>> [MUSIC] >> Fan morning shows, 4-7-5-9 in the van, van, and then it's brain gunning. Two pieces of good news, one, I already told you. >> No hope. >> Good stuff. >> Good stuff. >> Good stuff. No hope, no expectations, so that's good. >> The other one is- >> My family. >> They're like, we got nothing for that guy. It's like every day, he gives us very little. That's great. >> Yeah, expectations now low. So you can, it's a freeing experience to watch Blue Jays baseball these days. Secondarily, they didn't have to tip their cap yesterday. >> Their hats untipped to the Detroit Tigers, pitchers in general. So kudos to the Blue Jays, scoring a bunch of runs, taking a lead and then frittering it away. >> Yeah, but he didn't use the term, but he basically tipped his cap to his own team in the loss. It's like, we did so many good things, his frustrating, but we did so many good things. Like let me tip my cap to Cavendish, let me tip my cap to Vlad, let me tip my cap to Bo. He tipped his cap to the whole Blue Jays team. He's like, you guys are great. It's not our fault that they scored a cajillion runs. It's not our fault. You got to tip your hat to yourself, boys. >> Yeah, that's a good point. Do you know what I can't help himself? >> You heard the intro we played off the hop of the show where he's just like, oh, so many good things. I'm like, really? What about the, here's one. What about the final score? Did you enjoy that? >> Not so much. It's going on wrong. >> And I get it. And I hate jumping on him for what he says because when you're the coach or manager or a bad team, there's nothing to say. >> No. >> He can't go out there every day and say, you know what these guys are. >> Yeah. >> He can't do that. >> He can think that. >> And he does. >> Please think that. >> I don't think you need to ask him to. He has eyeballs. >> So we just talked to John Marosi about the future of this front office and what happens to it? Because it's hard to imagine a situation where they miss the playoffs even by a thin margin. Like it finished over 500 but missed the playoffs considering the expectations considering their payroll being top 10 in all the baseball, considering everybody makes the playoffs. And Ross Atkins remaining the general manager going into next season. But also what John said is true that there's ginormous decisions upcoming for this team. You know we've seen a change of the general manager position for another Toronto sports team during a period of extreme importance. >> All I could think about when John was saying it. >> Brad's for living, I think, was the right man for the job and probably a good idea to move off of Kyle Dubas. And I think they're headed in a more sound direction under Brad's for living than they were under Kyle Dubas. But would things have looked different for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 23/24 if Brad's for living had a longer run up, like a normal off season where he could have truly taken stock of Mitch Marner before the no trade clause kicks in. Again, like that can't be viewed in a vacuum because he was still trying to negotiate an extension for Austin Matthews. Anyways, it's always, there's always going to be something for an incoming general manager. But sometimes there's decisions that are like different than others. And I would say extending the maybe the greatest player in the history of your franchise when it comes to Austin Matthews. And a no trade clause, no move clause, being enacted within weeks of your arrival. Like that's one thing. The other one is, hey, the two most promising young players that your franchise has ever had have one more year of team control beyond this and your team is in flux. To have somebody come in from outside the organization, boy, that would be a tough one. Now, the other thing that John mentioned is the James Click of it all, a guy that has won a world series as a general manager with the Houston Astros already within the organization. But to that, I would say, how different of, I mean, the fans will be placated, right? Because it's like anybody but Ross Atkins. Will they? I think so. I think is is watching Ross Atkins walk out that door will be catharsis for a lot of people. I don't disagree. But like that, they would feel positive about that. But are we sure that the comma to that of like, oh, but it's a guy in house? Well, that's it. Like how? So we don't think James Click is part of the decision making here. Like he's been overwritten. He's like, you know what? Tim and John Schneider in that meeting being like, oh, they're looking like shut up. No, I'm talking. What? You know, look at this garbage can. You want to give it a bang? I don't think that's happening. I mean, maybe there's an obvious difference in the moves that we see James Click make if he's the general manager of Ross Atkins. But I just I find it hard to believe that it's just going to be a total seed change of the way this this team operates. Well, I mean, not to make everything about the Leafs, but they're kind of was with a with a president and granted the guy wasn't in house. He came from outside the org. That's a huge difference. Well, it is a huge difference. But it's like, Shapiro, it's still the over like the overseer there. I obviously would feel infinitely better if it was somebody coming from outside of the org. But I also with how tied at the hip, those two were coming in here. I can see a world where there was a very clear power structure that it's like, I'm one Atkins is two and click your six or something like something along those lines. I don't know that that's the case. But I could see a world where Click is somebody who has yes, he's been vocal in these meetings. Somebody wants but somebody has to make a decision eventually. And it's very possible that it would be different. I just think if it's somebody within the org, it's going to be like, great, the fans be happy that there'd be a new GM. They go, who is it? Oh, I'm less happy. If it's like an interim thing and there's going to be a search, I think people feel differently about that. The other thing with the time, the timing