(upbeat music) - Man, morning show, sports at 5.9 of the fan band. It's Fred Gunning, good morning, Brandon. Remember all that stuff I said in the last couple of days for Ted, I was just joking, I was joking around. Blue J's actually good. - I was serious as a heart attack and I meant every word of what I said. But yeah, we're gonna be positive today. Quick question for you, theater of the mind, I'll bring it to life. Was that like air guitar or air bass? I felt like you were really, you were strumming along to something as our intro got going. It felt like your hand was very far up and I feel like bass longer neck and something. - Yeah, it was a C-tar actually. - Oh, don't get me started, I had to roommate my, well my one year I lived in a dorm in Windsor. Interesting fellow, he had like the Russian like hat with the sickle and hammer on it. And then one day I came in and he was just, I kid you not open the door. And I expected to like, hey man, how's it going? And he's like, you know how hard it is to find a book about playin' a C-tar? And I was like, I'd imagine that heart. Like that would have been my guess. - Yeah, very hard. - And possibly here. - Did you play the C-tar in your dorm room? - He was inquiring about acquiring one at a time. - It seemed like a guy who had a, since I've left he like tried to run for mayor of Windsor I think, I don't know. Shout out to that guy. - Interesting fellow. - He really was, he really, really was, yeah. - Doesn't sound like there's concentric circles in the Venn diagram of him and his interest in C-tar is in sports. - No. - Like probably not listening right now. - You said C-tar and never in my life. Like I think a lot of people are like, ah, didn't the Beatles have a C-tar? - Yeah. - I think that's where most people go, not I. I will forever think of my one year roommate. - C-tar anecdote. Good for you. - Shout out to that guy. - You know, I kid, the Blue Jays, all the questions I had surrounding this team the last couple of days still exist because yeah, they beat the Orioles and Kudos like full value. Orioles still very good despite them only scoring two runs in the baseball game. - True. - Blue Jays only managed three. - Yeah. - And the third one came in the bottom of the ninth. And Kudos to them. Again, like Kudos to him. - Yeah. - Kudos, Kudos, Kudos, Kudos. - All the Kudos. - Yeah. - Handshakes for everybody. - More than that, like hugs. - Firm kisses. - Come on, firm on the cheek. - On both cheeks. - I'm like very European. - I'm just that guy in the airplane. Like, I want to, I was yelling at them and now I've calmed down a little and I'm like, I want to shake your hand. - Yeah. - It's actually the perfect metaphor for how I feel about this Blue Jays team. We're like, don't ask me my true feelings. But today we'll go with that. - Yeah, they were one for 40 collectively against Craig Kimbrol as Dan Shulman astutely pointed out on the broadcast, head over to the bottom of the ninth. - It's a great reverse jinx by him. I thoroughly enjoyed that. - I don't think that's what he was doing, but that's how I took what he was doing and I loved it. - Yeah. Justin Turner's single, what? His third hit of the game, starting everything three for four. He's back. I don't know if I'm willing to go that far, but obviously-- - I will say I'm not. - Obviously very beneficial. Craig Kimbrol handing the Blue Jays an extra base with the air. - Hey, you got it. - Got him. - You got to manufacture runs. Sometimes you is the other team, but somebody's got to manufacture runs out there and Craig Kimbrol played a part in that. - He did. And then Isaiah Kinefolefa comes up with the game-winning knocks. The Blue Jays back to three games under 500 have a chance for the series split this afternoon against the Orioles. There's a couple of different places back to three games under 500 and like, no, you're right to say it that way. It's just-- - Pretty good. - Yeah. - And then what else is pretty good or, I should say, pretty surprising. Honestly, if you had told me before the season that the Blue Jays would be three games under 500 in the beginning of June, I would have believed you. I would have said, oof, not ideal. Maybe not what I would have predicted, but yeah, I could see that. And how's that happening? Are they not scoring enough runs? Oh, yes, that aligns perfectly with my vision. I think the first reason I might think that they're not scoring enough runs, and it was part of my preseason preview of this Blue Jays season was, hey, man, you're going into a year, again, after you didn't produce enough runs in an 89 win season where you scored one in two games against the Minnesota Twins in the postseason, and you've gone from Matt Chapman, who's, boy, I know the last five months were pretty brutal. The overall numbers were at least average to above average, to Isaiah Kiner-Folefa, who's won a pretty good defender but not Matt Chapman, and two, not the offensive player. Like, that is for a team that's going to be needing offense, that's the one area that I thought, oh, absolutely, Isaiah Kiner-Folefa on the multi-year deal is going to be wearing all of it. I can't believe, like, he's, I put together a blame pie of who's responsible most amongst the players for what's happened this Blue Jays season. We'll get to that after seven o'clock, but it's incredible. Like, Isaiah Kiner-Folefa, like, bottom five? I mean, how do you put any blame on him? He's been everything you could have expected him to be in more. - Yeah, I'd say, like, 0% of the blame pie. Like, 'cause if I'm blaming him, just transfer that blame to the guy who brought him here, right? Like, but he has been the guy that has come through the most, and part of it is the complete lack of expectations, right? This would even feel differently if it was an off season where something else bigger happened. You know, like, that rumored other move outside of Shohei Otani that they're not gonna do nothing, and then they kinda did nothing. You could see a world where you would feel this way about Kiner-Folefa 'cause he's the other one, but they're all the other ones in terms of pieces that were brought in this off season. And the expectations have been so low. Everybody else around you has given you so little that his little feels like something. - Yeah, it's