that's the game. I'm going to. >> Good morning, Joe sports at five. And then it's break gunning. Blue Jays winning a game in eight nights yesterday over the Boston Bruins officially five straight wins, but unofficially six straight is their three games under 500. And Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Couple of statistical notations after yesterday's performance. One, the OBS plus, which again grades on a scale of what the average hitting environment is in the season in which you're playing and takes into account ballpark factors, a hundred being league average is now at 169, which is now at twenty twenty one season where he had an OBS plus of 167, which led baseball and allowed him to finish second in the American League MVP voting to the freak show. Hey, Tony. Secondarily with that double. It's not yet September. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has set a career high with 36 doubles this season was still a month of baseball yet to be played. He has 27 home runs as Bach mentioned. He's zoning in on a hundred RBIs. It's all happening for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He also told ESPN's Alden Gonzalez who had a write up on him on ESPN. This wasn't yesterday. It was earlier in the month. It was it was stated in the article that he thinks he's the best hitter in the world. Zafella who has one more year of team control. He doesn't have a number set for that year as he has one more year of arbitration eligibility to the Toronto Blue Jays. But no doubt the Blue Jays and him are at least going to talk extension this off season. Does that give you any insight into the mentality of the player when he's talking about himself in those types of terms that I'm the best in the world. It's hard not to connect the dots. But I also think that you can give that quote and still be a realist ish when it comes to contract negotiation time. That's like, that's guess what? That's how that won. Just let me stay off the top. That's not true. Like Vladimir Guru Jr. Not the best baseball player in the world. Let's just like deferring judge just picked up his thousand hit yesterday and then made an insane play. Yeah. Yeah. Hard to take anything away from Aaron Judge. Paul Bunyan over in New York. Yeah. I think it's probably him or I don't know. Again, you mentioned some freak earlier. He's like a 40 40 guy pitch also. Maybe again one day. So yeah, like I'm not. I don't say this to diminish Vlad. I don't think he's the best player in the world. That's what you're supposed to think. That's exactly. If you're a Vlady's ilk, how you're supposed to think if you are Will Wagner and you come up and you start your major league career batting 500, you know what I want you to think? I'm the best player in the world. This is my league. They got a better one. I'm coming for it. That's how you're supposed to act as a professional athlete. And I think that sometimes again, especially when you just read a quote, you don't hear it. You don't see the, you know, the connotation, the context of it all. And I think it was in Spanish too. It was in Spanish. Spanish adds to it at all adds to it as well. I think that you can say that. Feel that way. Honestly believe it and still say, okay, but like obviously Juan Soto makes more money than me. Yeah. I like both those things can be true. I think Buck hit the nail on the head during the broadcast yesterday in everybody now coming around to the comparison of Raphael Devers and the contract that he signed the 10 year 300 plus million dollar extension at the same exact contractual point as Vlad might this off season. Now he was a couple of years or is was a year older than Vlad. So it's like, but also was an everyday third baseman, albeit not a good one. But as that being the starting point in the box point, it's like, yeah, inflation probably takes it higher than what Raphael Devers earned in that extension with the Boston Red Sox. They're also like, you know, there are differing factors on either side. Like the Red Sox had seen a bunch. I mean, it was like the Mookie Betch trade then Zander Bogart's right. So they had to do that. But conversely, I mean, look at what's happened in Blue Jay's land in the last couple of years. So and Vlad's the pie piper of everything here. So yeah, like I don't say that to diminish Vlad's stance, but it's just there were what I say is there were extenuating factors that pushed one team to that number. Yes. And I think you could very easily see another team being pushed to a similar number. Yeah. And the pressures felt like they were ramping up on this front office headed towards the trade deadline. And there are still pressures and there's a weird situation with Mark Shapiro and maybe one year remaining on his contract. And just like the lack of success that they've had over the near decade in charge of this team made the playoffs three times but haven't won a playoff game. Got it. Got it. But I got to tell you and maybe it's just being in the moment right now of a five game winning. Yeah. And I think it's going to be going to be a five point eight nine game winning streak. Please just say six. Please please six game winning streak and and creeping ever closer to five hundred and the month of August being the first above five hundred month that they had and the young players contributing and them looking like they're having fun. Hard to be as mad as I was as so many Blue Jays fans were before the deadline when this team went back in the tournament. It was a really interesting ending. And we went out and plug the offensive holes with Isaiah Kiner Folefa, Justin Turner and Kevin Kiermeyer. And then that obviously not working out. Yeah. Well, and that was the big pivot. Right. Like we were told it wasn't going to be out on either be something else. Yeah. It was like look at add up all these ages. It's big. Yeah. And and they couldn't score enough and the bullpen was atrocious and the starting staff took like a bit of a step back and that felt like that. Yeah. Everybody. I mean what Blue Jays fan didn't think well scorched earth like it sucks. Like I thought there would be more success here in the bow and Vlad era. It just hasn't happened. Yep. And he