This Blue Jays SLUGGER Is Set To Have A *BREAKOUT* Season…. | Blue Jays Rumours & Breakdown

A very polarizing player in Dalton Varsho.

Some of the Blue Jays fans absolutely love this guy and see his potential.

Others, maybe not so much on the offensive side of the game.

Today we're going to get into it.

How has Dalton Varsho done this spring and why should you be excited?

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As always, I'm Brad Newosco, he's Carter, first, you can find us on Twitter, Braden 5,

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Hit the subscribe button if you haven't already.

This season is going to be so much fun, we get so many good episodes coming for you guys.

The hot takes, bold predictions episode, back from when we did it for the first time last

year with Alan Wilton, Skyler Peters, they bring back their hot takes coming next

early next week, so be excited for all of that.

But Carter, we got a lot to get into, obviously we've got to talk about Dalton Varsho in the

spring that he has been having and why people should be excited for him, as well, Jimmy Garcia,

the bullpen.

Who is Bucks Replacement because we forgot about it on the last episode with the million

things we wanted to talk about and what else has been going on this spring so far?

So Carter a lot to start with, but Dalton Varsho is one of those guys that sort of gets

thrown under the radar, which is a crazy thing to say because he's so good defensively,

but I think in the past few seasons he's left something to be desired.

We got a comment on our YouTube page just the other day talking about the top 100 when

we released that, the Lockdown Top 100, and they asked, was Dalton Varsho in the conversation

for that at all?

My response was absolutely, but at the same time it was based on the 2025 season and

Dalton Varsho's problem that he has faced a lot of his career is that he goes through really

hot and really dry spells.

And some days he's great, there are some weeks he's great, the other week not so much,

we saw it in the playoffs where he sort of went silent and could not touch a beach ball

out there.

But then there's other points where he's hitting absolute moon balls and you're lovely

and watching him is defensive game.

So Dalton Varsho is very polarizing Carter.

Where are you sitting so far before we get into the article that came out, some of the

quotes and all that, just you personally with Dalton Varsho so far this spring, but also

going back to last season.

There's a lot to take in when talking about Dalton Varsho.

As you said, the Blue Jays fan base views this player very differently.

Some people love him, some people hate him.

Some people think he's just a defensive player and some people think that he can have a

40 home run season with the Toronto Blue Jays.

One thing you can say with Dalton Varsho is that throughout at least his Toronto Blue

Jays career, he has been relatively one dimensional, at least in terms of the offensive production.

Defensively one of the best defenders in all of baseball.

That's not really where we're going to focus this podcast on.

We know how good Dalton Varsho is.

It's always the question is in the uncertainty, always lies in what can he do offensively?

And I say that his offensive profile, it was a little bit limited in the past because

this is a guy that can hit home runs.

It's a guy that hits the ball very hard, but it's pull side, it's in the air, it's inside

pitches.

It's very specific locations.

And it's very specific pitches on where Dalton Varsho was doing a lot of his damage.

We saw higher strikeout rates.

Again, you saw the pull side fly balls.

They're awesome when you know we make contact and you got that perfect, perfect that we're

going to see in Emily the show that has been released as we'll talk about a bunch of times

on this podcast.

But you love to see when Dalton Varsho can actually run into a ball because when he makes contact

with the ball, it goes very far.

For me, in terms of Dalton Varsho right now, it's a little bit tough because the World

Baseball Classic is on.

I have unfortunately been prioritizing those guys a little bit more than you know the

meaningless baseball that goes on in spring training.

But it's meaningless for specific reasons because the results don't matter.

But what Dalton Varsho has been doing this spring training, what he did last year in

his limited reps at center field, just limited playing time with the Toronto Blue Chays due

to injuries.

It's a big year for Varsho.

I don't really have a full concise like I know exactly what Dalton Varsho is going to

do this year.

I think a lot of what he is as a baseball player in a contract year is still going to

be decided this year in front of us in front of us.

I'm I've always loved Dalton Varsho.

I mean, I have the jersey before he's pitching number five.

If you're on YouTube, you can see it behind me here.