also, it's little, but for him, it's a lot. - Yeah. - No, no, you're right to point this out. - Okay, so he's got an OPS North of 700 now. It's 704, that's an OPS Plus in this day and age. In the year of our Lord, 2024, OPS Plus, above average, 102. And he's got four home runs, one of which is, we just saw the swing, we didn't see the ball go over the fence in Detroit, but eight, they all count. - Even if there's no visual record of it. - It might not have happened. - He's halfway to his career high in home runs, which he said in 2021. He hit eight home runs in 158 games with the Texas Rangers in 2021. He has four in 60 games with the Blue Jays. Like he's got a career OPS of 663. His 162 game average is seven home runs. Again, he's played 60, he's got four. - So yeah, the numbers don't jump off the page if you were just gonna read out his slash line. He hit in 268 with a 313 on base and a 391 slug. On this team, it's remarkable. And for his career, the length and breadth of his career, like it is, he's having at this point, a career year. - Yeah, it's nice to be able to say that about literally one person on this team. Normally it's like- - Offensively. - Yeah, like you wait, yeah, right? I mean, what you've got at a Garcia has obviously been that in spades. And then even Richards, like maybe I wouldn't go as far as say career year, but it's been really, really nice what you've got out of him there. But in terms of kind of Falefa, the problem isn't the existence of him, and I can't believe him but to phrase it this way. The problem has been not enough of him. There's, and I don't mean enough of him in the lineup, but if you just had two or three more pieces that can give you something as opposed to the nothing. And again, that's not the way I would go about building the team. You know, I'm just looking at the, I'm looking at the baseball savant page for him, trying to figure out like, okay, why is it happening this way? And honestly, the biggest thing, and this isn't that big of an outlier in his career, but doing it to this extent is his whiff percentage, non-existent, his 98th percentile in baseball. K percentage obviously is gonna go pretty similarly with that 90th percentile. - You know what's weird about that? The Blue Jays as a team don't strike out. It is odd for a team to be so meek offensively and not have that as a key, key tenant of what they do. And he is maybe, again, like, this is a problem, but the poster child for what they need to be doing in that regard and they all kind of do it. It's just the lack of pop, you see it from him. And again, like you're happy he gets the knock last night. He was a problem signing for me in the off season. I looked back at it and said, no, not that. And again, it's not that you couldn't have one of those, it's that you can't make the whole off season out of signings like that. And he has actually proved to be a value add. If you had done the right big move, whatever that, and like, we're not talking about Otani, but this other rumored move, the Denver Games, and you had had a couple of stories that obviously they couldn't all look like Kiner Folefa. You would like them to be slightly different players. You can't build a whole team out of that. But if you filled the team out with success stories like that, it's amazing how quickly things not calling for a turnaround, but could have looked different if you just have a couple of the guys hit. And I don't mean literally hit the way he does, but hit in terms of getting a positive acquisition out of the player. - You know, it's weird about looking back at this off season. And yeah, if you just get away from the show at Otani of it all and think about the pivot, right? Because the beginning of the off season was like, oh, they're gonna be in on show at Otani. But if it's not show at Otani, they're gonna be in on something big. There's some big names out there. At the time I said, I buyer beware on those guys. You look at the performances that those guys have put forth. Cody Bellinger has an OPS under 800 with the Chicago Cubs. Matt Chapman might be the best of the bunch. And he's just got an OPS north of 700 hitting in the middle of a Giants lineup. But like he's looks pretty similar to the guy that we saw in an overall sense last season, the Blue Jays, the Jorge Solaire. Oh, that was gonna be the guy in the middle of this lineup is the just mashing. He's got a robust OPS of 665. Oh, yuck. So the thing is, in the Jays lineup, there'd be so much protection around him that now wouldn't work that way. So it's, yes, this front office deserves a lot of criticism. There's just no doubt. They built this thing. And the way to improve it offensively was not just through free agency. There were trades to be had, but, yeah, you're mad because they what didn't go out. And instead of, you know, the Pivata Isaiah, Connor Falefan, bringing back Kevin Kiermaier, went out and got Cody Bellinger, Jorge Solaire, or any of those guys. Guy, Mary Kendall, Ariel, like none of those guys are exactly looking like MVP candidates. So it's a weird, it's a weird headspace to be in because it's like, yeah, Ross Atkins, you blew it. This was a beautiful opportunity for this team to win some games considering the pitching, at least in the rotation before fifths of it, was coming back and all it needed was an offensive fix. But where that fix would have existed in the offseason, I can't tell you definitively. Like, there's no obvious answer outside of Shoyo Tani. There's no obvious guy that they missed out on in free agency that would have fixed this team. - No, I think, and like, we should just mention this here 'cause this is, I think, where a lot of people go. Like, well, what about the Juan Soto trade that they missed out on because they were chasing Otani, I think we all made our peace with it at the time. And even if you wanted to get in on that, not to say you couldn't have had him, but that was a nice package that the Yankees put together. The question I have for you is, it's really more of a philosophical one than a baseball one, Ben, is, are you a believer that, and like, circumstances change things, right? Are you a believer that Cody Bellinger, and like, I'm using him as the catch-all here, pick any of the guys you just mentioned there, that you just transport his OPS if the Blue Jays would have signed him here. Like, how much are you a believer that, be it hitting environment, be it coaching, be applying a protection, whatever that. Like, do you think you just, obviously it's not a complete copy and paste, like they're literal homers that would have gone out in certain parks if you've been playing in, but how close to it, and again, make it about Bellinger, make it about any of those guys you want. How much of it can you just look at the bad seasons, quite frankly, that all those guys are having and saying, yeah, it would have happened here in the exact same way. 