of it all is I think that there is an element that because these decisions are so crucial and you would be thinking about this. If you're going to fire Atkins at the end of the season, you're already thinking about this now. The people who are interviewing for these jobs, that is question number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. What do you do with those two guys? What is the plan? So yes, they be coming in cold. Yes, they'd have less info about the org, but they're not unaware. Like, it's not like to show up at the office the first day and they're like, Hey, you got to deal with Vlad and both. They're like, what? That they were locked up for five years. You know, they understand what they're getting themselves into whoever mystery GM is. Yeah. And as much as fans want the decisions to be made today and for the moves to be made right this second or five minutes ago or yesterday, it's not happening. It's May. And who knows? Maybe they go on and sweep the worst team in baseball and then sweep the pirates and they're back at 500 in six games or so. 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 dot com. It's Keegan Matheson MLB dot com back on the Blue Jays beat in Chicago. How's it going, Keegan? I'm doing well. So it was a good morning. How'd you enjoy your time off? Lovely. I mean, I got my life back in order. I bought groceries at one point, incredibly exciting. Get laundry, just all those thrilling things that you really dream of taking up your days. I'm sorry to hear you have no more money, though. It's like you did buy groceries. So yeah, it's tough, tough for you, but yeah, if I took some Ls, yeah, I got a I got a stir that I got to find some sort of side hustle, but not too nefarious thing. That was tough. All right, speaking of taking Ls, Blue Jays do that in spades this season. Six games under 500, hundred. That's a season high. That's an unusual way for this team to lose a game, especially with Jimmy Garcia, given up runs, not necessarily Jordan Romano, who has an opponent's OBS north of 800 now, just a second blown save of the season. But the Blue Jays scored a bunch of runs, which didn't in the previous two games in the series. This feels like the nadir. I guess it can always get worse, Keegan. What are you? I mean, we're at Memorial Day. It does feel like that's an important day on the schedule in Major League Baseball. It's where so many people say that's when you know who you are. There is factually just more games to play, which might actually be a negative thing considering the way this team has played. But does this being almost June impact the way you view this team? Is it now solidified that they're just no good? Yeah, early was over a long time ago with this team. Now, if the Blue Jays had made sweeping changes in the offseason and suddenly looked bad in a different way, okay, yeah, you're still trying to feel that a bit. But a lot of these problems carried over. And many of these problems guys were expected. A lot of this, I think, comes down to the front office betting on the bullpen and rotation and defense all being just as good this year. That's a wild bet. That's a big bet. I'm a bad better and I don't think I'd make that bet. When you look at it, it's easy to bet on defense repeating itself as a bit more predictable to a player skill set. But particularly the bullpen guys, I believe in this bullpen fully going into the year. But this is just kind of within the range of possibilities for a bullpen. A guy or two gets hurt, a guy or two having off year. And suddenly you are one of the lower rank bullpen in baseball. I think it's a 501 ERA from this group. They're too good to have that, but it's what they have. And you are what your numbers are at this point of the year. So this is what happens when everything does not go right, when everything does not improve internally from last year. And on top of that, when the offense is doing what it's doing, you know, in the big picture, yesterday was better. But when it's one of the lowest scoring offenses in baseball, this is just who you're going to be. So something needs to change really quickly and in a major way. But it's more difficult to believe in that happening by the day when you see this happening over and over. Do we think the team has a, I mean, we're all sitting here and like, I don't think anybody, even even a Elvis Martinez, I don't think sits sits there going, I am the one that will change everything when I come up. But that does seem to be the simplest fix of this lineup has no pop. That guy can't seem to stop hitting homers. He also can't seem to stop committing errors. So that's a conversation or that's part of this conversation certainly. But the big fix and the quick fix, very, very different things. Are you surprised we haven't got to the quick fix part of this yet? And like, I know Martinez had five Ks this weekend. So I don't know, maybe today, not the data to call him up. But what do you think is going to be the final nail in the coffin or the straw that breaks the camel's back to finally, finally forces this group to switch it up, be it a Horowitz, be it Martinez, somebody along those lines like, what do we think will be the kind of fracture point here? Any minute now, guys, I mean, this has to be to the point where anything's on the table at this point of the season, because with each of these losses, another team's ahead of you in the wild card, you have to go an even better record from here on out. It's getting to that breaking point. It has to be. You mentioned Martinez, who is that high upside swing for the fences quite literally, he might strike out 20 times, but he might steal a win for you with a home run. I think it's important to mention Horowitz in that as well. He's a guy that is an on base machine. It's not the sexiest. It's not the most explosive approach at the plate, but he gets on base. He's consistent. And Addison Berger has to be part of that as well. Would he look better in this lineup now over a Clemente to Bigio something like that? Those are the conversations the Blue Jays need to be having, and surely