I've always been a Dalton Varsho supporter, but we're really looking to see if he can put

it all together.

So I am cautious.

Cautiously excited.

I'll say for Dalton Varsho as we get closer and closer to opening day.

Yeah.

I've been having a lot of conversations with different people, you know, in the sports

world, you know, guys have questions to me all the time about the Toronto Blue Chays.

And one guy that consistently pops up is Dalton Varsho.

And people ask me, what is this guy sealing?

And I always say Dalton Varsho sealing depends on his bat because you're right.

We know what the defensive side of the ball is.

And I say all the time, I could see a season in which Dalton Varsho hits 30 plus home runs.

And to be honest with you, the way things are trending and this changes he's been making

to his swing really show me that maybe this is the year.

And again, I'm not saying out right now that I believe Dalton Varsho was going to be MVP

or something like that.

Don't get me wrong.

But I think that a few more home runs in Dalton Varsho's game and not only home runs

Carter, extra base hits and extra base hits to the opposite field as we all know Dalton

Varsho.

Heavy pull guy.

Heavy pull guy puts the ball in the air.

And something that came out from this article Carter that I'll let you get into because

you're the one that saw it and I don't want to take too much away from you.

But one thing that I always like doing is looking at guys swings and how they change over

their careers.

I don't know if it is the base, what kind of baseball guy it is in me that I just love watching

guys take hacks and from the beginning of their career to the end of their career.

There was an edit on TikTok about some of the blue jays and started their careers to

the end of their careers.

It was awesome.

But in the same breath, Dalton Varsho was making those changes.

And the one Carter that stood out from this article to me, and it's hard to notice it

in game, right?

These little small things that I've changed.

I think where you're noticing it in the game started to cut you off is with the production

that Dalton Varsho has.

That's right.

It's spring trading.

Is that you're seeing something different?

And that's what caught my eye.

That's what caught your eye.

And that's the reason why I did a little bit more of this deep dive into Dalton Varsho

and the changes that he did make throughout spring trading.

So that's like you have seen a noticeable difference and just the approach that Dalton Varsho

has had throughout the spring trading.

Yeah.

And you know what?

We can talk about where he wants to hit the ball and how he's hitting the ball.

But the biggest difference to me, and there's been other guys on this Toronto Blue Jays

team that I've had a problem with, right?

We watch, but watch Boba Shet.

Watch what he does at the plate and how he lets that ball travel depending on where the

pitch is.

And that, I mean, we've had how many countless conversations about Boba Shet and his

ability to do so.

Now to be a versatile hitter in this league is to know which pitch you want to take where.

It's not so much a pitch you were looking for, but how you adjust to which pitches you

were given.

And I think that is such an under looked piece of baseball, right?

If it's an outside slider that's catching the back door, how are you going to shoot that

ball the other way?

If it's an in tight fastball, how are you swinging?

How does your swing change?

It's so Carter, this will send me to sending it to you for this article because this is

exactly what the change was and exactly what I love to see at a baseball player.

Don Varsho has the ability to make a lot of money this upcoming off season.

You can get paid like Harrison Bader, like the two year 20.5 million, I think Don Varsho

we know is better than Harrison Bader.

That's just an example that I'm using.

As more of like Harrison Bader and a pretty good offensive of your last year, but more

of that defensive player, I'll use Kevin Kiermeier as another example.

When you're 10.5 million dollar deal from the Toronto Blue Jays, when probably shouldn't

have gotten that money, but the point I'm trying to make here is that Don Varsho could

be paid as a defensive just superstar.

And that is really his calling card, not as much of the offensive player they could sign

him based off what he does offensively as just a defensive player.

Or if he hits 3035, some people even saying 40 home runs this year, that's when you can

start seeing this Dalton Varsho contract turn into an absolute bag.

It being 5, 6, 7 years, and it being 20 million, 25, 30 million dollars A, A, V. So Don

Varsho himself has a huge opportunity to really transpire his career and really just set

himself up for success when for a huge payday, hopefully coming in the future for Dalton

Varsho.

But as we said, a little bit of a, you know, focus hitter with like one way he was going

to beat you.