'Cause I think people would do the opposite. If it were, they were having great seasons, you go, look, if you would have just signed those guys, they would have had the great seasons here. I am always curious about that, especially with baseball, where it is a sport that it is the easiest one to look at and say, all right, I can just copy and paste that, 'cause you're not looking at chemistry. This is an issue with a line-mate, or if it's a basketball team, like the chemistry you have within a rotation, or the role you're asked to play. I think that's why it's the easiest to just kind of look at a Bellinger and say, yeah, okay, I'm good on that. I mean, I was good on it from the jump, it wasn't somebody I was clamoring for the J's to get. But I think that's the other part of it is, in other sports, you can look at a free agent who's maybe still having a down year, and you can contort yourself into, oh, but if they were here, they'd be playing with X, Y, and Z, and it'd be different. With baseball, it's so much harder to do that. You just kind of do have to take the numbers at face value. - Yeah, I think this is all very predictable. - Yeah. - I think, like I said, buyer beware with all those guys, and Cody Bellinger, former MVP. - Totally. - He had been a half decade since he was that guy, and then we were supposed to just take this one bounce back season, where he finished top 10 in MVP award voting, but like for the first time in five years, as it had no PS over 800 in Chicago on the strength, like you dig into the numbers, it was like on the strength of like more duck snorts, he was swinging at balls and making contact outside of the zone, congratulations, like probably not a great way to improve your offensive profile. And lo and behold, guys, you've regressed a little bit and playing in a ball park that's pretty well suited for offensive players at a regular field. Now, I think the Blue Jays would have gotten at best, like the same level of production. I think Roger Center, and I was digging into the numbers a little bit today, I think Roger Center is, we're starting to realize the reason it looked like a pitcher's ball park last season, had more to do with the Blue Jays offense than it did with the dimensions of the ball park. So yeah, it's not like he was, he was going to Petco Park if he arrived in Toronto, it's more playing like a neutral ball park and according to Statcast ball park figures, it is actually a neutral ball park. This season, opponents have 37 home runs at Roger Center. - Okay. - Blue Jays have 25 at home this is not what you want. - To that point, like have you ever invented a stat? - No, well, fake ones. - Yeah, you know who invented, so I invented a stat yesterday, and it's very simple, but you know who I was thinking about who invented a stat, who's like at the forefront, and not somebody who thinks is at the forefront of advanced analytics, but okay. Joe Bowen invented Corsian Fenwick for my money. He used to do the Bowen summary back when he was doing TV and they would put up the graphic of like shots at goal, block shots, and it was just called the Joe Bowen summary, and everyone was like, "Oh, that's sick, cool." - Love this. - That's just Corsian Fenwick, okay. - Which again, the funniest part of it is that like Corsian, like Jim Corsian, coach in the NHL, look at this frickin' nerd out of here. - So again, like so much of advanced stats, this is not an advanced style, but so much of it is branding, and like the way you message it, package things. - A thousand percent. - So I've come up with something, I like to call the big fly factor. - Okay, I'm excited. Here we go, give it to me. - It rolls off the tongue. - It does. - You're obviously not following me on Twitter 'cause I was, I-- - No, I do, it's weird. I've had this conversation of like, I follow a lot of people on Twitter, but Twitter's like, you don't get to see that. You don't get to see that. - Really? - No, it's like-- - Hold on, but you-- - No, 'cause it's constant for you. - No, it constantly is just like, I'm like, oh, do not doing anything. And it's like, come on, the for you tab is where you need to be, it's just shifting me over there all the time. I love it, I hate it. - I can tell immediately when I'm on the for you and I get off. - No, I know, but then I like, close it or I like, you know, think about something else in my life for nine seconds and I'm back there anyways. I'm very excited about this. Don't derail me. - Fly factor. - Nice. - Okay. - We can all agree, right? Like all of us, Josh Santos, Jeff Azeparti, Brent Gunning, we can all agree that home runs are very important for the game of baseball, right? - Cool too. - Yeah. It's not just hitting home runs though, right? I think we should all agree that giving up home runs, if hitting home runs is the best thing you can do as an offensive player, giving up a home run as a pitcher would be the worst thing you can do. - Now a track, how about combining those two metrics together with something? Again, I like to call the big fly factor. - I love this, this is great. - Okay. So the Orioles, they've hit a bunch of home runs. Second in the majors in home runs hit. You know how many they've given up? - I don't actually. - The fifth fewest in Major League Baseball. So the Blue Jays, they're the other side of the spectrum, right? We know they haven't hit many home runs, six fewest home runs hit. You know how many they've given up? - I think that feels like a lot. - Second most in all the baseball. So what I've done is I've taken the rankings, so I've only done this for the American League guys 'cause I've only had one night to do it. I'd like for somebody to keep