We're happy America's birthday, everybody. But if your mileage on that may completely vary, including producer Jeff has party who had nothing but fun, I'm sure texting all the Americans, you know, is being like, so barbecue beers and sports radio at 815 in the morning. Yeah. One. Hey, we have these days, man. And kudos. Jeff has party cooked up a great lineup as always. But I remember it from my producer days. I know you're still grinding in those very trenches occasionally, Danielle. But yeah, we do appreciate all our friends that join us on holidays. But this one, an American Thanksgiving where the two days like I was not cut out for producer life because just the idea of like, you know, like bothering people and not like I'm no good at it to begin with. But then on a holiday, it's like, Hey, you're going to have your most fun day of the year. Like everyone heard me have a candidate show. I had to work, but my work was over with at nine in the morning. And then we turned that part of the brain clicked it right off. Okay. Nobody likes working on holidays. So yeah, everybody still worked a for a lot of people in the States. But yeah, here regular, regular Thursday, I am very envious of the Americans because they do holidays way better than us. They they 100% do it incredibly better than us. And it starts with you mentioned Thanksgiving us we bury it in October. And it's like a maybe you're off. Maybe you're not maybe you're doing something. Maybe you're not. And then when it comes to even Canada today, which is I think Canada is a great celebration. It's really cool. I always enjoy the tradition of of what goes on down at Roger Center with all the festivities and the pageantry surrounding that game and the significance of it. But still the 4th of July cannot be beat in terms of summertime holidays. Because guess what? Our American friends are going to be sitting at home or sitting on a beach for four days. Yeah, that's what's happening. They do love a Thursday holiday. And then it's like Friday don't ask any questions about it. They're smart gunner. They know what they're doing. You're nobody's working tomorrow. No, no, no, no, no. All those offices are closed. No, it's not. It's not even a work day that's quasi holiday. No, it's completely. Don't bother showing up. Everybody's good. We're all chilling and relaxing. Some some assistant coaches kid is in putting Bronnie Jr through his paces tomorrow at the Lakers facility. No, that's not happening. No, no, no, we all know the real coaches LeBron I was going to say you also notice I included there's probably a nipple baby coach poking around there. It involved as well. So let me let me include that. You're right. I this is long with my hobby horse of I mean, like Canada Day don't change it. Just let me talk about hockey all day. It's actually kind of perfect. You want baseball? Go to baseball. Yeah, that's true. Talk about hockey all day. So I would not change a thing about Canada Day. I actually think it is perfect for like the you know, natures of our two nations for lack of a better term that ours is a much more kind of chill. You still have some fun, but it's a little more laid back because you're getting to work on Tuesday. Okay. And America, they get after their America. Okay. So they're going to do that. Yeah. So I actually think it's very fitting there. The Thanksgiving thing I have I have long drum on this. I'll continue to do so. Hey, NHL figure it out. You got seven Canadian teams, make Seattle play Vancouver and let's have a quadruple header on Canadian Thanksgiving. And then we get like the American, you get to gather around the television, even people who don't care. They're like, Oh, is the leaf game on or whatever or the last playing again? Yeah, that guy. Good thing with that. Gunner is football rules the day. Yeah. And that's why the NHL and every other professional sports league will bend the knee to the national football league. Are you saying Canadian Thanksgiving? It's our Thanksgiving. You know what? Okay. It's ours. It's a good point. Yeah. That is a fair point. I know. I will also add one other league that routinely never gets its act together when it comes to this. And we're going to talk about them actually. I know. I know. The Canadian football league always fumbles the bang. They always fumble. I know. God, man. Like, like you got to protect your your bread there and take care of it because a football is we it controls all of our aspirations. You got to you got to make sure you take care of that thing. And every year they screw up by never scheduling games on holidays or the period dead periods where people are just eager to find any sports to consume. It's always a missed opportunity. Why can't we be better? I've said I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is no world where the CFL should not have a game a day during baseballs, which is in a couple weeks or something like that, right? Like, it's just you're gonna and I'm not I'm not so blind to the reality that some dude in, I don't know, Wyoming is like, Oh, gee, nothing's on. Thank God. I have the CFL. Like, you know, like, guys, probably gonna go fly fishing or whatever it is they do out there. Okay. Like, I don't think he's so so much dying for sports, but there are those people like us that exist. We need stuff to talk about. I agree. You got to