are having, but when you look at those small moves, that's not going to fix the bullpen. That's not going to drastically change the offense. A lot of that would just kind of be a shot across the bow at this team of, hey, these moves are happening. If something doesn't change quickly, something more serious starts to happen. People start losing jobs. This roster starts looking much different. Stuff that impacts your real life starts to happen. It's not just sitting on the bench for a day. Real life comes knocking. And that's a much less fun conversation, but you got to do something here eventually, even if it doesn't line up as the analytically wisest thing in the world. You got to shake something up. Yeah, let's talk about what those roster manipulations would be on the Blue Jays side with maybe one of those AAA players coming in. I think the most obvious area that you could clear up a roster space would be doing the thing that was most likely when Daniel Volgobock made this team was that eventually he would be DFA because that's what happens to Daniel Volgobock. Outside of him, I mean, man, you're talking about players who either were signed to one-year deals or that made the roster over other players that were optionable. And I'm talking about Ernie Clemente. I'm talking about Justin Turner, who are not performing to levels that you would hope. And it's amazing on the Turner side of things, the way he started his Blue Jays career, just how quickly he's fallen off and how obvious the results seem to be now that we have like swing speed data and all that. I can't imagine that's a great thing to sign a guy to a one-year deal, him deciding to join your ball club. And then a couple of months into the season, you DFA him, but like outside of Volgobock, where's the easiest way to make a roster spot? Like, do they want to, are they to the point where like you could see a DFA of Ernie Clemente because he has no options? Yeah, it's in a tough spot here. And like you mentioned with Turner, it hasn't been pretty, but unless it's a complete disaster, you don't want the rep of that team who signed a veteran guy for that money and moved on so quickly that I don't think that helps anyone, but it has not been pretty. Now Clemente is one place you would probably point, Bigio's roster spot. Those are just positionally, and in terms of the hierarchy of this lineup, those are where the prospects would be coming in and challenging for spots. Again, beyond Volgobock, which would be an easier one there. But it's not a roster that has a lot of easy moving pieces. You would have to be getting into those DFA conversations, not option conversations. And I think as we approach the deadline, maybe that naturally takes care of itself. If there are moves made, stuff opens up. But it's a matter of how quickly the Blue Jays want to move on that. How quickly do you want to wave a white flag or what other whatever color of flag you wave when you're pivoting instead of rebuilding? I don't know what color that is, but it's a gray flag. The muted beige flag excites nobody, but the Jays got to make that decision and they've got to do it pretty soon. If I may request, I just have having flashbacks to the Cubs. What was the 2016 World Series of flying the W? I would like fans to start flying a muted beige flag. Not white because we're not there yet, but it's like it's getting a little hairy. That would make me laugh personally. Okay, one of the good stories from the past couple of weeks of this season was Alec Manoa. Uh oh, that didn't go so well this weekend either. You know, I don't think we're at the point where one's bad start and he's all the way back to home. Big question mark. We don't know exactly what he is, but obviously you would have liked to have seen the continued kind of linear progression. Where are we out with Manoa? Because if we are talking about a pivot, him being some semblance of, you know, front front of line starter, Alec Manoa is going to have a big say into just how aggressive of a pivot first retool that this is. Where do you think the team is out with him right now? We still don't really know who Alec Manoa is yet for this team, which is tough. He has put it in a better direction and I give him a lot of credit for that because guys do sometimes it last year where it's just looked like a disaster. But this is why you need to see him do it 10 times in a row. Now back when he had his first really good at, I mean, it's three starts ago. That was a noting where he was using that change up a lot more, doing things a lot differently. And at the time I thought, okay, this is encouraging, but now the next team he faces is going to look for that change up. They know he's back in the zone again. So they're going to jump on the first pitch and a couple of starts later that did get him. So it's about that adjustments game and especially when I hear a pitcher talking about making changes of doing more or less of something during the season. That's what makes me nervous with that adjustments game. How is the next team going to handle that? Whereas let's look at Kevin Gossman over the last couple of years. There were no real adjustments. It was just, here's my fastball, here's my splitter. I am better at baseball than you. Good luck. There wasn't anything crazy happening. So when a pitcher gets into that mode, we saw it with Kakuchi in his tougher year as well, but Rios, when you're tinkering, going back and forth, I want to see it happen six, eight, 10 times because the opponent is always going to adjust to your adjustment. You can't just be one ahead. You need to be two or three ahead. So we'll see with Manoa a couple of really good ones that I liked. I think he was in a really good place with those. Maybe he bounces back from this one, but you need to see quite a bit more, which is another thing to balance in this really uncomfortable big picture conversation for the team. Before they go Vlad. So he's he's rebounded nicely. His season is is now pretty good. He's got an OPS over 800. He's hitting over 300. There's been a little bit of power as well. He's now up to five home