a running tally of this. Maybe somebody that's currently maybe in between jobs. I don't know. - There was an intern poking around a while ago. Can we not just dispatch this to one of the 37 minions that work on the JD Bunkis podcast? - So what you do here to get your big fly factor is you take your ranking when it comes to home runs hit and you take your ranking when it comes to home runs given up, you combine the numbers. So you're looking for the lowest number, right? So the lowest number, the lowest number you could have would be two because if you're first at home runs and you're given up the fewest home runs, that's a two, that's incredible. The highest you could have is 60. Here's how the American League East it shapes up when it comes to the big fly factor. Baltimore Orioles lead the way. They have a big fly factor of seven. - Whoo, hot dog. - Right behind them, team that's one seven consecutive. The New York Yankees, their big fly factor is eight. Middle of the road, Boston Red Sox, their big fly factor is 19. - Okay. - Blue Jays not at the bottom of the pile when it comes to the big fly factor. - Congratulations. - 53, again 60 is the lowest score you could possibly have that's your worst in all of this. - That's very bad. - The Tampa Bay Rays are 58. They're two away from the worst number. - The magic number. (laughing) - In the truly baseball magic number. (laughing) - All right, so what do you think of the big fly factor? So what it does, it doesn't tell you necessarily how you got there because you would have to parse both of them. But like, it'll give you an overall sense. Like, hey, if you want, if you're looking to make, yeah, like a power rankings. It's like, hey, what's predictive? Are you doing it by hitting home runs and not giving up home runs? If you are, then that seems sustainable. What do you think of my big fly factor? - I love it. It is the perfect baseball statistic because it tells you a lot, but it also complicates it just a little bit. 'Cause the whole time you were telling me this, I'm like, why don't we just do a plus, minus, a home runs? Like, that was where my mind's going. Now, I like this. I think this gives us something. But I actually think it's perfect for baseball that it's like, we could just subtract. And if you have a positive number, that's really good at a negative number. That's really bad. But no, let's include rankings and there'll be an arbitrary number. Like, why is the scouting scale? 20 to eight, why? - Two to 60. - Two to, because, right? So this is actually the perfect baseball statistic. It tells you a lot, it's illuminating. You get to do more homework if you want to know about it because it's baseball. And there is a scale that makes, when you think about it sense, but at first blush, absolutely no sense. This is, and I don't even think you included, you like wanted to have the things that I'm counting as little digs that you hear included, but they all make it the perfect baseball stat. The fact that it's not, like, out of 100, that it goes to 60, that you can't just know where are they good at it? Like, do they give up a lot of homers? Do they not hit enough? - Doesn't matter. You have to dig into it again for that. It's just a perfect baseball stat 'cause the nerds are like, oh man, there's a stat for this. I didn't get to do any nerding. And it's like, hey nerd, let me open this door for you here. Have all the nerding you want in there. It's perfect. Good, honestly. - Thank you. - Great job. - You know how tempting it was to throw my name into the name as well? But I think if I did that, it would've, it would've put people out. It would've been like, I would use it. - Yeah, for sure. - Like, there's no chance. - It's like the end is numbered. - No, the dream is that, like, we tag, you can't do it. Maybe, like, the good friend thing is for me to do it, but it's, the dream is that it becomes, like, the Venice big fly corollary or something. - Yeah. - Like, your name attached to it. But you're right, if you, yeah, if you call this like, the Venice Blast Index is our Ben's Blast Off or whatever, yeah, we're all the way out on it immediately. - You know what? - Yeah, obviously what you said kind of, maybe makes more sense, the plus minus of it all. - 'Cause the whole time, I didn't want to cut you off. I could tell you did a lot of work. I loved where you were going with it. The whole time, I'm like, what if we just, what if we just subtracted the numbers from each other? And guess what? - It's the same thing. - No, right, but that one's way easier for me to digest, but I love in your world that you're like, no, no, no, a two to 60 scale is the better way to cut. - Well, what it does is, no, you're right. It ranks, like, gives you an idea of the ranking within that season. - Totally, totally. - You're right. - I'm open to suggestions. I'm open to suggestions on the name. I'm open to all of it. - That's a good point you bring up, though, because if I just, much like, if you tell me-- - Sorry, what was the name again? I don't want to screw it up. - Big fly factor. - Big fly factor. If you're like 24, okay, that, like, I get this. But much like, if I tell you, plus 13, you're like, well, it's plus, so good, I guess. - Yeah, you don't know, like, in an individual season. Like, this is, this is season dependent, right? Here's a question for you. - Uh-huh. - Let's say, let's live in the dream world where everyone out there is just immediately taken by your stat, how high a career highlight, if, like, your name was in it. And it's, like, on the sports net broadcast. - So, I have children. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like, and they'll carry my legacy and hoping that, yeah, they don't embarrass me in my family name. - You hope? - But, they don't live forever. - No. - I would think that the game of baseball will outlive anybody within my family, that it will just go on forever and ever and ever. We'll be playing it when we build the next colony on Mars. It'll be, the rules will be different. - For sure. - And we'll have to, like, adjust to different gravity, obviously. - Obviously. - Ball parts are gonna have to be bigger, I think. But, like, baseball will still exist in some form. It may even have a different name. And maybe, if it does exist. And that's the other thing about this statistic. It's like, it's immune from any change. It's just a ranking system. - This is true. - Yeah, no, it would be up there, man. If it lives beyond my life, beyond my children's life, beyond their children's life. Yeah, that would be a big one for me. - So, the last piece of advice, and I normally, you're the one, like, being like, "Hey, here's how to father your children. Here's how to do this job." Like, you're normally giving it. If I could give it the piece of advice to you, I think, when we have, you know, such as the esteemed Adnan Vercon with us, now with Robert Flores yesterday, you need to just start talking about it like it is an accepted metric. - Oh, and then they're like, what is that? - What is it? - Oh, you haven't heard that. - Oh, you haven't heard that. - No, let me tell them about it. You just reference it. And I'm like, "Oh, you haven't heard of this? Big fly factor, hot new stat." Who can say where it came from? - I can't ask. - Yeah, no, no, I mean. - You need to start accepting them with it. - You're right. - But the part of it that is so important with this, Ben, is you can't pitch it to them. I'm happy you pitched it to me. This is your say. - No, I'm 100%. It's the same reason why I didn't include my name in it. - That's right. - You just include it in a question and allow them to figure it out. - Well, you know, Orioles, big fly factor of seven. Obviously, we know what that means for them as a team offensively. One, you made it to Orioles this year. (laughing) And then they're like, "Big fly factor." And then it sticks with them. That's the way. That is the way for it to, if you want this to take off, like, look, you know, like we're working for the company to broadcast one team. We talk to people on MLB network. Could you imagine, I don't know, like Cliff Floyd or whoever's doing a break. D-roll, whoever's doing a break down. And they're just like, "This is a big fly factor for this team. "It's 54, in what world can you compete with that? "God, I want this to happen for you so bad now." - Me too, it's-- - We can do it. We're gonna have a lot of summer of talking about things that are not specifically the Blue Jays game that happened the night before. - Yeah, simplicity is what you're going for, right? With anything, honestly. With an idea, with a statistic, something that's easily digestible. Who couldn't digest? - Hey, ranking for home runs hit, ranking for home runs allowed, combined the two lowest numbers the best. - You're also really lucky. And like, I don't know, maybe you'd say, like, "I just wouldn't let that happen." I don't know. You're lucky your first name starts with B, or I would have taken this. Like, you would have brought this idea to me right here. Like, if your name was Garth Ennis, I don't know why. Like, I cannot picture you being a Garth, but if that was your name, or George, I'd be like, it doesn't really work with your name. We're friends, friends, big fly factor. - Oh, I see, yeah. - But you're Ben, so it works for you. - Yeah, again, like, between us, we can call it Ben's big fly factor, but I think like it disqualifies the statistic from the rest of the world. If they're like, "Oh, we're using Ben's big fly factor." It sounds like an off-brand. Like, honestly, feels like something that you would buy that was like not made in North America. - I don't disagree. But like, there's you, there's BNS, there's Ben Shulman. It's like, there is a Ben- - The Ben's big fly factor. - Yeah, I don't know, we can... - I'm willing to collab, like, I can share the credit. If it helps get this thing out there more into the zeitgeist, like Ben Shulman, Ben Nicholson Smith, we can all come together, we can link arms, we can do like a photo shoot, and yeah, we can be the faces of the Ben's, the Ben's, and there's no apostrophe. Ben's big fly factor. - Yeah, of course, this is great. - All right. - And then when, if it really takes off, like, their goal, you were a day late on this. - What? - Robert Flores is on his way, he was on his way, he's in London now. - Oh, yeah. - Big Ben, the graphic, it's right there. They like put it on the clock. - And God, listen, I know, we have a lot of time, and surely, Major League Baseball go back to London at some point in time. That'll be when it truly launches. - Listener, again, like, I'm not, this is, it's all nebulous, right? Like, we're just in the early days of figuring this out. If you have a suggestion when it comes to the name, or, or yeah, the Brents plus minus idea, like, I'm open to that. I need to see how it looks. Like, what is more aesthetically pleasing, the plus minus, or the just the two to 60 scale? Open all of it. We can all, let's all come together. Let's have, I don't, I'm not precious about this. Let's all be a part of the big fly factor. - Let's join hands, we'll all figure it out together. The more I think about it though, I do like the two to 60 scale, 'cause I think the, again, it's not arbitrary. - But the arbitrary sounding nature of it just like fits in perfectly with the nature of this board. - No, never have won. - That'd be the running, oh, and then, and then if it really takes off, you get to do the thing of a historic, yeah. - No, no, but not historic of like, you get to talk about a team in glowing terms of, I know it's impossible, but they really should have a big fly factor of one. They're that elite anyways. - Great job, good job. - Thank you, thank you. - Yeah, I'm proud. - Diving into a lot of numbers yesterday. - That's your favorite thing, so I'm not surprised. - Not really, but yeah, sometimes. - I feel like you do like it occasionally. - Not favorite, okay, that's fair. - Yeah, all right, when we come back, my favorite thing is sports that matter, and we get the return of, oh my gosh. - Hey, no offense, Blue Jays, and they're gonna play in the afternoon. Hey, it matters, I can split seriously, this is yours. But also like after that, game one of the NBA Finals, where there's narratives of plenty, in Boston, Kairi making his return, we'll give our favorite storylines, the NBA Finals, which starts tonight, and acts as the fan morning show continues, Ben Annes, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan. - Hey, it's Ailish Forafar. - And I'm Justin Cutsford. - Join us