has got no choice but to tear it down. And now that sentiment feels like it's shifting. It was never going to happen because of the contractual status of the front office and the fact that they're in for a penny in for a pound with this whole group. But doesn't it feel like the whole. The whole thing is just it feels different. It feels like at the end of last season where they did factually make the playoffs. And they finished above five hundred with eighty nine wins. And they lost both games to the Minnesota Twins. But the way that second game happened. It felt like that anger that that existed in the Blue Jays fan base. We're not going to be anywhere close to that this season. Where by every measure we have this has been a way less successful season. Than a year ago. But nobody's going to be like within shouting distance of how much they were shouting at the end of the twenty twenty three season. Yeah, it is funny the way it works out. But it's like, yeah, it all depends when the bad thing happens in your day, right? Like we look at a baseball season as your day. If the bad thing happens at nine thirty at night and then you got to shut her down and it's like, all right, I got to get up for work in the morning. It's it's it's pretty hard to do that. And guess what? You might start the next day or in this world season a little ornery. But if the bad thing happens at I don't know, eleven thirty. You could take a lunch break. Maybe Jake Bloss is like a nice burrito. You're eating for lunch or something like that. I don't know what Joey Lo for Fido and will Wagner. I'll leave it out there for you to fill in the food analogy. But then you move on with your day. You go on. Oh, look at this. It's sunny. Oh, look, Vlad. I don't know who Vlad is in this analogy. Maybe he's like a steak dinner waiting at home. I don't know what he's doing here. When the bad happens at the end of the year, it's hard not to be frothing at the mouth. But when there was some turnaround and there actually seems to be not a whole new direction, but a little pivot, it's impossible not to just be like, guys, I love being mad more than anybody in the world. Yeah. And even I can't get there. The other thing I think you mentioned was the the doubles for Vlad there. And that number of any is more indicative to anything to me of the anger level you mentioned. If he hadn't done all the other stuff and it was like, hey, look at all the doubles. Vlad's hitting. We would be screaming about all the doubles he's hitting. But because he's hitting homers and there is other production, we don't need to live in a world where, okay, I guess he's just a doubles hitter. No, we don't need to live in that world because of what he's been slashing. He's actually hit the ball over the net over the fence. Power numbers have been there for him. And just that's the other thing that kind of leads me to believe in it. Honestly, so much of it is just that it's like, oh, Vlad, I'm going to go with it. And I'm going to go with it. So Vlad, like all the other things can happen. And you see the turnaround from Gosman and burrios and Bassett and Francis has been a revelation. But really, it's about one guy kind of the other pieces matter and the other things are there. But Vlad being this allows everyone to go. Okay. At least the thing at the very, very center of the plan. Maybe the fringes of the plan aren't great and need to be changed. But the thing at the absolute core of this is something you can believe in. And I think that's what leads to the lack of anger as well. You know, and I'm glad you brought up the Vlad discourse and how different it was after April and even after May, where like he resurrected the OPS, but he was hitting no home runs, like five home runs through like two and a half months of the season. I don't know that any player is going to wear this season either. Right? And it was, it was on track to be well, Vlad, and maybe it's still bow, but like there's still the entry. Yeah. But he'll be back. And if he doesn't perform, maybe maybe he's the guy that, you know, goes into the 20, 25 season with the target on his back if there's a slow start again for this blue James team. Don't you think that's like an organ? It's a weird way to say it, but like don't you think that's more of an org target? I don't think I, and I think so much of it is the track record that he's built up to this point and the fact that he's Mr. serious guy and everything. But I think even if Bishak comes back and struggles, people are, I would think, be more likely to just write it off as one of those weird periods injury plagued. Like I don't, I can't even see him wearing it. But you're right. He's the only guy that you can point to. And was it George Springer? Like, but even George though, and the numbers are not going to be overwhelming. He's resurrected the season to a degree that he's within shouting distance of being a league average hitter with good defense in a corner off of the spot, but also the way he, again, every story about how he's taken the young players under his wing and, you know, the leader of like now that George strut towards the camera after home runs. He's hitting big home runs in meaningless games, granted, but like against divisional opponents who are in meaningful games for them at Fenway Park. Like I just, there's, there's no guy like you might have been the guy because of the contract. Because of the expectations, but I don't know who it is. No, you know where I think we've got to with George Springer, and I think all big money guys as long as they do seem to be, you know, like good people, good teammates, somebody you want to have in the org. Generally speaking, it feels like we have one year where it is discourse about this contract and you can't stop talking about it. And then so long as the guy is a good soldier and plays his part, we kind of move on. See Tavares John wearing, wearing 91 for the Maple Leafs. Like I think everybody had their point of demarcation, you know, some people never stop screaming about it in caps board. It's a little different. But that's the thing I keep coming back to with Springer here is you look at it and go, okay, like the, the contract is what