fit in where you where you get in. And I do love the idea of leagues like trying to own a day now. It's tougher when the NFL just owns all the days, like NBA. It's had Christmas forever until and it's not like Christmas and the NBA will always be synonymous. The NFL is just trying to make sure they like and us too. We're here as well. But I do think it's great that like even like I'm not going to pretend I'm like some huge soccer guy, but I believe it's like boxing day, the Premier League, it's like big loaded schedule, all the games and that's what you want, right? Like I am such a and it, you know, I know sports doesn't mean the matter for everybody, but it's always to me. It's like, you're gonna watch a movie in a holiday gathering. Be like, I'm trying to hear this. I'm trying to hear this. And it's like, yes, that does happen with the game. But he always always like at least like the bigger the gatherings been. It's like, it's almost two rooms for watching the game. There's like watching the game in air quotes. And there's watching the game. And it's like, there's a basement. There's a living room. I just love the idea of having a sport to like kind of surround everything. So yeah, I don't even know how we ended up here. I don't know. But I'm totally agree. Well, I think we ended up here because happy fourth of July to everybody down south. And if you're awake at six a.m. in the morning, I mean, what are you doing with your life? Go back to sleep and join your holiday celebrations down south. And if you are awake in the GTA, and you're in your kitchen, get in the car right now, right now. I don't care. Coffee's brewing. You're not dressed. Just go. You're going to need it. You're going to need it. You're going to need it out there. Obviously, tragic accident on the on the gardener. I was wondering what happened when generally speaking, you know, you see the signs on the highway overpass and like, and we always see it on the gardener now. It's just the blinking reminder of this one. They're down to two lanes destruction. Dufferin closed. They're just like, you may not proceed on the gardener. I believe it's what the signs had may not proceed. It's like, I can't get one lane pass note. So obviously, tragic accident. But if you are commuting this morning and think a lot of you are, you're going to need a lot of extra time. So I don't know, start groveling to your boss or start arriving or leaving earlier. Those are basically your only two options. And I think the, I think the option is going to be both. And also, boss is out there. Like, come on. Be understanding. Okay. It's summer stuck at end of summer. You're lucky. You're lucky these people even here could be a remote day. Oh, I'd be, I would be greasing those wheels immediately if I was working like, Oh, what do you want? What do you want? There's nothing I could do? I can come in and get there at 11 30. Maybe noon. Maybe traffic's a little wash. Let's just call it off. She'll send some emails from home to be 2020 all over again. It was kind of 2020 all over again for the Blue Jays for five minutes, a competitive baseball game there. You know, once upon a time, we just asked for meaningful September baseball. Last night, we got meaningful seventh inning baseball for about 30 seconds. And then the Astros just lit in to Zach pop. This has been one of my takes that has aged very poorly. It's been it's aged like milk right before my eyes this week. I've been a pop believer. The idea of a power sinker ball guy out of the pen that should profile really well. He's got some like we, I think I also bought into the idea that we've seen this movie before of reliever comes in. It kind of takes him a while to find a footing with the team that the khakis get to work with them for a little bit. Then you get a better version of the player has not been the case, especially this week. Man, it was right there for the Jays and just flitted away in the in the blink of an eye back to back crooked innings in the seventh and eighth. And that was that. Yeah, I mean, again, goes back to what the state of the bullpen is right now. It's reflective of the lack of depth coming out of the bullpen. And we get the news yesterday about Jordan Romano. He undergoes surgery, arthroscropic surgery to repair an impingement in his elbow, whatever that means. Not good. Not good, obviously. He can't touch a baseball for at least six weeks, let alone try and recover to rejoin the team at some point. And then, you know, we did get a more positive update on Yumi Garcia, Jimmy Garcia, that he is, he is progressing and looks like he's probably headed on on a rehab stint pretty soon here, which is encouraging. Obviously him being a marquee trade chip for this team ahead of the July 30 deadline. But again, you know, when you're throwing the likes of pop with all due respect, pop, little, I was a qua boy, you know, and you're bumping guys like Richards, green, even Pearson into the highest of leverage situations. Anytime you're in medium leverage, you're going to be compromised. And a gunner, if you that that clip, the intro that we played, yeah, coming off the top of the show, did not sound like Buck Martinez was absolutely disgusted. Oh my God, he was angry. Oh my God. He wanted, he wanted a flesh. He wanted a pound of flesh for what he had to watch last night in that ball game with how