as we discuss the most important sports stories of the day, and tee up the biggest games of the night. - It's the fan pregame, 6 p.m. weekdays on Sportsnet, Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan, and wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Fan morning show, Sportsnet 5.9 to the fan, Ben Annes, Brent Gunning. - Kinda underwhelming NBA playoffs at this point. Like there's been some great games, some great finishes, but like one of those great finishes was game one Celtics Pacers. - Yep. - Yeah, Jalen Brown hitting a three. - Yeah. - At the end of regulation, to send it to overtime. - Yeah. - A game that the Pacers just handed the Celtics, and then they went on to sweep them. - And you better give Jalen Brown his due, 'cause I don't know if he saw the quotes going around yesterday, but how he's just never gonna get credit. And he is, I think like undervalued, disrespected, whatever it was. You just won in the conference finals MVP. - Yeah. - And he assigned a $286 million contract. - Yeah, but that's disrespectful. - Obviously, it's not 300. - Yeah, that's a weird one. But he's clearly not the best player on that team, but yeah, I think you look at it as a two-headed monster at the very least between he and Jason Tatum. Anyway, so that game was good. That series was a blowout. Like there were close games. - Yeah. - It was a sweep. And it was like we got the gentleman sweep between the T-Wolves and the Mavs. - Yep. - We got a seven game series between the T-Wolves and the Nuggets. - Yeah, that was fun. - I'd say that was a highlight. - That was a great series. - This game seven was a dud. - Yep. - And then like we had a seven game series at MSG, but that one was a dud too. - Jalen Bronson-San literally disintegrated at the end of it, so. - Yeah, I will say that this is, it feels like it's conspiring to give us one of the all-time great finals. - No. - Man, you think about what's at stake here. And I was going through some of the storylines, which we're gonna get to right now. - Yep. - But the Celtics in this incarnation, the Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown of it all, in their second finals, having the dominant regular season that they did, having the dominant postseason that they did, facing the tomato cans that they did. Against the Mavericks team that's been underdogs against every single team they played in the postseason, but with the guy that I think is in the running to be considered the best player not to win an MVP in Luca Doncic, definitely. Could stamp that home with a series? Like, it really does feel like this could be an all-time or starting tonight. - Yeah, and I mean, so much of it is where we need sports to start with, right? There's always stakes when you get to this point. You could have two teams that had never met each other. There's no cross-pollination on the roster. And yes, the just stakes of the Larry O'Brien trophy, and that will pull it out of you. But sports, it's at its absolute best when there's emotion and there's storylines heading into things and the players feel it. This isn't just something that we have concocted. We all saw the exit in Boston. And yeah, I think there has been a lot of time and a lot of growing up. And I think that's all part of the story that makes it so compelling. But I mean, for me, I won't say it ends with, but it all begins with Kyrie Irving and heading back. And the player he has become and listening to him talk about maturing and then him talking about LeBron maturing as he grows up as well. Kyrie Irving is at kind of the center of all this for me. And like, that doesn't take away from any of the Celtic storylines or what's going on with Luca. But it feels to me like one way or another at the end of all of this, the loudest conversation we're going to be having is about Kyrie Irving, I think. - Maybe he's already got his. Like, I think we know what he is as a player, right? Like, he's an incredible, incredible player. Hit the best shot was the second best player on a championship team with LeBron James against an all-time team in the Golden State Warriors. I have that as my second best or most interesting storyline. How does Kyrie react to the vitriol he's going to get in his return to Boston, right? Like, he said all the right things. He's done all the right things. He's become this guy that really did feel like it was impossible. He would become again, I guess, because he was a pretty good citizen when he was with LeBron. - For sure. - In Cleveland, after everything that has surrounded him, specifically during the pandemic. - Totally. - Did we think we'd get to this point where it would look so cohesive in Dallas? Can he keep it together when Dave Portnoy is like a foot away from his face screaming at him? Profanities. Can he keep the double birds in his pocket? - Yeah, I hope not personally. - I mean, I also hope not. - Yeah, I think he will. But I've got it. - When I prove a concept that like that can get through to him, like how much Sage is going to be required to keep him contained, to me the second biggest storyline of this series. - Yeah, there's no way that he is not going to be the loudest part of this, at least early on. Like once we're deep into this and it's about how do those two match up with Tatum and Brown, I think a lot of that is going to, we'll get into a lot of that. From the jump, yeah, Kyrie back and God, how many posters are there going to be of him smushing the Celtics, whatever they call it, Celtic, whatever, the leprechaun? - Lucky. - Lucky, okay, sorry. That they're going to be smushing his head in there and you're just going to see that image over and over and over again. And this is the classic thing with a player like him who causes so much emotion, not of himself, but of other people, how does he react to it, right? Like it really feels like it's complete fuel or it's complete fire. And I'd love to sit here and tell you have the answer. I think it's going to be fuel. I think he's going to be amazing. But I also think if the game's not going the way it's supposed to, you could easily see a breaking point. And everybody to your point, especially everybody in Gucci Row down there in Boston, they know that they feel like they have a job to do for this game as well. - Yeah, to me, the number