it is. That's not ending. I'm sorry. every anytime soon. But forget that for a second because it doesn't really have anything to do with the player that's here right now. You signed him, you made your bed, you're going to lie in it. And I just think that people have even kind of moved on from that. There are other guys who could have worn it. There is a world where Kevin Gossman was scuffling and it'd be, well, you know, long in the tooth, he got it back on track. Jose burrios, you know, he was Mr. sympathetic figure at the tail end of last year. So he would have really had to have gone off the rails this year to have worn it. And then, you know, Chris Bassett, it's like, every time he opens his mouth, he just endears himself to people more and more and more. Jordan Romano is a guy who has worn it in the past from some segments of the fan base. He ain't here. Like all the guys who would go to point that. There's nobody. Like, wait, you're going to get mad at Alejandro Kirk? Yeah. And even he looks bad. Right. Yeah. Like there's a world where it's like, okay, he's the number one catcher and maybe you could do better. But like, look at the catching landscape and look at what he's at least capable. There's a reason a no good Red Sox team felt they needed to pony up for Danny Johnson. Right. And he's been like a guy with an OBS of 700 since he's been there like, well done. Successful sent as a Red Sox just hit like four big home runs and we don't care. It's really strange that the Blue Jays by like a lot of people's accounting are one of the most disappointing teams in all of baseball, but we're going to go through the season and that the conclusion of it obviously will be a level of disappointments. But like there won't be huge amounts of vitriol towards anybody that's playing for this team. I don't think the front office with it will figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get back to that place. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's going to exist. But it won't be the same as at the end of last season. When when they were yank and Jose burrias for I think it's going one run in a two game series. It won't be the same. But how much of the lack of because it even feels like there's a lack of vitriol towards the front office because the the trade deadline went so well. Yeah. How long does that continue? If it is in foot like and there are so many questions like Shapiro's contract is up in the air. If that's the case, what does that mean for Atkins got it? But if it is a run it back, like how much does that just like snap the vitriol back on in an instant? Yeah. And I wonder because I don't like I think that if like if Jake bloss has two or three nice starts before the end of the season, does that change the level of vitriol? I think probably not. But it should allow me in what we'll get back to the place with the off season moves. I think I think I think if it's not some massive slugger like an Anthony Santander somebody that you can actually like has a track record and is somebody that, you know, you you look at at that player hitting behind or ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Like, all right, now you got a one two punch that is it's not one Soto Aaron judge. But no, okay, at least you're going to score some runs in 2025. If that's not the move or something of that ilk or it's a trade that that doesn't look like it's addressing that specific need, which is offense, I think we'll get back to there. But I just, I don't, I don't think we'll get all the way back to, I mean, and yeah, you're right. It's like where it happened in the process that impacts the feeling going into that off season. But at the conclusion of that game series against the Minnesota twins, flatter bear grower. Jr gets picked off second base and the, yeah, you say kukuchi comes in for Jose burrios is having the start of his life and they don't score any runs and coming off of the September in which they were abysmal and were swept in a four game series by the Rangers and just barely got into the playoffs with 89 wins. All of it together made for this soup of people being very angry, not happy. And it's just, if it's like some young players like Joey Loperfito contributing and the blue jazz continue hitting home runs and they finish at 500 and Chad green hasn't blown a save. And it's not successful season, but it's just, it's a, it's a very different feeling than I thought we would be having at the conclusion of this year. But we didn't even not to not to bring us back to this, but it's like, we didn't even have the discourse of like, did they need to give Joey Vada those three games? Like they're not even doing the thing where it's like, yeah, this guy's stealing at bats from the young kids. Like there is, again, like you look, you can find places to get mad about where this blue J's team is, but it's very hard to actually look at the guys and, and be mad at it right now. And it's so much of it is just a cast of new characters, a breath of fresh air, like it was just so desperately needed for a franchise that had been successful, like in terms of getting into the playoffs, but they needed they an injection of just honestly some life given the way the season was going. Yeah, it's been a lot more fun to watch because, you know, blue J's hit home runs in 15, but sort of 16 consecutive. Stop it. 16 straight caps. Yeah. When did they play the game? Just like factually? I mean, no, no, no, no, right? Yeah, right. But not. But also did they, oh, did they, did they hit a homer on that game in June? Yeah, apparently. No, they didn't because then June was the one inning. Great job by Yariel Rodriguez in yesterday's game, setting the tone with his one inning of opener work, which happened in June. Yeah. Anyways, enough of that got to hate you. A lot of people hate the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know why they're like, dude, they're no threat. But anyways, they are America's team. And until I don't notice thought I don't hate them, but I do love watching them be miserable. Yeah, which is like, it's not a hate watch, though. Like, I don't hate them. The way I hate the Yankees, the Indians, it's, it's amusing