runs that the slugging is not overwhelming. Do you think the Blue Jays would sign up for this version of Vladimir Guerrero Jr? If this is what he is, I think they would look around the rest of their lineup and say, Oh, yeah, sign me up. I think it at this point, and guys, this brings me back to Vlad. He's prospect is. I remember years back writing something a bit about will laddy be the big 50 home run guy or is he more of a Joey Votto like an exit velocity machine Joey Votto, but a guy who's going to hit for a very high average high on base and maybe not have that league leading power. Of course, after 21, we thought he was going to be the 50 Homer guy, but this is also a version of him. The exit velocity is there. A lot of its line drives. At this point, I don't think the Blue Jays can complain about anything. If a guy is reaching base, no matter how it happens, Vlad, he's looked fantastic. He just needs to stay in this instead of trying to change the world with a home run swing because that's when he gets out of his best mode. We've heard that year after year. So that's what he needs to avoid, but he's looked fantastic. Yeah, the thing I've been I've been thinking about with laddy during this stretch and the stretch has gone on long enough that we're properly appreciating it now. But if this team just had a cleanup hitter, I don't know, like, say, like, Tailsker Hernandez type and the three hole, we'd feel so much differently about what Vlad's doing. He'd be seen as this table center that can occasionally give you the extra base hit, but because there's just so much, you know, just lack of everything around him, quite honestly. And, you know, like, there have been times where he's been part of the lack of everything, but not right now. He feels like the guy who, and again, like, I think this has gone on long enough that it's properly being appreciated. But in this run, he feels like he has almost been hampered by what's been going on around him, not in terms of what he's been able to do, but in terms of, you know, our the fans ability to appreciate it. Yeah, perfect example yesterday with a game like that, and you still end up losing. That's got to be frustrating. And one of those at bat, there was one of those big hacks where he tried to hit a home run and nothing else. Every time laddy struggles, we hear John Schneider say he's trying to do too much. He's trying to hit a five run home run. It's so important to keep laddy right where he is right now doing exactly what he's doing, because this is a version of him at his best. I know everybody wants 45 homers. This works too. But like you say, there's just nobody behind him driving him in. There's one that missing, which I think is what we said a lot before the season too. Not much has changed. There's one back missing from this lineup, and it would look a lot different. Hey, Keegan, enjoy Chicago as your groceries all wrought back at your home in Toronto. Exactly, fellas. We'll talk again soon. See you, buddy. There's Keegan Math is an MLB.com. He was 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. I think this is an important piece of context for people when understanding baseball statistics. If you get a single, every single time you step to the plate, that's a slugging percentage of a thousand. And that's an OBS of 2000, absurd. So like, yeah, singles aren't, they don't help the slugging percentage as much as doubles, triples or home runs. But if you just get them all the time, you're gonna have a higher slugging percentage. So obviously you think you're a 400 hitter at plays, I think. Yeah, even if they're all singles. Yeah. And as Keegan rightly points out, like, considering the rest of this lineup, it's you take what you can get out of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. If Vlad, just like all of a sudden leaned into this thing and honestly eased up on the home run power to like an even greater extent, but it results in more and like he turns into like Boba Shet where it's like 200 hit Vladimir Guerrero Jr. It's not what we expected. It's not what we saw in 2021, but to have two, two guys that can hit in the mid 300s could both challenge for batting titles. At least it's something, right? You know, you know, it's a valuable player. Louis Arise, like the guy who got traded. It's like, and nobody would say at the beginning of Vlad's tenure, like it would. And again, crazy to say about a guy's one, like two different, two batting titles that you'd say, yeah, you wouldn't sign up for that, but you wouldn't have at the very beginning of Vlad's tenure. But it's like, yeah, if you're just going to have a guy that wins the batting title or who is right there every year, it's it is not his fault that there's not a competent three and four hitter on this team. Yeah, like we again, much like with other sports, we're not having the conversation where we go, Oh, Vlad took all the money and there's no money left for him to have a three or four hitter, but that's not the issue here. He's doing his job. It's not the job we thought it would be of or some of us thought it would be a 40 homers or whatever it is. But this is this is who this is and this is an incredibly effective Major League player. Maybe there's a world in which Vlad has finally just accepted that he's like, he's going to run into 20 homers just naturally, right? You have that bat speed, you barrel it the way he does, it's going to happen. But that he's closer to Ichiro Suzuki than he is to Barry Bonds. Ichiro very good would take. I mean, maybe there's maybe there's even more batting average, more on base potential in Vlad, if he just accepts that and stops ever trying to hit home runs and then you make him the offensive coordinator because he's got it all figured out, baby. But yeah, it is funny how like we have gone all the way away from approach discussions because it's like it doesn't matter. I think I have the greatest approach of all time. Look who's going up to bat every time. Yeah, like how much in the beginning of the season was like, Oh, Donnie baseball. What's he doing to these guys all the chase rates