the bullpen performed. But you say Kakuchi did his part, like, he's gonna bounce back for him for all for sure, because he's been fighting it a little bit recently. And he looked comfortable. He had one inning where it was a little bit labor some. And that was the 30 through 34 pitches, I believe in that inning. Safe for that, he was pretty effective and efficient the rest of the way exits in a two one ball game. The J's end up tying the game and everything. Okay. All right, here we go. Here we go. And sure enough, the bullpen goes on to give up seven, the backbreaker. Actually, there were two things you pointed out, Zach, pop. I think things started to spiral a little bit. It's crazy to say because it was a one play. But the routine little check swing ground in front of the mound that he failed to corral and make that routine toss over to first base. That's where it started to go sideways. Then here comes Jose Quas. And I mean, gosh, that guy's just, he's not fit to be a major league pitcher. It's plain and simple. Three pitches, he throws three pitches, fails to record it out. It goes RBI single, hit by pitch to load the bases, hit by pitch to walk in a run. And then finally, you see, in the dugout, Pete Walker stirring. And he's like kind of poking in John's ear and is like, you got to get this guy out of here. John, he is, this is not, this is not good, John. He is not a major leader. Like this is not, he's not qualified to be standing on that rubber. And from that point forward, the game's over. You know, you threw away the ball game and you're hanging in there. Even while throughout this entire series, they have been unable to neutralize or mitigate the damage that has been done by a guy like your down Alvarez, who is the one guy you'd circle in that Houston lineup and say, this guy cannot beat us. He's been crushing them. And yet they've still been in ball games. Last night though, it's the bullpen. It's the bullpen that turns a close game into an absolute route. And it's reflective of the lack of depth they have down there right now. Yeah, the bullpen obviously blew that one for them. But I mean, you go to Alvarez and I, you know, not to make everything in the whole world, not about the Leafs, but about Vlad Jr. But that's just the difference right there. I mean, it's your, your favorite term. Everybody in baseball loves it. It's like, there's a difference between what Vlad is and the true aircraft carrier that is, you're on Alvarez. That is a guy that just buoys a lineup single handedly. And I don't say that that that should not be an indictment of Vlad. He has named an all star starter. By the way, yesterday, we should probably talk about that at some point in time, maybe after seven o'clock. But sure, the, the idea that that's the schism that you see between those two players right there, you see what Alvarez is capable of. And it's the pop. That's the difference, man, is that he can give you all the stuff flag can give you, but it leaves the yard or it's a loud, loud double seemingly every other event. And obviously, that's not the case. So the numbers would look way better than they do, not that the numbers aren't incredibly impressive in their own right. But that's you just see that guy being a J killer. And I mean, go talk to all the teams in the ALS. I bet they'll tell you the exact same thing about that guy and what he's done to them for, I don't know, the entirety of this Astros run. Do you know where he came from? No. Okay. The backstory is interesting. The LA Dodgers are usually the ones that are the beneficiaries of these situations. That's he was a Dodger. He was a Dodger prospect. And they traded him to Houston. And it was for some like middling reliever. This is obviously a mixed Dodger being contenders routinely year in your own. But if you're talking about a guy that they probably look back on and say, how we shouldn't let that one get away, it's yard on Alvarez. Because from the moment he stepped into a major league batter's box, all he's done is rake and dominate. And to illustrate, you mentioned he's a J killer. He owns the highest career OPS at Roger Center ever all time. It's 12. It's a 1.218 or 1,200 OPS. He's ahead of likes of Freddy Freeman Carlos Correa. Like some of these really, really good quality high level hitters. And in this series alone through the first three games heading into the series finale this afternoon, six for 11, three homers, a pair of doubles, eight RBI and a 1,500 OPS. Come on. Like that, that's where the difference is. And if you just want to sort of dumb it down and summarize, what is the difference in this series so far between the J's and the Astros? You say, okay, read your down Alvarez's numbers. And that tells you the story right there. That's the difference. Yeah, it's right there. You lay it out in front of it. And that guy is able to single handedly do it. Obviously, he doesn't always have to, right? They have other capable bats in that lineup. But this goes something to, you know, made it sound like I was dumping on Vlad. Now I'm going to boost him up a little here. This goes to something I've talked about the whole season long with him is that we would feel so much differently about him as a hitter if there was one of those poking around. Like Alex Braggman, we could have a very different conversation and like part of it is