to watch them fail. It is. It's supposed to be how like an American hockey fan feels about the Leafs. Yeah, I guess, right? Except like, you know, the 90s isn't that long ago. It's not 1967 and say it was the exact same. Anyways, they, they wrapped up their, their contract stalemate with CD Lamy yesterday. He becomes the second highest paid non QB in the NFL, just buying Justin Jefferson. He signs a four year $136 million deal. Jefferson got $148 million signing bonus, largest ever given to a wide receiver, $100 million guarantee. So he's, he's worth the money. Thank you. 135 catches led the NFL last year over 1,700 yards, 14 total touchdowns. We'll talk to Andrew Brant later on in the show's former NFL executive. This is kind of the way the Jerry Jones goes about it is that, you know, going back to the Ezekiel Elliott contract negotiation, do you get your money? Yeah. Jerry Jones with, I, I think a money quote to Cowboys writer Clarence Hill. There's nobody that could bleeping come in here and do all the contracts and be a GM any better than I can. Okay. So here's the thing. Oh, Jerry, they make the playoffs continually, right? Yeah. Six of the last 10 years, they've been in there with five division titles. I haven't been to an NFC championship game, NFC championship game since the last Super Bowl title. That was 95 again, which is not 1967. No, it's not like that feels like not that long ago, but when it was 15, how long ago that feels? They haven't won a Super Bowl since, yeah, 95. And that was the last time they were in an NFC championship game. And they've been at the top of the NFC during the regular season for years and years and years, and they're always like in the mix. Oh, yeah, Romo fumbling the snap and Dak. Yeah. And notably they do play in the opposite con conferences, Patrick Holmes. They got a chance every year. Yeah. Does he have a point? Like if you're a Cowboys fan and you hear that from Jerry Jones, are you like shut up Jerry? Like that's too much hubris or you're like God, the guy is kind of criminally underrated. It's so weird because like rings is all you care about, right? Like go ask Jerry Jones why he plays football. He doesn't play football, but like why he's involved in the Cowboys and it's to be a winner. I mean, the actual answer is like billion in billions of dollars and status and everything, but it's to win. And I think you have to give him some element of that. Now the best version of this is the Patriots model where you empower a real life football person to do it. And then you're the crazy owner who just is like lording over them going like, okay, what are you doing? Great. Sounds great. That's the best case scenario of all this. And he's tried this a little bit, right? Like Parcells has been involved there in his time in Dallas and there have been big personalities. But at the end, there's never going to be a personality bigger than Jerry. I think if you're a Cowboys fan, you've certainly made your piece and you have times where you're going, yeah, Jerry is the man. You have times where you're going, God, get somewhat even less emotional in there to deal with it. But tons of teams would kill for that, that track record over that time. The draft picks. I like CD lamb, Micah Parsons. Now apparently somebody was the story that like lock him in a like closet to make sure he didn't draft Johnny Manziel. So it's like, you know, like little mitts, little mitts. Yeah, I think that you, I think you have to love it. We talked about the idea of like being a rich owner matters more in some sports than others, right? The NFL, everybody's spending money to cap it's like kind of made up, although they tell us it's not. But let's be honest, it's kind of made up. So I don't know that being the squash buckling owner that's willing to spend matters as much in that league. But also I will say this from an NFL perspective where we're so bogged down in, you know, star quarterbacks, Jerry Jones is the 17th most famous person involved with the NFL. Like it's like half the quarterback pick a skill player or two. And then it's probably Jerry Jones that I think that that also can't go without saying that's a big part of the NFL's lore is like, Jerry Jones and doing a Jarrah's way and Jerry world and all that. So yeah, and you think of these swash buckling hands on owners as being very fickle and very quick with the trigger finger when it comes to firing. That's honestly, I think Jerry Jones's biggest fault is that he's not quick enough, right? He'll hold on. Jason Garrett lasted nine years. Just clapping as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Mike McCarthy. Yeah, I know the regular season success has been there. But come on, like you look at Mike McCarthy and what's happened in the postseason and some of the play calling and some of the clock management and think that like Mike McCarthy is the guy that's going to be in charge of this team that makes it into a Super Bowl. It just doesn't even like even with his quarterbacks, right? Like Romo, like there were certainly people who were begging him to get off Romo towards the tail end. I mean, we have Dak Discourse seemingly every third day during the NFL season about it. Like, yeah, loyal sometimes to a fault for sure. But it's just weird. I don't think a lot of people would necessarily think of them that way. But honestly, like, I need a law passed by the NFL that every three years a writer just gets to spend like three or four days with Jerry Jones because there was like that Don Van Knoll piece from a few years ago that is among the greatest pieces of journalism ever done. It sounded like all the Johnny Walker. I was going to say it sounded like, yeah, this quote was taken off at like in the process of perhaps consuming some Johnny Walker or immediately following. Yeah. Or right as he's opened it because he's really about to feel himself. Yeah. Yeah. And no doubt if Dak performs this season, he's going to be the highest paid quarterback in the NFL works. Everybody, everybody who's do a contract if you're remotely decent becomes a high spade ever. I mean, honestly, what would Dak have to do to not get paid by the Dallas Cowboys? Like, like, even if he's injured, you're like, whoa, but he can bounce back and be that guy. Like, you would have to be abysmal. Yeah. Eventually, there's going to be a turn on this just because like quarterbacks are plentiful. Like what? There were six in the first round. Yeah. This year. I don't know something talked to Andrew Branch about later. Yeah, we will. All right. But when we come back, we'll talk to John Morosey of MLB Network as the fan morning show continues. Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590, the fan. Big opinions and in-depth conversations covering the Leafs, J's, Raptors and the NFL. The J.D. Bunken podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Fan Morning Joe, Sportsnet 590, the fan, Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, Lou J's, creating all this goodwill without Boba Shat in the lineup. But apparently that's going to change before the end of the season. Feels like a September return for Boba Shat also. It feels like Jordan Romano wants to get in some game action after his surgery before the end of the season. I don't blame him. Yeah, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. is having the best offensive season of his career with nobody hitting around him. Like Joey Loperfito is hitting ahead of them. And Joey Loperfito has been better. I don't think anybody is going to confuse Joey Loperfito for one of the best offensive players in baseball. Yeah, it's not exactly Joey Gallo in his prime there. No, and Alejandro Kirk's been better. That guy's hitting clean up behind Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. And while I'm infuriated every time Ron Washington was walking Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. intentionally, a guy, you get it, but he's still able to perform the way he has. And the blue jays are still able to pick up wins the way they have with like Tommy Nance in the bullpen. And Brandon Little is now the new Tim Mazer. And, and that's going to change this off season. It's, it's a little wild. Like it's only, you know, a five slash six game winning streak for the blue jays. And there's still three games under 500. And this is the first team with an above 500 record that they've played now. And I guess 18 games because they have the 16 game stretch against sub 500 opponents. But it is remarkable that yeah, this scrappy, upstart blue jays team is, you know, made it a little bit more entertaining at seven o'clock every night to watch them. Who would have thought it? Young dudes in their twenties as opposed to guys approaching 40. More exciting to watch play baseball. Who honestly, who who could have ever seen this coming and home runs being exciting to watch at least one in 15 slash six greens right in the wheel over there. Time now for our insider brought to you by Don Valley, North Lexus, where you can expect excellence online and in the showroom, visit Don Valley north Lexus.com. Today's insider is John Marosi of MLB network. How's it going, John? Good morning, Ben and Brent. That was a pretty fun day up and away yesterday, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. It was so did you know that Danny Janssen played for both teams in the first game? Nobody nobody told me. I found out when I came in this morning, actually, I know it was a very unique opener yesterday with a lot of historical tidbits. And as a proud baseball nerd, I was loving all I have to admit that when when Ben Nicholson Smith tweeted out his his lineup card, which already had printed on the the early results from from the previous game, listed on there as the game got underway with all the pinch hitters and everybody else. I loved it. I thought it was great. I love the official scores. Your book was on its way to Cooperstown. It was great. I got that sort of thing is is one of those unique only in baseball occurrences where if you were trying to explain it, I'll say this. If you had started explaining what had happened yesterday when the game began as someone who had never seen a baseball game before, you would still be explaining it right now. And for that reason, I think it's awesome. Yeah, I like that we can resume games now since like that was the one good thing that came out of COVID is that, yeah, we don't just wipe away the first four innings of a game that that was suspended because of rain. We resume it. But John, there is a stupid element of that being a June game like in the record books, like that's a June game. Now, like if the Blue Jays hadn't hit a homerun in the game game yesterday, they would have their streak of hitting a homerun in every game would have ended at 14 because that's a June game. Like this. I like it. Let's resume game. Let's just tack them on to the part of the season in which they're played. Let's not go back in time and put it there. Like a bunch of guys meet their major league debuts yesterday, except not really. Right. That to me was probably my favorite part of it. The reday view, the reday view of Wagner and humanity. I thought that was great. And that's going to be interesting to see exactly what the historical record says. I would imagine that becomes now your new debut. 100% I believe. So that that is now in the record as being actually the date of your debut before the date of your call up. Again, these are only and baseball things. It's I feel like it's a it's that math problem. If when when one train leave, Ottawa at this time going westbound, I feel like we're in that type of situation, but it is great. And then the James, I think at this moment in time, they've got officially a five game winning streak. Yes. We could all say that it actually should be a six, but the bottom line is they're playing good baseball as you're both talking about before we came on the air. They're they're they're younger and more exciting and a lot of those things are all true. So for James fans who endured a lot of of negativity and tumult during the first four months of the season, we present to you August of 2024. This has been actually a pretty fun ride. See, I thought Will Wagner had a great start to his major league career. He had I thought he had seven hits in his first three games, not true. That was in his first four games. He went 0 for 