that we're just not even having those conversations because it's so abysmal up and down. Yeah. And it does make you wonder what the whole point of bringing him in and changing your reporting structure and anointing someone is the offensive. Can I tell you what the point was? What to say we did something they like looking back on it. The big move that was supposed to come never came this way. You can say we didn't do nothing. We did the littlest something possible of giving guys in an office different roles, but not nothing. Like how can you look at it any other way? Not saying they did it with the expectation that it wouldn't work. Of course, they thought it would work or they wouldn't have done it. But you had to do something. You couldn't have no material change to your offense in a positive way and just roll back all the same coaches and all the same hitting coach and everything you needed to at least try to do something. It really like the more, again, I don't think they did it too safe face, but it kind of becomes a safe face move. Well, not to do another Leafs comparison, but um, and do I think it's mostly on the players in all sports as opposed to the coaches off? Obviously. Yeah, obviously. But where I think Mark Zevard, when he is finally announces the next one day assistant coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, yeah, he's probably hitting the lengths one last time before, you know, the spotlight's on him. But once he arrives and like there's nothing but positives to be had for Mark Zevard because if he can't fix the Leafs power play, well, nobody could. Yep. You know, so what? He got success. He was there for a cup run. And he created this great power play in St. Louis, less success in Calgary, but he's already done it. It's not his fault. These players, they just, they haven't been able to do it for whatever reason before him. Yep. When it comes to Don Mattingly, boy, I don't think he maybe realized the downside of being the face of the one of the worst offenses in baseball and probably the most disappointing offenses in baseball. This is a guy that's been manager of the year, but yeah, when you get labeled for the first time in franchise history as the offensive coordinator. Never talk to me, buddy. Three, the third fewest runs in the sport. That's as rough. I want the Leafs to have an offensive coordinator next year. This is awesome. It's rough, rough, man. It's like, yeah, what do you do here? Oh, I'm in charge of the offense. Oh, the one that's the third worst in baseball. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the Raptors should have a hitting coach. I don't know. Anyway, all right. Let's talk to Caleb Joseph sports sports that Blue Jays analyst former Major League catcher. He has keen insights into what might be going through the minds of Boba Shedd, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He joins us next as the fan morning show continues. Van Ana's brand gunning sports that five night in the fan. Big opinions and in-depth conversations covering the Leafs, Jays, Raptors, and the NFL. The JD Bunkins podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fan Morning Show Sports at 590 the fan, Van Ana's brand gunning. Can't imagine the vibes are immaculate with the Blue Jays right now. They're following a season high. Six games under 500 yesterday might have been higher if they'd won that game after Dalton Varshos, tied changing home run. Instead, they watch Jordan Romano suffer a second blown save of the season. But good news, everybody. They get to play today. They get to there's no off date. That's the beauty of baseball is that you get right back on the horse. It can be the beauty. It can also, I imagine at some point, become detrimental where it's like, Oh, good, we get to do it again and face the potential of another disappointing loss to a team that's not so good. In this case, this afternoon, it would be against the worst team in baseball, the Chicago White Sox against the starter who has an ERA approaching 12. And last time the Blue Jays saw him that they pummeled him severely. And the Blue Jays last time they played the White Sox, they actually won their first series in a month. So maybe some good news there. Let's talk to Caleb Joseph, former Blue Jays catcher, Sportsnet Blue Jays analyst. How's it going, Caleb? What's up? What's up? Not a lot. We're trying to find the positives in watching a Blue Jays team that, you know, when they do finally score, they, they give up nine runs out of the bullpen, including the one guy who I think was the best reliever in the sport after a, a bloop hit with two outs. And they watched Jordan Romano, a guy with potential trade potential, give up the walkoff three run blast in Detroit to the Tigers. So, like I said, it's a, it's a great sport in that you can jump back on the horse immediately. But at what point does it become like, Oh, no, we have to play again today. Yeah, it's one of those things that as a player, you have such a quick turnaround, especially following the, the flight into a new city. That's a long flight. That's probably the biggest part of the transition. Getting into the next day is, is the flight. That's when you really think about it, unless you've got some really savvy veterans on the plane to try and mix it up. But as soon as you get to the hotel and you get your bags and typically around that time, it's time to grab a bite to eat. And then because of the day game, you're trying to get in the bed early by the time you wake up, most of the time you, you, you have reset and you're already looking forward to the next game, especially when it's in a new city looking forward to the next team that you're trying to play. But it does, it lingers after the game. And then for the guys that don't play, it can continue to linger. Devastating loss, devastating series. It was, it was a demoralizing one when, when the offense finally gets 11 runs and five out of the six relievers, can't hold it there. And this team has just had such an issue, piecing games together. They have pitching one day, they have defense one day and they have