It wasn't really a diversified hair with multiple ways that he could beat you.

It was like the lower pitches, the inside fastballs.

It was pulling the ball in the air to the pull side.

And now Dalton Varsho as soon as David Popkins came in last year, you saw some changes in

spring training.

You can't completely do an overhaul in spring training.

Most of the time, unless I'm how your George Springer things can click like this for veterans.

But Dalton Varsho has made some changes throughout spring training even said that it's been

a very different focus this spring training compared to last season this spring.

He has been focusing on, as Braden said, catching balls a little bit deeper in the zone, allowing

him to drive them to the opposite field.

And one of the main things that David Popkins initially even last year when he came in and

looked at Dalton Varsho's swing is Dalton Varsho's swing is a little bit like my golf swing.

It's a very over the top, you know, it's not like it's not, you know, as much as the

depth that you're getting the hands lower, it's a very slicey in terms of the golf terms

of swing in terms of baseball.

Whereas Dalton Varsho has always really tried to kind of get the barrel around.

And that was how he was trying to get to that pull side just with the natural path of his

swing.

The way he was doing his damage naturally was getting hit the barrel around the ball, getting

to that pull side.

David Popkins went and he pretty much said, hey, I want you to start your swing at the

shoulders and headed out the hips, showering out that swing a little bit, you know, making

it more of an even playing with the ability to hit more line drives when you're actually

opposite of what we're trying to do with Vladimir, a lot of your grow junior Dalton Varsho

was having the ability where he had such a high-flow swing where the ball was getting put

up in the air a whole lot.

Whereas Ladi hit a lot of line drives.

Well, now we're looking at it from the opposite face with Dalton Varsho.

He's trying to hit the ball to all sides of the field with authority, but he's also trying

to hit more line drives.

And we've really started to see that throughout spring training with a few of these stats.

One thing we've seen is that the strikeout rate has gone down immensely.

Again, this is spring training.

How much can you take away from this?

This is the things that we do take away, though, is the approaches and the shifts

in those.

So Dalton Varsho, as we know, has been a pretty big strikeout guy over the last couple

seasons, 23.2, K percentage, 26, K percentage, 28, throughout spring training, again, very

small sample size, but this is at 3% absolutely ridiculous.

Line drive percentage is all the way up.

The percentage is that he's sitting the ball to the opposite field, at 44% throughout

spring training, whereas it's been pretty much predominantly throughout the mid-20s throughout

his career.

Very small sample size, but you are seeing it live and you are seeing the results as

well.

He isn't sacrificing the hard hit balls, he isn't sacrificing the home runs, he already

has four home runs throughout spring training as a hard hit percentage of 55%.

Pretty much what we're seeing with Dalton Varsho is he's not just looking for that inside

fastball anymore, looking for that low and inside fastball.

Now, if there is a slider on the outside part of the plate, he isn't forced to get ahead

of that ball and pull it to the bullside to do his damage.

Now, with that slider on the outside part of the plate, you can let it travel a little

bit more, allow his hands to do a lot of the work, and still hit the ball with authority

to all sides of the field.

There's so many things that go into this, the way the defense is going to play on the

respect that they'll have to Dalton Varsho, the different pitches that they'll throw

in different scenarios.

There's a lot more to unpack here at Dalton Varsho and the approach changes that he's gone

through throughout spring training, but that's how I'll start this off, and I'll throw

it over to you, Braden, to just chime in anywhere with all the information that I just

unloaded there.

It's 12 minutes in, but let's start things off now.

As you said, Carter, you mentioned the swing path, and that's something that I want

to focus on, because it's what this is going to sound totally stupid, okay?

But we play a lot of softball card, all right?

In the summer, we mean you, we play a lot, and how you try to fix your swing and add

different swings into your game.

And to me, it's almost a softball swing for Dalton Varsho.

When you're trying to hit those low backspin pitches in softball, that's almost what Dalton

Varsho is trying to do here, and what that creates is backspin on the ball, which allows

the ball to carry a little bit further, and stay hung up longer.