world series champion. I'm not going to like just skate past that. We get to have a very different conversation about who Alex Braggman is because he gets driven in all the time and there's men on base all the time and that little single or his, you know, slashy double. Guess what? Those turned into RBI's because there's always chances in a good offense like Houston is produces. And you know, I don't, I don't say that to diminish what Alex Braggman does, but it's just if there was no Alvarez, even if there was no Al Tuvay, and it was just that guy you're looking at, you know what? We wouldn't be sitting here saying, Oh God, that Alex Braggman want to play or we'd be sitting here saying you need a little more out of him for sure to be the best player on this team. You need more of them. So I just think that is this Houston team kind of perfectly illustrates both sides of the Vlad debate. Like, yes, if he is going to be, you know, mister walking to Cooperstown and 500 homers and all this, then yeah, it's got to look more like Alvarez. But also if there was more just competency, quite frankly, around him, we'd be having way different conversations about him. I would also add there aren't many teams that boast that caliber of player. And I think that is an important point to hone in on because if we shortlist some of the most elite, threatening, run producing bats in baseball, he's maybe not the first name that you mentioned, but he's certainly within your top five, if not top three, you're going judge, you're going Otani. And then I would argue you probably should go, you're not an Alvarez, although you can make a case for some other guys, like even the way Mookie, when he's going, Mookie's unbelievable and he's so diverse as a hitter, but he's right up in that conversation. And not every team is going to have that. So you either need to find a way to compliment your better players with a more well rounded lineup, or you need to have one of those guys that can mask some of the other flaws on your team. And Breggman's a great example, because, you know, Breggman routinely throughout his career, yes, he's a serial winner. He's won a lot. He's got a couple of World Series rings. But if he's sitting 260 and driving in, sure, he's going to drive in 90 plus runs, he always routinely does that. Is that still going to, can you constitute that as a true bonafide middle of the order bat year in Europe? No, so the conversation is different. And I think this is where the Blue Jays, not maybe it's not a miscalculation, but maybe it's not fair to those players. And we've sort of hit on this, it's not fair to Vlad, it's not fair to bow, that we have to elevate them and place them on this pedestal, when maybe they're not that caliber of player, but they're still very good. Yep. And that's okay to be very good. If that's the case, then it's now the onus on the front office and the decision makers to figure out how do we then best surround them with better pieces, better complimentary pieces and find a run producer? Like Kevin Barker has been saying this for two plus years now. They don't have a true cleanup hitter, a true run producer in the middle of the order, even Tay Oscar, who is a great, great player in his own right, is Tay Oscar a true bonafide like cleanup hitter, run producing threat that you really look at and say, okay, I know I can pencil in 35 and 100. No, he has that in him. But even him, he wasn't that lock to do it every single year. I think it's, it's important. And it's a very small number. It's a short list of guys that you can point to and say, okay, if that player is in our lineup, it drastically changes the equation altogether just by their presence alone. And Alvarez is a prime example of that. Yeah, he really is. And you know, there's, it also, we should mention in this conversation that you don't have to have that guy. Now I, I am of the belief that now playoff baseball, anything can happen. So this isn't like a hard and fast black and white rule. I am of the belief you have to have one of those guys to win a World Series. There will always be outliers and everything. But I think when we're standing here looking at it all said and done at the end of the year, he's one of them backs came up short. Part of it didn't have one of those guys in the lineup. You know, I'd look at a team like the Guardians, right? And they seem to be much more of the like, Hey, everyone pulling on the rope. Yeah. Okay. Well, Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor both have 20 bombs this year already. Okay. They are much closer to those guys than anybody on the Jay's. Vlad is leading the team with 13. And then you have Varsha with 11. And the babe himself, Davis Schneider on the team in homers. Okay. And he's been talking about a guy that's quietly been really struggling. I mean, we've had a Davis Schneider to moment moment, right? And guess what, though? This is part of the problem of when you build your team with Davis Schneider is it got it was scary how quick it went from, wow, what a fun story. And then last year played out the way it went to this year of, yeah, well, you know, maybe you'll be in the lineup. Maybe he won't too. He's in the lineup every day. And it then quickly went to beyond Vlad and Bo who do you trust? And like there were just a Turner moments in there, but it was Davis