bats and Kirk's at bats. Those look like different at bats. They're trying to do different things. Pictures are trying to attack them differently. It's just a lot of guys we'd set it within. There's a lot of guys when you're looking at hot or not. There's just a lot of not guys right now. But I don't think there's

1:36:10one common thread that is issue. I think that would make it way easier actually if it was just like this team can't hit fastballs. They're not ready for the fastball. That would be a simpler thing to fix. Tom and Trenton asks, who's my favorite home run hitter in Blue J's history? That's a nice one to lighten the day up and make it more fun. I was on the Carlos Delgado for home run game boxscore page the other day I had planned to ask Jonas and trivia about who started that game. But we ran out of time. I would still say Jose Patista, just that I had just moved back to the city and I was at so many games in 2015 and 2016 were such fun years as well. The Jose Patista thing was just such kind of found money at I know where. So I will say Patista. But there are no like Delgado's probably the answer that it should be if I was like three years older it probably would be the answer. If I was a lot older it's probably Joe Carter or George Bell or someone like that. But my answer is Jose Patista. Chris Nautobico says, this Blue J's team has

1:37:11given me 2021 vibes games we should have won because of the spot in the postseason. Look I'll say this. If they get as hot down the stretches that 2021 team did they're making the playoffs that 2021 2021 team was unstoppable in September and had they make the playoffs I think they would have made some real noise. Excuse me I had to sneeze. But yes that was a team that earlier in the season was a bit more mistake prone. I left some wins on the table. Now they were dealing with a lot being in Dunedin and then in Buffalo and then coming home and things like that. And they weren't the sharpest defensive team. We've obviously seen the front office prioritize defense particularly in the O field a lot more since then. So there's some similarities in terms of misopportunity. But if this team gets as hot as that team was down the stretch they're making the playoffs. So I hope your comparison is is apt. Sharon in the USBC says I don't know why there's excitement about Santadero turning you didn't do much in his first 51 games with the J's I'd like to see Sanchez and down or DFA to bring back Davis Schneider. Davis Schneider been a little cold with Buffalo

1:38:13last little bit. He's obviously had a tough season. I'm not willing to close the book on him as a major league player in general. But he's not he's not hidden well enough right now to necessit to make that argument really. As far as why there's excitement about Santadero I don't think excitement is the right word. I think there is curiosity and on a team starved for power he is one guy you could look at and at least think well what if he has a hot week what if he runs into a couple. It's also there is a 2027 component about it as well trying to find out what what Santadero has there. Yeah, I think this is more of a team's teams not good players looking or fans looking for offense wherever they can rather than actual excitement about you know, hey he's going to look like old Anthony son 40 home run on Anthony Santadero Davis Schneider by the way since he went back down to AAA is hitting a buck 48 with only a 682 OPS. So I don't think he's I don't think he's coming up imminently. Finally, Mark and Mark says what do you think the J's record has to be in the last 15 games and most make the postseason. I'm not going to answer the desert ally and

1:39:17album part because we're out of time. But I'll say nine and six we'll get them there given the weakness in the A.L. Playoff race. Thanks so much for the questions. Appreciate you guys covering me. We'll try to do Cedo next week as a as a makeup for today. Thank you to Jonah Behrimbum, Rob Long and Dan Schullman. Thank you. Don't with man Frank Barasca and Andrew Adams behind the glass. Blair and Barker have you 46. The Blair and Barker duo is also back postgame since Barker's off of Blue J Central. Ben and Chris on the radio call. I'll be up on Blue J Central tomorrow but you can check out Jamie and Madison and Mike Petriello. There tonight seven or seven start Max Jersey against Chris Bassett. Keep an eye out online and pregame for all those updates and have a wonderful weekend. We'll talk to you Monday.