So what he will get from that is not only line drives and hard hit balls, but then on

his misses, Carter, so when he doesn't hit that ball 100% square, he's going to get back

a little bit more into that lift.

But him focusing on the back path going down will then take away that pop-up percentage.

It will drive those line drives higher and further than what it would have been if he's

just swinging for home runs, right, and maybe dropping that shoulder a little bit swinging

up.

So it's very strange because I just watched all these videos on, this is how you should

be hitting the ball.

If you want to create more line drives, you want to create more backspin, and now to hear

this coming out from Dalton Varsho, it shows me that not every, and again, easy enough

to say, not every baseball player is the same.

Some guys need different adjustments and to swing differently.

And what has really bothered me over the past few years is watching kids and professional

baseball players swings all start to look the same.

That doesn't work.

Not every betty swing can look the same, not everybody will have the same success, and

people will argue with that, but it's baseball.

We have five, five kids trying to swing like Aaron Judge, which you're just not Aaron

Judge unfortunately.

As much as I want to be Aaron Judge, the reason Aaron Judge swings like Aaron Judge

is because he's a six six monster, you know, I was able to play this baseball the exact

same way that Aaron Judge plays baseball.

Carter the funny bit is I'm not even so much concerned about Aaron Judge because he does

have a little bit of a different swing.

It's the Otani's.

It is the mechanical robotic swing, and it works well for him.

But he's also the best player to ever play the game.

He's not a kid that's 12 years old looking to try and find his game.

So what really excites me, I think, about this part of Dalton Varsho is he's proving the

exact reason why we all love baseball.

It's because you could have a 300 pound five, six tank throwing pitches, and he can compete

just as much as the guy that's six six, 300 pounds of pure muscle in Aaron Judge.

It's the beauty of the game, and that's exactly what this Dalton Varsho piece shows everybody.

I think that's just great for the game, Carter, and that's why this has gotten me so excited

when you sent this to me.

Well, another thing this does for just Dalton Varsho specifically, as as a hitter with his

specific attributes, like every player is going to have preferences, they're like the

fastballs, they're like curveballs, they're like change ups, whatever it is, in specific

locations.

But when you're Dalton Varsho and you only can really do damage in a specific way to

the pull side, really with the inside part of the plate.

If he was seeing an off-speed pitch on the outside part of the plate, maybe a high and

outside fastball.

This is pretty much letting those go.

Like, it's an automatic no for Dalton Varsho.

He's looking for pitches in a specific spot, and when you do that, it can be good for

get, if you get that pitch in your spot, for sure, you can do some damage.

But then if you're so set on a specific location in this strike zone, you're not going to get

that every single time.

And what Dalton Varsho was doing is that he was dismissing so many pitches on the outside

part of the plate that he was getting himself behind in a lot of these counts.

And when you get yourself in two strike counts, and you have pitchers as good as they are

now in Major League Baseball that have these strikeout pitches, they're specifically saving

for those exact counts where they're ahead in these O2, these 1, 2, the 2, 2 counts, whatever

it may be.

Dalton Varsho was putting himself in very bad spots and putting himself in disadvantageous

counts because he knew he couldn't do damage on some of these pitches that he was receiving.

One thing from this article, one of the quotes that I did get from Dalton Varsho is that

he said, I'm able to hit the ball to the opposite field a lot harder than I've done in

the past.

Instead of cutting it and trying to push it that way, it's just a lot more natural

of his swing for Dalton Varsho.

And even just in that quote, you can see that we're starting to see the sunlight creep

in in terms of his confidence with those outside pitches and his confidence in being able

to hit the ball with authority to all sides of the Baseball field.

So this is going to work wonders for the Trottle Blue Chase.

If he can figure this out, then obviously for Dalton Varsho, being in a free even year

with a lot of uncertainty, I'll be it with the lockout and everything.

With the free agent class, that doesn't necessarily have that superstar Dalton Varsho could

work his way into being one of the big fish of this free agent class.

I'm excited, my man.

And to be honest with you, I didn't know that we'd go full deep dive.

I mean, at this point, we could do a full 30 minute episode on, you know, the changes

and why we like them of Dalton Varsho because he's such an interesting player.