offense every, every eighth day it seems like. And if they could just piece together the game and play good defense pitch well and hit at the same time for three or four in a row, this team might be able to get on a streak, but it just seems like every time they get one or two or three pieces of the four part puzzle, one of them is so bad that it's costing them games. Yeah, it's been, it's been brutal. And I can, I can only imagine the frustration because I mean, you know, like, let's just be frank, like no one on the offense has the right to sit there and go like, Oh, how dare the pen blow that for us? Like they, they really needed to hold that. It's like, it's kind of gone the other way, most of it. But you finally do your job, you get over the 10 run barrier for the first time this year, you put up 11 crooked numbers and several different innings. And even that's not enough. Like it's just baseball seasons can be so long. And when things are going well, I imagine it's like you can't play games quick enough. But when it's like this, it's just like, I cannot imagine the frustration of the bats finally being able to do it a day after they score one run. And then it's the guys that you've been able to count on in spades in Garcia and Romano that ultimately end up costing you like I can only imagine the team dynamic of frustration there. And from obviously Romano and Garcia's perspective, they go, Oh my God, we finally had a chance to walk something down here. And we can't. It just seems like that would be palpable, the kind of frustration off of that one particular. Oh, yeah. It is incredibly frustrating, especially knowing that that game is to split the series, not win it, not sweep it, but to save the series. And they were fighting back. You got to give the offense a ton of credit. At one point, I believe they were down nine, two, seven, two. They fought back. They could have packed it in. They could have folded it in. And they continued to really put their best foot forward. If there is a silver lining in there, it is that they were able to continue to tack on. And if I can't for the home run, you've got bar show at the Massa Poma, I'm glad he continues to hit the ball hard, continue to hit the ball well. There are silver linings inside of that game when it comes to the offense. And I will say it has been obviously the office that has not held pace. But the pitching this year, especially on the bullpen, has been a huge disappointment, huge disappointment on the whole. I would say, you're looking at, you know, Jimmy Garcia and Romano, those two guys have been obviously the most accountable. But down to Black, Chris Black, one of our producers, he's putting something out there that's absolutely eye-popping on Twitter. Pitching ranks, they are literally 24 to 30 in just about the big categories, ERA, WIP, slightly percentage, home run, exit, velocity, barrel, like they are near the bottom. This is the entire pitching staff, but most of it is bullpen induced. Whereas last year, this team was either halfway or towards the top. So I think he makes an excellent point, Chris Black does, in that this is more shocking than the offense. I would not have noticed that the pitching was this bad until I saw some of these stats. And again, it just makes my point that this poor team just cannot think it up. When they hit, they're bullpen actually implodes. When they're bullpen implodes, then they hit. It's been a frustrating year so far. I think the difference between the offense and the pitching is that the offense, we could have predicted it. And there are real reasons like we can point to and say, "Oh, that's just, they don't have the personnel." Like, just like quite frankly, when you're playing Ernie, Clemente, and Isaiah, a kinder-ful-F everyday. And I know Isaiah, a kinder-ful-F has kind of been the engine of the offense recently, but that's unreasonable to expect them to do that. When you just have enough players that don't have the offensive track record, it's really hard to score runs. That makes sense. But you go through the pitching. I mean, the five starters, they've all had their moments. It's not like any of those guys are in danger of losing their jobs. They've also had big blow-ups. It's like, "Oh, you say kukuchi. He's allowed to have a bad start. He's had a tremendous start to the season. Kevin Gossman had a rough start to the season." Yeah, he's had a rough start to the season, but you know, he's Kevin freaking Gossman. And he's looked a lot closer to the guy that we saw the first two years of his Blue Jays career. Hey, Chris Basset, he's had trouble against lefties, but we've also seen the best of him. The bullpen, guys. I mean, I guess they're going to look a lot better when Chad Green and Yariel Rodriguez get thrown back into the mix, but like, let's go back to yesterday. It's like Trevor Richards gives up three earn runs. He's been, by and large, one of the better stories out of that bullpen this season. Zach Pop, same deal. He gives up one. Eric Swanson, he's been one of the bad guys. He was the one reliever that came out of the door yesterday and didn't give up a run. Jimmy Garcia has literally been one of the best relievers in the sport. I guess the one guy that you could really point at that's having a bad year along with, well, I think Genesis Cabrera is having a rough go of it and Tim Mays against Rites, for sure, is Jordan Romano. So let's talk about Romano, who's got an opponent's OPS north of 800 now. Caleb, this is a guy that he's a primarily a two-pitch pitcher and the velocity all seems there. What have you seen out of him? Obviously, he had the start on the IL, so didn't start healthy this season with the Blue Jays. But what have you seen out of Romano and how concerning is the opponent's average so far this season? Yeah, it's concerning because it's a huge number. When it comes to, is it going to continue or the trend's going to continue? I wouldn't think so. I like the stuff. I thought he had good stuff yesterday. With Romano, I think sometimes that he and Jimmy can get into this category where if they get too much rest, it