Schneider for sure. That is an indictment of everybody in the org with the exception of Davis Schneider quite frankly. So I just, I look at it that way. That's, that's it right there. Even this guardian's team that we sit there and we go, oh, they do it the right way. If you're going to be the team without super, you know what we would be calling Jose Ramirez. If he played third base in this city, a superstar is what we'd be calling him. Okay. Like Josh Naylor. Oh my God. You think we wouldn't be having a little fun with that story right now. If it was happening here, we know how to do that one hometown kid happens. We're very good at that one. Okay. We've had a lot of practice at that one. We would talk about that team in a completely different way if they played here. So I think that's the, that's the thing it's going to keep coming back to. There are a million holes on this team. Okay, the rotation is not what it once was the bullpen. I still feel the high end pieces can, you know, like Ramano, we throw him away for a second Garcia. I still think when you come back, yeah, faith in that. But certainly the other pieces of that pen are very wishy-washy at best. But it all comes back to the offense. It's a now I'm going to do a leaf parallel. We can complain about the defense and we can talk about the goal tending. You scored two runs yesterday. You scored two runs. You're going to win a game to one every time? Tough ass. Now the tricky thing with that is they have been scoring runs, right? Like that's, that's where recently we can't necessarily point to the offense. This is where very much reminds me of Jay's teams. Okay, hold on. They've been scoring runs with George Springer, turning back into George Springer over. Yeah, it's like, are we going to have that continue? That, I mean, you can't probably, you probably can't bank on that. I, but, but here's what you probably can at least think there's some stability and consistency. You point out Vlad and you say, look at what Vlad's done. We hope he can continue to do that because I am in agreement. Like, you can't bank on George being the George of 2019. No, like that's just not realistic. And you're hopeful that Bo will eventually find, find some success where he starts to turn around and you see some, some semblance of what he used to be. But in recent sample, they have been scoring runs and, and the actual barometer, if we look at clear benchmarks for this team, when they score five runs or more, they win a heck of a lot of games. When they score five fewer than five, they lose a lot of games. In fact, I think they're, yesterday was their 40th loss when they score fewer than fewer than five runs in a game. They're eight and 40 in those games, Gunnar. So when they score, more often than not, it puts you in a position to win. I will say, just to go back to the bullpen for a second, and this is very much an indictment on the organization as a whole. I am, it's astonishing to me how you can have, that's the best you can do. Like it, like you can find, you see this urine in your out across Major League Baseball. You can probably find better arms than Jose Quas sitting on the scrap heap. Guys that haven't picked up a ball in two months that could probably go out there and at least give you something more than what you got. It's just so frustrating and deflating when yesterday they're in it, because not all games are going to be five two for the J's. It's not going to happen. You got to win some close ones here and there. In fact, they did that all of last year, skating by winning close games. And yesterday, you're thinking, okay, we're competing against a team that's been really hot, we're sort of scraping away here, we're trying to scratch a claw our way to pick up the pieces and try and win a ball game. And then here comes a guy with zero pedigree, zero experience, completely let you down. And I'm just thinking that it's embarrassing and pathetic that that's the best we can do. That was my thought in the moment. How was that? How are we sitting here in early July? And this guy comes out of the pen in a tie game. And he's the one that you're going to let cost you a victory. It may just, I couldn't, I couldn't wrap my head around. Yeah, no, the pitching, the pitching depth on the hole has been frustrating, right? This is what we've talked about when Manoa goes down and Yuri Rodriguez is on the aisle at the same time when you're having trouble just finding a fifth starter. That's been the thing that's irked me more. You know where your bullpen guys are supposed to come from? Like, you know, who Jose Quas is supposed to be is some guy that was a failed starter that is now in your pen. Like that's where it's supposed to cut. They don't even have that. Like the idea of the quad a guy who can come up and hey, eat his spot in the rotation. This isn't the beginning of some story. He's just going to go back to Buffalo when it's all said and that they just don't have those guys in New York. They've had to go out. And I mean, they've traded for their raw strip. Like obviously that was a, that was a different trade, but he was kind of more backfill. It wasn't expected to be the all-star starter he became. They tried it again with Mitch White, like the Dodgers recommendation project. Let's try again. That one didn't work out so well. But you shouldn't be going out