4 in his mate like I'm looking at his baseball reference page and it's 0 for 4. Oh man. Yeah, like don't we have to go back like sports and stats needs to scrape the internet for all their tweets about his incredible start to his major league career. Because not true actually debuted in June, not August 12th. Stupid anyways, right? I thought that was probably one of the more interesting parts of it. But as you looked at his historical record after the first game yesterday, it was just just a big goose egg. And that was that was pretty unique. I think I think you nailed it, John. Like baseball, like all sports are weird. I've given this rant already on the show. I'll give you the short version of it here. Like Randy Johnson killed a bird while he was throwing a pitch. You you fail 70% of the time. You're one of the greatest we ever seen in the sport. It's a weird game. They should have weird, weird stuff like this. What what hasn't been weird? This season has been Vladimir Guru Jr. It's actually been been quite nice to see. There's been a lot of talk about the number that his contract is going to end up at. I don't know if you saw the quote that came out from him that he gave to a Alden Gonzalez about. I think I'm the best player in the world. Now this was from a quote or the quote was given earlier in the month. But what do you think it says about Vladi that he thinks of himself self in that ilk and do you think it will affect his eventual contract negotiations? Yeah, it's a really important question. And to that point, I'll mention this as you look at the numbers and and the historical or modern support for what he said to Alden right now, right now his O. P. S. Plus. So is adjusted O. P. S. For ballpark and league factors right now is higher than it was in 2021. So so rather than saying this is offensively the best season since then statistically because obviously that year moving around different home ballparks. Yeah. This is the best offensive year of his career according to the numbers as of this day, which says a lot because in in that year in 2021, of course, he was going up against Otani for the MVP and we understand that in a normal year, he probably would have wanted. But obviously that was an exceptional year. And similarly, right now, we're we're devoting a lot of bandwidth around the game to talking about Otani and Judge and their their respective assaults on the record books. And I think that that nationally here in the States, Vlad probably hasn't gotten the attention he deserves because we've just been focused elsewhere. But again, the numbers that he's putting up right now says this this right now is the best offensive year of his career. And that is a fairly remarkable thing to say. And I love that he feels that way about himself. He should feel that way about himself. We talk a lot in sports, sports psychology, understanding how to get yourself mentally to the best place. And and if I'm a J fan, I love that now. I'm not going to say, Well, what about judge with about Otani? I would probably say those two years right now are historically greater than what Vlad is putting up. But I love for Vlad that he believes that. And there is ample evidence to suggest that he is at the very least the best version of himself right now, which is an elite top five hitter in majorly baseball and a player that the J's should try awfully hard this winter to sign long term. Yeah, it's going to be one of the stories of the off season surrounding this team. Does the the hot run that the Blue Jays are on right now and so much of it coming against a horrible angels team? But now a couple coming against at least an above a 500 Red Sox team, although a Red Sox team that's currently floundering. Does this like, does this mean anything? Like does it impact any of the decision making at the end of the season? Is there anything beyond like, Oh, okay, this this team is is more watchable now. Does it does it mean anything that they're actually picking up victories in late August and maybe into September? It does mean something. And this is a great discussion about about baseball and how how we evaluate teams who are out of it. I actually think that there there's a lot of pressure individually on the J's players because while while you might say big picture, they're not challenging for the ALE title. So you're not looking at it broadly in terms of the lens of tenant race pressure, but Leo Jimenez is battling for a spot in the Major Leagues. So is to a certain extent, Barger. So is low Perfido Clement trying to prove that he belongs as a as a locked in definite everyday player on this team for next season. There's individual pressure. This is in its essence, an individual game in the context of a team, right? And so for the individuals that we're talking about here, basically everybody on the team who's not glad and probably to an extent bar show on that everyday club, they're all competing for their spot in the Major Leagues and on this team next year. So there's plenty of pressure on the Blue Jays day to day. It's just a little more individual than you would normally see it in the team context. And to that extent, I think they're they're equating themselves very well. Look at that. The big rally yesterday in the nightcap on the fifth inning. Look who was involved there. A great two out hit from Barger, low Perfido, a bit of a lucky hit on the play by Russ Snyder, but he's been having good at bats. And I think Jimenez has shown that he can be a very productive and very interesting shortstop potentially on an everyday basis. So I like what I'm seeing right now. They're giving Jay's management a lot to think about. And I do believe that as these different players are are moving to the forefront, it could actually create some different choices for the Jays to make with respect to trades in the offseason. They do still have to rebuild their bullpen. Like there's this is not a finished product, perfect team right now, but they're getting some really good data points. And obviously when you look at Francis's split finger fastball, it's not as though it's not as though those are those are rebuilding splitters or out of contention splitters. Those are some