can be detrimental. Relievers have always told me that they like being anywhere between two and three days off at the maximum. And Jimmy Garcia yesterday, he was down for five days without pitching. And some people might say, wow, five days off, your arm probably feels super fresh. You shouldn't be ready to go. Sometimes you lose the feel for the strike zone and you actually feel a bit cobwebby out there. Even though you're throwing every day, you're doing some bullpits and side sessions. Those relievers have told me they love to go two to three days at least in between outings, no more than two or three. And Jimmy really, really does well on two days rest. After that, it starts to get a little bit hairy. And so when your team is not winning a lot of games, obviously your two back in the bullpen guys are going to get more irregularity with their usage. And I think that when they can get in there and get into a groove and be pitching every other day and almost be overused whether underused, they can really continue to hone in on location. And the Christmas of the pitches, it just raises about two percent, which is massive. But Christmas of location is the biggest thing for those two guys on the back end, Romano and Garcia. And that's what I see. I don't see anything wrong. I just see rust. I see a little bit of rust yesterday. Jimmy, he's been absolutely phenomenal. He's one pitch kind of middle up on over there to Canada. And man, that's how it's going. The one mistake he makes in that at bat, he was nails that whole at bat versus Canada, the one mistake middle up. Canada makes a beautiful swing hits the line drug to right center. But they've got to just find a way to sync it up. They've got to find a way to get all these aspects of the game and play five or six straight games of perfect baseball and see what happens. They just haven't been able to do it. Yeah. I mean, I honestly take five or six innings at this point, forget five or six five or six games. I certainly sign up for that. You mentioned you mentioned the guys that they they work better on almost a schedule. You know, Garcia, if he gets a couple of days, Romano, same. I think part of the problem, you know, Garcia is very different to me in this regard than Romano is that Romano has proven to be like, I don't have them in front of me, but I mean, the numbers in non-save situations for him have been infinitely worse than in saved scenarios. And how do you balance the idea of keeping that guy busy and letting him work without sending your closer out there in a situation that's not a closing scenario or even one where you're trying to keep it tight? Like, if there isn't the opportunity that makes sense for him, how do you balance the idea of keeping Romano's head right in terms of not putting him in bad positions where he could potentially have a rough outing versus getting him out there enough so that he is being used? Because we'd love it if this team just had a lead to lockdown every other day, but it hasn't exactly worked out that way. Yeah, that's a fantastic point. You have me stumped. I have no idea. I really don't. You don't want him to go out there and give it up, right? But I don't want him not pitching for four or five straight days. I don't know, score more runs. Take more leads. There's nothing that Schneider can do. And this is just one of those small points that just totally affects the season, totally affects the flow is you can just see how when one major aspect of your team is not firing on all cylinders, it can affect usage of a guy that can throw off his whole, his whole season. Isn't it weird that all this stuff is just connected? And yeah, I have no idea because I prefer him in a safe situation. I don't know what it is. He looks like he has the same intensity. He looks like he has the same focus. It just, for some reason, it doesn't, it doesn't work the way it does when he has a lead. So I have no idea. That's that's one of the better questions I've ever been asked. I don't. Wow. Yeah. Good job by me. I don't know why I kept saying that it was second blow and save of the season. It was a tie game when Jordan Romano came into the game. Yeah. So notably, not a safe situation yesterday, even given up the three run. But he just lost. He is lost. So much better. It's not good. It's all very bad for the Blue Jays, except for AAA guys are hitting well there. I haven't checked the Bisons record, but who cares that they have guys that are hitting the baseball. That's all that matters. And like minor records, I don't think ever matter. Maybe to the people in Buffalo, but I don't even know if they care. So those guys are all mashing, right? Like Arelva Smartina says a bunch of home runs. He's one off. I think the minor league lead with with 12 and Spencer Horowitz is right there. They're 27 and 24. The Bisons are OK. So it's all right. Better than Blue Jays. Yeah. OK. All right. At what point and maybe Addison Barger can't make this case because he got, although it was a brief little foray into the major leagues, he got five games and he could have if he just went four for four every game and hit a bunch of home runs, I guarantee they'd make room for him. He'd still be here. He wouldn't be back in Buffalo. But Arelva Smartina has, you know, hit all those home runs in AA and they're like, hey, can you walk more? And he's like, yeah, no problem. Can you can you strike out less? He's like, yeah, got it. And he continues to hit at what point? And then he looks up at the major league team is like, Oh, you scored the third fewest runs in all the baseball. He's only 22. I get that as well. But at some point, is there not a level of frustration for those minor league guys who are like, hey, the one thing that you can't do, we're doing here. We're a phone call away. Like when does frustration start to creep into their mindset? Oh, yeah. It's going on right now. I could almost guarantee it. I remember being in the minor league and watching the big league team and thinking, I know I can help him. I know I can help him. There's a weakness there. I know that guy could help him up here too. Bring