and giving up stuff for those guys. Those should be guys that just work their way through your organ eventually get there. And you know, it's not to say it's a success story that they bumped their head against the major leagues. It can't quite hack it. But you need some of those guys throughout the course of a season. That's been the other thing that we've taken completely for granted over the last, I don't know what, two, three years. And it's crazy to say because Manoa just fell off the face of the earth, but they have had an incredible run of health with all these starting pitchers. I mean, Bassett, Gossman has had obviously the thing this year there was a little blip post all-star break. He's been incredibly durable burrios. Never ever has been on the I.L., right? You've seen that for him. Kakuchi available all the time and Bassett, like even when he, when she had a couple starts this year, I feel like we're sitting in the family. His neck is back. Guess what? Blister, he finds a way. Yeah. No, no. And those guys deserve a ton of credit because when you're paying, especially when you're paying for starting pitching at that level, that tier, which the guys have invested. Yeah, they've shopped. Those guys better post for you routinely year in your own. And to their credit, to their credit, they identified in burrios, Bassett, Gossman, three guys that have consistently done that. So that's a plus work there from the front office and on the players part of being, as you use the word durable, consistently durable, and trustworthy, and dependable. That's important. The point that you raise in regards to sort of this natural flow of these guys that are on the periphery of your roster, end up factoring in maybe occasionally, they have a bit of a, they have a moment, and then they go away, like you desperately need that to happen. This goes back to development. Like why even, and I say this as respectfully as possible, like Brian Servins out there last night and he's in the lineup because Danny Jansen's on paternity leave, who we expect he's going to be back today. And once that roster transaction occurs, guess where Brian Servin goes? He's back down in the minors. He understands his role. He's aware that he tried. And that's why last night to look like he was fighting tooth and nail anytime he's in the box. Because he knows I'm trying to make the most of this opportunity as best I can. Where are the Brian Servins on the pitching side? Great. I say that respectfully. Like I'm not trying to diminish or say that, use that as an indictment towards the quality of player he is. He's a major like he's a pro athlete. Of course. But where are those type of guys on the pitching side? Why is it we got to go and we're talking about the same names over and over and over and over again. And the solution in the past three, four years, you can use this as a positive and both a negative. The J's have any time there's been a bullpen issue that has that has popped up. They've been aggressive in pursuing trades to go get those arms to backfill those spots. But at a certain point, guess what happened? You run out of assets. And then you're going to have you have a guy like Jordan Hicks who walks out the door for nothing. Well, who's in your system in your pipeline that can come up and help fulfill that role? There's nobody. They don't have that. Even the guys who we feel like, like, what happened to you for Zuviletto? What happened to him? Right? Like this was? Yeah. No, no, you're just names. No, but Hagen Danner. Remember we hear it's like, whoa, we'll hear about these guys and like the BNS and Shies of the world will rightly come on and say, hey, oh, look, I know you saw three digits on the gun, but settle down, young man. He's not going to be here for a while. And then I go, okay, fine. That's you, you're never going to show up. You know, you know better than I. And then we never hear from them again. It is just, it's a problem. You have to get guys from your system through your pipeline to the major leagues. And David Schneider is a great success story. Like honestly, all things considered, where he started, where he's ended up, even the way this season is trending still, like success story for the org. That can't be the biggest home run you've hit since Alec Manoa, who by the way, where's he? Oh, right. Not his fault. He's hurt. Like I'm not going to begrudge the player for being injured, but you don't get to hold that one up as like, hey, look what we did anymore. I genuinely have to, I mean, we have to research this and sort of dive deeper. But if you think about with the exception of Manoa, who's the last first round pick that has materialized into something meaningful, right? Like, and his development was accelerated. Oh, yeah. He arrived. He popped right away. Boom. He, he, he jumps up to the major leagues is instantly impactful. Awesome. Like even quite frankly, even if Alec Manoa doesn't pitch again for the Toronto Blue Jays, I would still consider that wildly successful in terms of the investment they made with that first round pick. Because guess what? He actually performed at a saw young caliber level on a major league mound. This organization and this front office in particular, give me other examples of guys that have actually panned out for them that they've drafted that have worked their way through