of the best splitters in basically baseball right now. And I don't care what the standings say, he's nasty. And that is really an important element for this team next season. So you mentioned the splitter for Francis, obviously. It's one thing when a player starts performing past what they've shown in the past. It's another thing when there's a hard and fast reason for it, right? Sometimes you'll hear this with hitters of, well, they have a new approach. And not that that isn't real, but it's so hard to see or quantify, even to the to the train dive, but a new pitch entering the repertoire, pretty easy to see it and understand it. And I think that's why people are kind of buying what they're seeing from Francis there. You know, I don't think the J's are in a rush to get rid of them by any means, just given how long he's still under team control for. But, you know, looking ahead to the off season, how would he be viewed as a trade ship across Major League Baseball? I mean, this isn't a guy who's 24 showing some promises a little longer in the tooth. You obviously can see a world where teams would be, you know, buoyed if he was a little younger, but you can also see teams looking at him and saying, Oh, this is closer to a finished product. This guy who's ready to kind of be part of a Major League staff. What type of value do you think Francis would have if the J's wanted to include him in a package for that that that they seemed always be searching for? You know, it's a great question, Brent. I think that that would be he would be one of the more valuable players on the market if they put him out there because of exactly what you're describing, the years of control. I think for a lot of the same reasons, he probably ends up staying put because because when you look at the J's rotation, they do have some some age in that rotation going forward to where Bassett and Gossman don't have a ton of time left on that contract. And you want to have someone that you feel pretty good about anchoring the rotation once they're gone. And you don't, especially with the T to minute injury, you don't have someone else in the same service time tier getting ready to ascend to that same spot in the rotation. So I think for a lot of those reasons, you're probably going to keep them in place right now. But your question is very well taken in that you look around the game and I'm a big fan of looking at the comparisons of trading strength for strength. And if there was a team out there who had a Major League frontline hitter in the same service time category, but he was blocked, let's say, by someone else ahead of him on a team with an abundance of hitters in that potential area, you could swap. You could do some dreaming on that to move him for someone in the same sort of in the same, you know, two, one or two years of experience tier. I don't think it's going to happen, but it really opens up what they would call in the industry a lot of surplus value. He has a lot of surplus value based on his performance relative to what he's going to be earning in the marketplace. And hey, listen, if you're the J's, you're at a position where no idea should be off the table this offseason. And if someone's going to totally overwhelm you and give you two bats that you really need, you probably have to look at it and really think about it. But I think the overwhelming likelihood is he's part of this rotation when next season begins. And to your point about what does this statistic say and mean, once Kevin Gossman learned that splitter, it became very irrelevant that when he was 28, he had a 5.72 ERA. Like that number just you can toss that out. That means nothing. He's a different player right now. And that's why this game is so much fun to follow and why when you learn and innovate a new pitch in a new part of your performance, a lot of your history becomes somewhat irrelevant. And I think that that happened for Kevin Gossman. When you look at how irrelevant the 2019 season was for him. And rapidly, almost everything tree middle of this season has become quite irrelevant for Bowdoin Francis because he is quite literally a different picture right now. And one who is supported very nicely by by Chris Bassett's homemade graphic that took place during his recent interview there was sports net. Yeah, Taylor Ward maybe wants that one back. But yeah, no, it's a great point about Gossman and and this sport being one where yeah, despite spending a long time in the minor leagues and being 28 years old, you can like emerge as a different person in a half a season like Bowdoin Francis appears to be. It's unusual to be good right out of the gates like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Or Boba Shet was as a 21 year old. Now, apparently he's going to return in due course, right? He's going to there was a report that he's going to join the Blue Jays at Fenway Park just to get real climatized with the team and then maybe go out on on a rehab assignment. And then in September return, how important is his performance, John, because yeah, he's been hurt this year. But when he was healthy, he was horrible. Now, he has a long trekker, a track record of being very good. And he's actually, you know, he's had seasons where he got off to similarly slow starts and resuscitated the season by the end of it. But never as long and never as bad as he was before he went down with the injury. I mean, is the value for him baked in, whether it's contract negotiations or trade, no matter how he performs, or is it important to see him return to looking like one of the best hitters in the American League? It's the latter very much so. And I just as you're asking the question, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were a lot of pro scouts watching him play down the stretch. Of course, we normally think about pro scouts as being really busy in the middle of the year out of the trade deadline. But also in September, I know just around the ballparks, you'll see scouts who are bopping around from the stadium, looking mostly at free agents to make sure that they have current looks on on pitchers, especially who are maybe coming up on free agency to be sure that they're healthy and