this up. Let's go. Give him some chance and you just got to be patient. You got to keep, keep putting your head down. You can't give him any reason not to call you up. That's, that's the biggest thing as a minor leaguer is you can get frustrated, get sidetracked, get ticked off that you're not getting called up, get distracted and then go through a little bit of a spell for 10, maybe over 15. And the minute they want to make a move, they call your buddy up because you're in this one little open and spell. And you're like, seriously, dude, I've been hitting for like four weeks. I've seen it happen. It is crazy. So it's a brutal, it's a brutal position to be in, but you just, you got to stay with it. You got to stay with it down there. And a lot of times you can get stuck in your bubble too, that you're just playing your game with your buddies. And as long as you're not, you know, glued to the Twitter every single night for five hours, you can kind of get tunnel vision and start playing your game and get concerned with what's going on. And, and you can be a little bit ignorant at times. They say that is bliss too. Right. So, but it is, it's a tough setup, tough setup down there. They got to keep doing it. Got to keep doing it. Yeah, at least there's whatever, Lingenberger juice or whatever they have. What's the thing that they have fried bologna sandwiches or whatever in Buffalo, whatever. Before that you go, buddy. So I made the case that the bluesy I should be right now trying their hardest to resign bow and Vlad to extensions. And that would make the pivot of selling off the guys that are pending free agents easier because at least like the foreseeable future, okay, we're building around those guys. And even if we take a step back this year, we can, we can understand what our future looks like next year and beyond. I wonder, I mean, your former teammates with those dudes, and I don't know if you've been the same or different, like, is it just about money with those guys? Like, is there, is there something else that would come with discussing extensions with Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., and Boboshette? Yeah, I think with, and I haven't, I haven't intentionally talked to them about this. This is total guesswork right here, but I would guess with, with Vladi, they're probably, they're probably not close on the number. And I would think Vladi has 2021, Vladi in his head being paid like 2021, Vladi, the superstar capabilities that he, that he has that all, all of Canada has seen. I think the Toronto Blue Jays probably, Vladi's case are saying, well, we love that. That's who we want to sign. That's what we would love to get. But the back of your ball card says, you've only been that guy one time. So here's where we're at compensation wise. So I think they're probably far apart, I think, that they have a long way to go. Vladi's on a good, he's on a good run right now that might make them believe that he could be that guy. With Bo, I think Bo is, is in a little bit different position. I, I just don't know where Bo is at in terms of how much he loves locking down the security, not knowing the direction of the organization. He's the guy I think that really wants to win. And if he can't see like clear vision and feel like he's, quote, surrounded by a lot of really good players, I don't think he wants to sign up just to be paid a lot of money and not know that he's going to win. Like you look into an LA or a, or a New York, like markets that you really can bank on going to win most probably. I think that's what he's hoping from Toronto. And if, if he feels like he sees that, I think he would love to spend his entire career as a Blue Jays. But I think it's the gray area of, are they selling? Are they rebuilding? I don't really want to sign a 10-year deal or whatever, five-year deal extension right in my prime to be on a maybe 81 and 81 team. Does it make sense? Yeah, it does. And I don't, I don't like how you mentioned the Dodgers who, yeah, Mookie Betts playing shortstop, but they get, they get, they get used to Boba Shet there and move Mookie Betts back to another position. I don't like that like that. That's, yeah. Yeah. All right. Caleb, good job as always, buddy. Thanks. You got it. Take it easy, guys. Yeah, you too. Caleb Joseph, former Blue Jays catcher. That's an interesting perspective on those two guys and saying that the money thing is more prevalent with, with Vlad, he is opposed to Bo. I think that kind of goes in line with my thought process on it, that it's like, yeah, I think that, I think those are the two more willing sides to get a deal done in, in Vlad and the team. I just think that the number is so much harder to come to agreement on. I think with Boa, it's the exact opposite. The number's kind of easy. It's, what can you sell me on what's happening here? And I think he's open to being sold. Like, I don't think this is a, they have to move heaven and earth to make them believe. I think they got to show them, then they got to make them believe. But I think if you can do that, there's no reason he would not, he would, he would be opposed to it. You know, it's weird about that. It's like, yeah, we could sell you on a winning vision. It would have been a lot easier to do that if you were like producing at your normal level, like the first month and a half of the season when we were in these close games and you were putting forth an OPS of like 500. Yeah, but that would be, that'd be for Gazy. Like, we don't, we don't sit here and think this, like, Vladimir going right now and look how the team's going. Like, then you would have just been selling him on Fool's Gold and, I don't know, I think Bachec can see through that. Yeah, Blue Jays still have a chance to reset the narrative. Six games to go on this stretch of 13 against crappy teams. It resumes this afternoon in Chicago against the White Sox on Sportsnet and Sportsnet 5.9 in the fan. This has been the fan morning show, Ben and his Frank gunning, Sportsnet 5.9 in the fan. Good morning. Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can grab a man insane.