the system and are now featuring prominently in the major leagues. There's none. There's nobody. Do you like Nate Pearson, who was their first round pick two years before? Do you like, and this one, this one again? Okay, let's see. Well, no, it's like it's the one everyone knows. It's Austin Martin, right? Like do they get credit for using that chip? But they get credit for using the chip properly to get a great asset in burio. Sure. But they don't get credit for him making the major leagues. Like he did that as a twin. And you know, returns may may vary there. And yeah, it's like, we'll see, right? Like the kid they drafted last year, like Arjun. He's young, we don't know right? Guess what? Guess what? The way that is trending going to be somebody else's success story. Quite honestly, quite honestly. All right. That's and that's the same, the same can be said for Bo Vlad, Gabby Moreno. Well, they didn't draft or sign Bo and Vlad, right? They didn't go and they were not part of that process. And yet they're the cornerstones of this team. Yeah, they were not responsible responsible for identifying and bringing those players in. It's part of the finicky nature of baseball too, right? As if you do go, and I don't think anyone's clamoring for right now just to get torn down to the absolute studs and have some lost in the wilderness half decade long rebuild. But if you do do that, the people that ultimately take credit for it will never like that are responsible for bringing those pieces in. Almost never are around to see it in the end. Just the nature of the sport just takes so long, you see it in other sports where it's like, there's no such thing as a, you know, like you have to draft and stash guy maybe who's overseas. But it's like, even that's not very rare, right? Not a thing anymore. Not the way it used to be. All right, we'll have plenty more on the J's, include him flatty, named all star starter. Do we give them enough credit for that? We'll talk about that later on. But Michael Grange mentioned some nots about Andrew Wiggins yesterday and we didn't have enough time to talk about it. So we're going to talk about it more on the other side of this here on the fan boarding show with Gunning and Dan Yellie on SportsNet 5.9 of the fan. Dive deep into Toronto Sports and the NFL. The J.D. Bunk is podcast. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. There's Michael Grange on a little program. I like to call this program fan morning show. He joined us yesterday. No, Grange, you're not. You didn't miss a hit. Don't worry. We talked to you. That's good. He's like, wait, he's listening in the car right now. That's, wait, my voice? There's only one place he'd be driving. Oh, yeah. He wouldn't be saying that. Let's be honest. Grange stripes it down the middle. He'll be a great athlete. Yeah, of course, of course. You could tell. Some of these guys just meet him. Hooper. Yeah, big time tell. Yeah, we won't get into, I was supposed to get into it. We got to save that for the summer topic. Like my power rankings of who would win the SportsNet. Oh, that's a good one. Number one, David Amber. Okay, let's just get that out of the way. Come on. It's not even close. That's pretty easy. It's pretty hocuscus coming, but like dad's strength from Amber. That Kyle's a good, I do it. He's a very underrated. If there is a hair event, I hate DA's chances there. I gotta say, I mean, I guess because I don't like anybody's like the guy normally sitting in this chair, it's the running joke that like we can't have a hocuscus on the show because it's like Ben might feel a little self-conscious because like the hair is too good. Even though it's radio, it shouldn't matter. All right. What are we talking about? Right. Andrew Williams. Okay. How many times we've been down this road? I feel I always want to throw this in there because I do think, especially with Canada basketball, like I know you never forget anything, but a lot of people have forgot the long winding road we've been on. And I think there is a, from some people, there's a perception out there, this guy never shows up. This guy has never put on the maple leaf. Not entirely true. Yes. He has shown up. He has at times now, there are certainly been times I would have loved to have seen him there, and he wasn't there. Dude, I don't don't lack that amount of frustration with all of you, but I just want to get the record straight on that. This is a guy that has shown up. He's played in tournaments that Canada's needed to win before, that if they would have won those tournaments, we would have sat here and talked about Andrew Wiggins leading Canada basketball back to the promised land. So let me just start there. Having said that, I don't love that it seems as though, based on what we know there, that there is no hard and fast rule in the contract that could prevent Wiggins from playing. I don't love that he doesn't want to get in a fight with the Warriors about this. And it seems like that's kind of where the rubber meets the road here, as the Warriors say, and we'd rather you not. We can't stop you, your grown man, there's nothing in your contract that prevents it. We would just rather you not. And he says, okay, that's fine by me. What was your kind of first blush reaction when you heard that from Grange? Admittedly, I'm sour. I am sour. I think it's important