And this is crazy.

I don't know the last time that we've done a whole first segment in 18 minutes.

That's insane.

If you guys enjoyed this, we will talk about Dalton Varsho, a whole heck of a lot more of

this season.

I hope.

But a lot more to get into.

We want to talk about Jimmy Garcia.

We want to talk about this bullpen.

We want to talk about Box Replacement.

The guys that I've been killing it in spring training, a whole heck of a lot more to come.

So stick with us right after this break.

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I just downloaded mine, or I guess the night before you guys are listening to this, I just

downloaded mine and I'm having a absolute blast.

Me and Carter actually, we said, let's get this podcast done.

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So Carter, as we continue on, like I said, did want to talk a little bit about Jennie Garcia

before we get into a little bit more about the bullpen, Tyler Rogers, and who Bucks Replacement

is going to be.

So this is from Martin's Welling just a couple of days ago.

We were going to cover this on yesterday's episode, but when you decide to do 18 minutes

on Dalton Varsho and 27 minutes on Mac Shursor, this is what happens.

Varsho is going to be a big deal this year, man.

It's a contract year.

I mean, he's a guy in the middle of the order back, Mac Shursor.

We got to make sure that he's still breathing at, you know, the right page of 41.

So a lot of important things going on in Toronto Blue Jace Line are getting closer and

closer, opening day, or starting to see, you know, the rosters get cut in the third segment.

There's a bunch of guys that got set down to AAA, their minor league teams, respective

minor league teams.

So we're getting closer and closer and the feel is shifting.

Maybe it's the World Baseball Classic with the electric atmosphere.

It is just the fact that we are getting closer to spring trade or story, closer to opening

day and closer to being finished, spring training, but there's a lot going on right now in

the baseball world.

I absolutely love it.

Yeah.

No, it is fantastic.

Jimmy Garcia throwing off of a mound for the first time this spring.

This was on Saturday morning at Blue Jace Camp.

Blue Jace manager John Schneider says he'll continue that progression.

It was so good just to see him off the mound.

He's a huge part of our bullpen.

You don't get excited about bullpen's at this time in spring, but when Jimmy's back up

there, it's pretty cool.

And I couldn't agree more.

This is a guy that the Blue Jace are going to need and need to have to rely on and a guy

that I'm super excited to be back on the mound Carter.

Look at like we're talking about the Blue Jace bullpen a lot.

We're talking a lot about just the trial of Blue Jace in general, obviously, being a

Blue Jace podcasting in close to opening day, but it's saying Jimmy Garcia is the Jimmy

Garcia.

We all love and know when he returns.

We're talking about Jeff Poppen.

We're talking about Tyler Rogers, Louis Varlin, like Braden Fisher.

We're talking about him, possibly not even starting with the Major League Club.

That's because you have so many options out of your bullpen.

That's not even talking about guys like Spencer Miles, who I think has been pretty good

so far in spring training.

Angel Bostardo, another guy that they're going to have to consider Mason Flority, Brennan

Lil's throwing 98 like in this bullpen.

If these guys end up looking like they are, you know, early on in spring training and

what we have come to expect of them.

This could be an unbelievable bullpen with Jimmy Garcia, you know, hopefully having a

slower ramp up because you want him to have that healthy ramp up where he can be available

to you in May, June, July, down the stretch where the games start to matter, maybe just

a little bit more.

You have, you know, more important innings from your higher leverage relievers, but always

good to see Jimmy Garcia making his way back because Jimmy Garcia's such an important piece

to this bullpen when he was there in 2025 was pretty much the only bullpen guy that I liked

watching in 2024.

Always nice to have Jimmy here just back on the map.

Yeah, it really is.

And you know what?

I think it's going to be a big conversation is we get closer and closer to opening gate

and what this bullpen will look like.

We'll get more answers as we continue, but I think you just have to imagine what this

bullpen could be with your top three guys being Jeff Hoffman, Jimmy Garcia and Tyler Rodgers.

I mean, I mean, that is tough.