one storyline is the legacy series that exists between Jason Tatum and Luca Dodge it, right? Like for Tatum, it's, you lose again. And I understand like, hey, Mavericks are full value for being in this position. They were a fifth seed though, coming out of the Western conference. And Tatum's been here before. Shot only 37% in that first finals appearance against the Warriors. He's been the number one reason they haven't gotten over the hump, including last year's conference finals disappointment where they go down 3-0 to the Miami Heat. And then forced to game seven on home court. And below that game, I get it. The Heat shot a quadrillion percent from three, which is not there I'm all, but so what? Like, you're allowed to have the game of your life. Another loss in the finals is the favorite. And boy, does he become the number one playoff choker in the league? It's possible. And Luca, like if he picks up his first, in his first appearance at 25. LeBron was 27 when he was first in Miami. So Tatum's actually younger than LeBron was two before he, yeah, his first in that. I don't think we're having the all-time great conversations with Tatum, but like maybe, maybe we are. It does feel like that possibility exists. Like that at the end of Luca's career, we could be looking at him as a top 10 player in the history of the sport. Yeah. But like it becomes like a counting thing for Luca, I feel like he's playing with House Money. If he arrives in his first finals and wins his first title for Tatum, it feel like the negative stakes are way more evident with him. Yeah, definitely. I think there's a world where Luca Donchich comes in, balls out, loses the finals. And we sit here and pat him on the butt and congratulate him on a good, an amazing season for him, the steps that you're supposed to take. Kind of doesn't matter what Jason Tatum does if the Celtics don't win. Like it could be 40 point night after 40 point night. But if we're going to do, you brought up the LeBron comparisons. If we're going to do it that way, there's going to be one moment where it's, ah, was he scared to go to the line late? Did he make the right read? Did he hit the maker miss shot? And we're going to see that from him. Tatum is such a tricky one to me. And this isn't like, this isn't new ground. I'm telling here, but this is what happens when you have not the best second best, third best, fourth, fifth best player in the league. But you maybe have the sixth, seventh, eighth best guy in the league. He is the focal point of the league's best team that you're going to sit here. And I think it's a fair thing to say like, yeah, Jason Tatum, just not as good as Luca Donchich. And that shouldn't be a knock on him. But if he thinks he's not the seventh best guy in the league or whatever it is, and he is truly one of the three or four players that matter, of his generation, then this has got to be the time for it. I think that he is the guy that will wear it the most from this series. I don't see a world where Luca Donchich is wearing this. Like, yes, if he completely lays an egg, we're going to put that on him. I just, I don't see that happening at all from him. Jalen Brown, he's playing, you want to talk about house money, he just won the conference finals MVP. And he's not supposed to be the guy driving the bus. Don't tell him that because I guess that's disrespectful and you're being mean to him. But he's not supposed to be Jason Tatum. He's supposed to be the robin there. So I can't see a world where he's the one wearing it. Unless Tatum is so transcendent and Brown just can't do anything at all. Tatum almost feels like, and obviously there's a win to be had. He's great, he wins a chip, it's finals MVP. You're off and running. But outside of that very fine window, there's no win. There's no moral victory for Jason Tatum. And I think with just about every other star in this series, you can make the case where it's, they would never say this. They would never feel this, but it's not a true loss, a detriment to how we look at them in their career. Tatum is the one guy that's gonna wear it that way. >> Yeah, I think that whole Celtics team has more to lose than they have to gain. They have lots of game, champions, champions. >> Yeah, but they don't lot to lose. Like, outside of Jason Tatum too, this is a team that won 64 and 18 during the regular season, ran away with the Eastern Conference. They went 37 and four at home this season. They just cleaned up during the postseason. They've lost only twice so far to that point. Like what does it, what does this mean? Like how dominant is this team? If they win a championship, and especially if it's in dominating fashion, over this Mavericks team, okay, it's not a 71 season. But we can put this in the annals of one of the most dominant overall seasons. >> Yeah. >> In the history of the NBA. But yeah, they beat the heat with no butler. They beat the cows with no Donovan Mitchell. They beat the Pacers with no Tyreys Halliburton. The possibility exists that this team isn't so good. Like, if they lose in this, we're going to talk about the Eastern Conference this year. Like, we talked about all the guys MJ. Oh, a bunch of plumbers out there. That is how we will look back at the Eastern Conference. It's like, who has the most to lose or gain? It's the respect of the Eastern Conference is honestly what's at stake here. But yeah, from a house money perspective, it's one team, one team like rolled into Vegas, found 500 bucks on the floor. And it's like, all right, let's go have some fun. And that's the Mavs. And the other team, like, okay, here's my mortgage money. Let's go double it. Like, that's how the Celtics feel right now heading into it. It's like, yeah, they can win. They could be great. They could accomplish the thing. But there's just, it's so much more at stake. There's so many more pitfalls for them. >> I got another one here, please. This is perhaps the conclusion of the Jason Kid redemption story as a head coach, right? All-time player, Hall of Fame player. He was kind of a joke as a head coach the way he exited Milwaukee with Giannis. Giannis was not quite Giannis, but he was like, Giannis when he was there. And he departs. Mike Boudenholzer arrives and championship is had. And since then, he was like, LeBron's