they're feeling good. But I think the same thing is going to be true for both. And whether or not he's treated this offseason or potentially James looked to keep him, whatever the decision is, I tend to think that right now a trade this winter is more likely than an extension for Bo for a variety of reasons. And a lot of it hinges on how he plays. And this is one situation where this offseason he can or this this month of September, he can both help himself and help the J's by playing better because he needs he needs to show something that whatever happened earlier in the year was not him that he wasn't healthy. Now teams are going to probably put that in context and say, well, he came back and had a good September. But what does that really tell us? I think that the one thing that stands out and is really important is, at least in the context of a trade for next year, you're not looking at him for the next end seasons. Okay, you don't need to do the the the full the full medical work up to know what is you know, what is aging term is going to look like when he's 38, you need to know that he's going to be in a good frame of body and mind for 2025. That's what the trade says. He's not yet signed for 2026 and beyond. He does have a contract for next year. Is he going to be able to live up to that contract? That is a very different question than, are you prepared to invest seven or eight years in him? And for the teams that are looking at him for a trade purpose, they're just looking at him to say, is he is he at least entering the off season in a good frame of mind and body to where he can bear every day shortstop next season? And I think that's a very different question. And that's where, for me, the way that Jimenez is played, he is humanity is played in a capacity where I look at him as having a chance, I'm not going to call him this right now, having a chance to be a league average shortstop. He's not going to carry your team. He's not going to be Boba Shetlin. Bo is at his team. He is an adequate shortstop, in my opinion. And and if that's who Leo Jimenez is, it opens up a whole lot of possibilities for how and where you can potentially move both contracts. This winter, if if to your point, he comes back in September and shows that he is closer to being the player he has been in the past. Yep. And maybe the winds continue to flow for the Blue Jays as they won five slash six in a row in this bizarro day that we just saw at Fenway Park. John, appreciate the time as always. Thanks. Always enjoy the conversation. My friends before to the next one. Have a great rest of the week. Yeah, you too. There's John Marosi, MLB network, our insider brought to you by Don Valley, North Lexus, where you can expect excellence online and in the showroom, visit Don Valley, North Lexus dot com. I think Bo is good. I think Bo is very bad when we last saw him for the entirety of the season. The last time we saw him, by the way, it was July 19th, but that was after a week off as he tried to rest the calf injury that is now landed him on the shelf for a month plus. He was just frankly one of the worst hitters in baseball. Yep. When we last saw him, which he was for the first bit of 2022, but that ended in July, right? Like he was hitting seventh at the all-star break. John Schneider came in, Charlie Montoya was fired. And then like from that point on, August and September, unreal. And he resuscitated the numbers. That's not possible with one month. I mean, you get pretty damn close. If you had the same September that he had in 2022, the numbers would look a whole lot different. And I do generally think if you're trading for Boboshette, you don't maybe need to see that September, but you need to see something more than what you've seen so far. Yeah, I also just like, I know he didn't word it this way, but the idea of like the Blue Jays trading Boboshette as a rental is not anything I'd want to get behind. It's not me if you've heard this before. Keep me as your own rental. If that's what you're going to go about doing here, that's just such a precarious position. If I'm trading Boboshette, I want it to be a team that's extending him for seven, eight years, whatever that looks like, or just keep him quite honestly. Yeah. And even the Red Sox, when they traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers with the understanding that the Dodgers were going to move, having an Earth to sign up to an ex got like, well, what turned out to be a very middling return for Mookie Betts. Yeah, it looks for do goes fun for five minutes. Cheater down. So where is he? Yeah, he's gone. Anyways, time now for the Wakenryke presented by Sports Interaction, your homegrown sports book, 19 plus bet responsibly. Blue Jays, Red Sox, Fenway Park tonight on Sportsnet and Sportsnet 590, the fan Uriel Rodriguez starting on back to back days, started yesterday. Yeah. Well, last word of kind of against Cooper, Chris. Well, the, the right he has an ERA of 4, 4, 1. And it is the Red Sox favorite in this one to end the Blue Jays winning streak at five slash six. They're minus 154 favorites. Blue Jays plus 125 total nine and a half. Yeah, the way this series is played out. I also kind of like Rodriguez on the mound. Give me the, just the J straight up on the Moneyline plus 125. I mean, you'd think the Red Sox will, at some point in time win a game again. I just don't know if it's going to be today. So yeah, give me what a, what a time to be alive. Give me the J's on the Moneyline and I'm feeling great about it. Yeah. Cooper, Chris, well has opposite splits. So we'll, we'll see how the Blue Jays line up their lineup, whether they, you know, keep all the lefties in there. You know, who's right-handed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. I think he's going to go ham here. And anytime you got a total of nine and a half at Fenway Park, I always like the over. So give me the over nine and a half minus one 15. That was the Wakenrake presented by Sports Interaction, your homegrown sports book, 19 plus bet responsibly. When we come back, Mike Fuda, two times Stanley Cup winning executive, joins us next as the fan morning show continues, Ben Dennis, Brian Gunning, sports net five,