If you watch Tyler Rodgers pitch in the World Baseball Classic, there is a reason you guys

should be excited about him.

And you know, that's not even talking about what we're going to see from Jeff Hoffman who

is going to be pitching on that team as well.

So Louis Varlin being your fourth guy.

That's right.

Yeah, that's absolutely insane.

Like Tyler Rodgers comes in against the, again, there's so much going on, but the DR and

the United States are playing in Tyler Rodgers was available for the second round.

He comes in against one so to and gets a ground ball immediately for the double play

to end the inning.

This is something we're going to see a ton from Tyler Rodgers.

I think we're going to see so many starts or appearances where you see one third innings,

one and two thirds innings where you see Tyler Rodgers and Harret Rodgers one inning and

then finish off that inning and probably pitch one more just because he can and just because

he's that effective for the Toronto Blue Jays.

So once Jimmy Garcia comes back, I think that allows you to use Tyler Rodgers and maybe

more of that Swiss Army knife rule or maybe it is only, you know, two innings here or

sorry, two thirds of an inning here and maybe it is a third of an inning there.

This guy has the ability to make a ton of appearances.

And when you have Jimmy Garcia, Louis Varlin, Jeff Hoffman, there's no reason that you

have to overthrow any of these guys.

But Jimmy Garcia being back in his bowl pen just adds to all the depth that you already

have.

I think very curious to see what Jimmy's ramp up is and sort of how much they use them

to start this season.

If it is learning, beaver timeline.

So we're thinking late April at best is kind of where I'm at.

Yeah.

It's more so like when he actually returns, like are they going to use him very sparingly

at the start and like do they use him as the eighth inning guy right away?

Like I can't imagine they do that.

Like I think you have to rely on the Tyler Rodgers or sing it in more baseball classic.

You got to rely on the Louis Varlin.

You saw it throughout the playoffs last year.

What's the same that you always like the devil you know, the devil you don't.

We know Jimmy Garcia, but we know, you know, you know, Tyler Rodgers, Louis Varlin, maybe

a little bit more than Jimmy Garcia coming off an injury.

Well Carter, a bunch more we want to get into.

We want to let you know on who is replacing Buck Martinez in the broadcast booth plus some

guys that got optioned sent down to minor league camp, all the whole lower deal.

As we come back a whole lot more to come from us, stay with us right after this short

break.

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Not a big NBA guy, but when it's college basketball, it's just something else.

He draws everybody in.

How do you not love it?

It reminds you of watching like high school games back in the day or something.

It's fun.

It's electric.

Everybody's into it.

And so why not make yourself a part.

Go save.

Go bold ride with the team.

You've been following all season.

It's your parlay, your style now with more upside behind it.

So Carter as we continue on, we'll get into some of the guys options sent down and whatever

else.

But to start off, how do we not bring up Buck Martín as his replacement?

How are you feeling about this one Carter?

And it's not one tried and true replacement.

There is one guy that will predominantly see in there with that showman, but you can

still expect there to be a plethora of announcers, kind of like we saw from last season.

Kill Joseph, we'll find his way in there.

Ben Showman.

I don't know if we'll see it down.

And Ben Showman, you know, color, commentated and just broadcast in general.

I'm not sure if we'll do the two of them together, but we'll probably see, you know, both of

them at different times throughout the season.

But the main guy that will be replacing Buck Martín is Joe Siddle as we have seen really

just, you know, making up time and covering for Buck Martín is a lot of time last year.

Anyway, Joe Siddle, very good broadcast.

I think this would be the guy that I would have chosen as well.

So definitely no concerns there.

He's no Buck Martín as, but nobody is Buck Martín as starting a new era of Trondle

with Chase Baseball.

Yeah.

This is my pick as well.

I was not a Caleb guy personally.

I was not any of these other people.

It was fine.

It just wasn't fantastic.

And I think Joe was the best option here.

And the fact is, is that they can't do Ben as well.

I think their voices are way too similar.

So it would just, it would sound a little off like, just the same guy talking the entire

time.

That's what it is.

You might as well put it to one of those AI voice changers on him and, and just have one

guy do the broadcast.