catty a little bit in LA. And like, okay, he's getting another kick of the cam with a Luca. That's an interesting decision considering the lack of success with the previous super star he worked with. >> If he wins a championship with Luca, I mean, I don't care how much actual impact he has on the game, cuz I think an NBA head coach at the best of times is very minimal. But we can talk about him as being one of the more desirable head coaches in the league, as well as a Hall of Fame player. There's a huge, huge redemption story angle for Jason Kid. And a legacy angle for Jason Kid is a head coach in this series. >> Yeah, it's very much a play. I think the other thing that you have to factor into that is that he has the worst team in the series. If he was coaching the Celtics, we'd be going, okay, seem to come to, he seemed to find himself in a good spot. Not that we wouldn't give him credit here, but it'd be a little more like, okay, Joe Missoula, you're here too, congratulations. With the Mavs, again, I don't think it's some transcendent scheming by Jason Kid that's got them to this point. There's one guy and it's Luca Donch, it's got them to this point. And again, like the gaffer, the PJ Washington, all of that. But it's about what Luca has done. But I think that because of that, we will give Kid more credit than if he had coached the Celtics team to the kind of exact spot there. So no, I think that's a very, very strong one. >> Yeah, ultimately, I think the Mavericks are in the best spot you'd want to be in pro sport is where you're the underdog, like decidedly, you're the underdog, you're not favored, you're fifth in the Western conference, you've been an underdog in every series, why wouldn't you be an underdog against 64 win Celtics team that's only lost twice in the postseason? But you have the best player, is anyone debating that? Like I guess in Boston, they would say the Jason Tatum is the guy. >> They would sit here and quibble with that, but they're wrong. >> No, they're wrong. >> No, like use your peepers. Like yeah, Luca Donchich is the better of the two when I mean, if we're just going on MVP voting this season, he finished third behind Chae Gilgis Alexander and Nicola Yoge and MVP voting. But yeah, let's look at Donchich is one of the top three players in the league. >> Well, and just, I mean, Pedigree doesn't always indicate where things are going to head with this, but just this is where these guys, and I'm just going to make this about Tatum and Donchich, it's like this is where they're supposed to be. Like Jason Tatum was a fine player, he was a fine prospect in high school, he was a fine draft pick, he was a fine rookie. But he was always thought to be one of the guys who had a chance to join that club. Luca Donchich was in that club when he was 16 years old playing for men's teams in wherever, like whatever, you know, European city he was in at any given time. I think Real Madrid was where he played some of his ball, but like Luca has been on this trajectory of not a good player in the NBA, not an all star, not a guy who could lead the league in scoring. He was on the trajectory to have the chance to no, not be Jordan, no, not be LeBron, but be that guy for his generation. And I think that that's just the difference you're seeing between the two, and quite honestly, I think it's the difference you're going to see between the two in the series. And there's nothing wrong, Jason Tatum might disagree. There's nothing wrong with being the seventh best basketball player in the world. It is not like some cross you should bear, unless you're going to sit here and put your hand up and say, but I'm not that guy. I'm the fourth, third, fourth, fifth, whatever you want to say. And I think it's going to become very appearing in this series. The difference between that doesn't seem like a lot when you go from the third best or whatever you think Luca is to the seventh best or whatever you think Tatum is. It's going to look like a lot in this series, I think. I agree with you 100%. All right, time now for the Canadian football report brought to you by Securian Canada, the official life insurance partner of the CFL, the CFL season officially getting underway tonight with a rematch. Last season's gray cup game. We got the Winnipeg blue bombers hosting the Montreal alawats. The als, of course, won that game last minute touchdown in Hamilton upsetting Winnipeg team that couldn't finish off a 14 in four regular season. The blue bombers are the favorites to win the gray cup this season Friday. We got tie cats and stamps from Calgary. Both of those teams made the playoffs last year, but both lost in the first round last season. Rachel making his return to Calgary, then on the weekend, you got the riders in Edmonton on Saturday and the Argos opening up their season on Sunday, hosting the BC Lions. No check, Kelly, obviously for the Argos. He suspended Chad Dukes looks like he's the starting QB. Is it Argos team that started to build some momentum in the city in a disappointing playoff exit for them a season ago? Yeah, it's frustrating. They, you know, they've got the not new but newish home at BMO there. It's got a little bit more of a fun atmosphere and I will just say Chad Dukes. That's a great handle. I don't know how he's going to perform, but it sounds like strongly. It's Cameron Dukes. I'm being told, but regardless, Cameron Dukes Chad Dukes. It doesn't matter. Dukes for your quarterback, strong name. I like it. Argos last season finished 16 and two during the regular season. That was first in the East. Yeah, go back to that East final game against the Montreal alawats where they were the heavy favorites for interceptions from Chad Kelly, including a lost fumble as well. Let's see if they can hold off the rest of the Eastern division before Chad Kelly returns, maybe for the second half of the season. That was the Canadian football report brought to you by Securian Canada, the official life insurance partner of the CFL. When we come back, Blue Jays in a positive mind frame after a walkoff victory over the Baltimore Orioles yesterday. It's not been a good season though, in an overall sense. We'll divvy up the blame. Blue Jays blame Pine next as the fan morning show continues. Ben Anis, Brent Gunning, Sportsnet 590, the fan.