I also just crushed both of our, you know, color commentating dreams.

Like I was supposed to be there with Dan Shulman.

I was waiting for the call.

Unfortunately, I did not get it.

Brandon said he needed me a little bit too much.

So I didn't let the rights go.

It's like small town hockey where you're like, you're trying to go to the next town because

maybe it's a little bit better, a little bit more of an opportunity, but no, I'm

staying right at home.

You're unlocked on Blue Jays.

Where else would you like me to win?

Exactly.

That's true as well.

Yeah.

You know, would you not rather just be sitting here every single night across from me

and this ugly mug and chat in Blue Jays baseball?

What could be better than that?

Yeah, I'm still living in the same house.

Now we're on different floors.

So slowly and slowly, we're getting a little bit farther away from each other.

But so we're still, you know, not still in the same home base, unfortunately, whether

that's for better or worse, again, very easy to coordinate the podcast.

We'll say that.

But there's some things I wanted to bring up from spring training, not too, too much going

on.

But I did want to shed light on the George Springer home run first of the season.

It looked like the swing looked a little bit different to me for some reason.

Maybe it's because it was a pretty inside pitch.

The fastballs that George Springer absolutely crushes and hit this ball took it for a pretty

good ride.

I think over 440 feet, Springer would be able to lead off first one, first half out of

the game.

That is something that I can get accustomed to seeing once again.

This year, but I have to shine light on George Springer, absolutely sending that ball to

Narnia, honestly.

That's what happened in that first half.

Yeah, absolute moon ball.

You got to love it.

Weird game though again, right?

Back to back six inning ball games, like, I don't know.

I don't know what's going on in spring.

And I guess they can do this and there's a ton of games, so whatever it is, but it is

a little bit frustrating when I sit down and I'm like, I'm going to watch spring training

ball game.

And especially when the World Baseball class is on, if I'm taking time out of my day to

watch spring training baseball and then have it only go six fittings, that's super frustrating.

I want to see a full baseball game card.

And we're getting closer again.

That's why you need a dome.

That's why you need the rudder setter.

You need the ability to close your roof and maybe there's also a difference playing in

Florida compared to, you know, playing in Toronto, you definitely don't want to be playing

in Toronto right now though, at least outside in Toronto.

So that's a good thing.

I heard it was nice over the weekend, but I heard they were getting some snow in baseball

weather.

We're not talking baseball weather.

Harder.

We used to play for marching Canada, like we used to play baseball right now.

We used to play baseball in six feet of snow.

We'd have to walk there and back uphill to the diamond every day.

You have to shovel the diamond.

That's how you knew you were in rough.

We didn't have to do that in baseball at all, but I played football and we had to shovel

out the field a few times.

So I'm sure there's been times where we have to maintain the field, but if you're shoveling

off the field, that's a whole different ball game you got for baseball.

Yeah.

I don't think ever, but maybe some puddles once in a while, but no, I was quarterback

as well.

Not a good quarterback.

I'll start out by saying that.

But I couldn't barely throw the football when it was cold.

Imagine pitching, like you're having a throw, well, say it's like 75 pitches, because

I mean, I wasn't going out and throwing 100.

I would have given up a million runs if I was going out and doing that anyway, but just

gripping the baseball, especially if you're like throwing junk, you're trying to throw

breaking pitches, you're trying to throw, I imagine throwing like a knuckleball or something

when it's cold.

That's just not going to work.

That's going to be possible.

Carter, a little story for you.

You were too young at the time, but my grade nine year, I came out from my first game

in high school, down port, pouring rain, game didn't get canceled because they had to

get it in.

And I was trying to throw the curveball, but when you get the little bit of snap in

there, when it's too cold, you can't get the snap.

So I'm just letting this thing go.

It would end up being an e-fist pitch all night, I think.

And that's where I got the B126, so there you go, a little history lesson.

When you would go in the games, it was almost like when a position player would go into

the game.

And I would work and be effective.

They threw so slow that it ended up working out because Major League Kitter was just

wearing a costume to seeing it.

And I was just braiding on the everyday outing.

It could have been perfect, a pristine 25 degree Celsius, not a cloud in the sky, and

then brings you still throwing those e-fist pitches, but getting the swing and miss, that's

all that matters.

That's all that matters.

That's right.

Anyway, we've faced enough time talking about my high school baseball grade nine career.

Carter, what's going on with some of these guys getting an option down to a triple A

and whatever else I'll get into this right now.

Jonathan Clausay has been an option to triple A, and then a bunch of guys are going down

to minor league camp, Arjun Amala, Charles McAdoo, Sean Keys, Giovanni Planschart, Michael

Plassmire, Javin Coleman, all these guys going to minor league camps.

So a little sad to see some of these guys going.

You know, I would love to see a little bit more of Arjun Amala.

Again, we're at the time where we're getting closer and closer to opening days, just about

a time.

Arjun Amala was not going to make this team out of cap.

We did see a lot of good things from Arjun Amala had had a ball that was hit over 110 miles

per hour.

That's something that you really like to see from a young guy there.

But Sean Keys, Charles McAdoo, I'll throw John to Clausay in there, but then you really

have Arjun Amala as the main guys there.

We also had one a little bit earlier in the week.

I think this was actually last week where we had some players assigned to minor league

camp.

The players were Chad Dallas, Ryan Jennings, CJ Van Eyck, Aaron Parker, and Carter

Coffee.

That's why we didn't say it immediately when it happened because unfortunately, these

are players that will not have an impact, at least on the major league club of the Toronto

Blue Jays.

But a lot of these players working their way through the minor leagues, hopefully one day

will have an impact on this major league club.

So definitely things worthwhile talking about, but with everything going on with the world

baseball classic with, you know, the regulars in spring training with some of the injury

news with Buck Martinez.

There's so much going on with baseball fantasy and will be the shows out now, but it's

just baseball time.

And I absolutely love it when we can just sit around and talk about baseball, whether

it's on the podcast or now just talking to our friends and then asking, hey, you've

said for the Toronto Blue Jays season start and the definite answer is yes, the short answer

is yeah.

Yeah, 40 minute conversation with one guy on Saturday night in a in a beer league hockey

dressing room about baseball.

So there you go.

You know, it's getting to that time here.

Also, Carter, one more question for you.

And it might be the most serious question I've ever asked you on the podcast.

Last year in MLB, the show, they called Addison Barger, Addison Barger.

Did that get changed for MLB, the show 26?

I hope so at this point, you know, a guy that hit the first pinch at home around a world

series history.

Like, hopefully you can at least pronounce the name right at this point, but if you don't

know the name, Addison Barger, hopefully he's a guy that can put you on throughout this

year.

And if you don't know it already, you're going to know the name Addison Barger by the end

of this year.

Now, when you know what, we'll find out in about four minutes when this podcast ends.

And we are grinding MLB this way.

It's going.

It might be another 25.

But before we do head out, I wanted to bring up the everyday club one more time.

We do have a free promo code March.

So that gives you guys the opportunity to check out what the everyday club is really about

without any risk whatsoever.

Okay, with the we have fantasy baseball, if you're lucky enough to get in there, we'll

be talking about that in this court.

Also, we have the chat as well.

It's loose a merch though.

Add free audio.

There's so many different opportunities to check out with the everyday club.

We do encourage you guys and appreciate it if you guys would check out that like and

really see what the everyday club does have to offer.

But I've done at least for this episode.

You'll hear a lot more from me on the following episode.

And for the entire season, but brain is there anything else that you have to add for this

episode before we take off?

No, God.

I feel like I've been talking a lot.

Let's get out of here.

Have a good one, everybody.

Take it easy.

What's up, everybody?

This is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Lockdown Podcasts Network.

And if you haven't heard yet, we started a club and we would love for you to join.

It's called the Everydayer Club.

And one of the things that you get as a member is an ad-free version of the podcast that

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It works with whatever podcast app you already used, same episodes every day, just no

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There's also a member's only group chat for fans of your team, plus a lot more.

You can check it out by tapping the Everydayer Club link in the show notes.