context and clarification, because that was my biggest question following that announcement being made on Friday, just hours prior to the team gathering for their first practice. We learned Andrew Wiggins is not going to show up. And he's withdrawn firmly withdrawn, you know, his participation in consideration for the Olympic team. And then it's sort of a mixed bag of messaging at that point. Canada basketball wasn't very clear about the reasoning behind it. We, you know, Grange did some digging, Doug Smith did some digging, and the general consensus was, well, this is sort of a decision that was not fully mandated, but encouraged by the Golden State Warriors. And my number one question after in the hours, as I'm trying to process this on Friday was, who has the final say? Yeah. Is there some some mechanism in place that would prevent the player, the athlete from having the ultimate autonomy to make that decision? And based off what Grange told us yesterday, the answer to that is no. And so because of that, given that information, what we know, I am sour, because Canada basketball, this program, that team, the nucleus of that team, Shea, Jamal Murray, Dylan Brooks, RJ, those guys went out of their way to welcome Andrew Wiggins into the program yet again with open arms. I think that's really important because I believe it was you hosting with me when we talked to Jordan. We talked for Jordan. Yes. And again, I don't want to completely paraphrase this, but the general consensus, I at least took out of that answer when I got asked about that was like, it's a team decision, but the team is the guys. Rowan, I think was more explicit. Right. He talked to him about it. He basically reiterated the exact same thing. It was important that we were happy to have him as long as the core guys who have been here through this entire process felt comfortable with him jumping on board at this particular point in time. And the answer judging by the fact that he was on the roster was presumably, yes, we want the most talent. We want the best players. If he's one of them, we'll gladly take them. And whoever those conversations were with, I'd imagine Shea was certainly one of the guys they talked to. I'd hope I would be my guess. Then you would assume, okay, fine, gladly, let's bring him in. And selfishly, I've all I've been waiting for so many years to see him, where the Canadian colors don that uniform in the most meaningful on the most meaningful stage possible. That's it. The Olympics is the that's it. That's the Holy Grail of international basketball. And I think it would have been really cool. I am sour that he's not there. I'm sour that part of this is seemingly still in his hands in terms of the dysfunctional decision-making process. If it was a case where, because I think you want to know something, imagine this story would have got out in the Warriors and reports indicated that the Warriors weren't exactly keen on him suiting up. But he said, eff it, I'm doing it anyway. We would have said, that's one of our guys. You are going to give them the next act. Yes, maple Jordan. Finally, finally, I've long held, I've long contended that it's the way that he was painted with the brush of being the next great thing for Canadian basketball wasn't fair to him. No, because is it his fault he ends up on the cover of Sports Illustrated being compared to LeBron? That's not his fault. That's not. And people do forget that throughout his entire youth, his entire upbringing to the point where he became an NBA player, he routinely participated in age group, international competition with Canada. He did, in fact, play for Canada a decade ago now, when things went sideways with Jay Triano, and they were trying to make the Olympics. He did show up when Nick Nurse was in his first go-around coaching this team to try and help them qualify for the Olympics in that last chance tournament. He's kind of been here in and out, but it's just a really, really checkered, jaded relationship between him, the program, and the perception of how us as basketball fans in this country, you him. Guess what? This conversation is interesting, because yesterday, O'Shea Bursette, who probably stood to benefit most from the fact that Wiggins and Zack Eadie had to withdraw, decided, I gotta leave. I gotta pick up my ball and go home, because he's got to worry about his next contract. He left the program yesterday. He left the team withdrew, no explanation provided. Him? Oh, there was three of them. It was him. Oh, I'm missing. I had the names. There were three guys yesterday. He was one of three, and all NBA players, that withdrew. We're not talking about them, though, right? We don't, people saw that and it's okay, whatever. I just, I don't know. I'm still, I would say I'm equally disappointed about what I saw yesterday with those three guys picking up and leaving at this stage of training camp, as I would be with Andrew Wiggins not showing up on day one. If anything, heck, at least Andrew did it before they started training and preparing for the tournament. At least he did it then. Yeah, I think the other, I think the other thing that probably is a big part of this. And, you know, I know this, this mileage does not matter at all for Canadian basketball fans. I wonder how much Wiggins wants to do the Oregon solid for them doing him a solid, right? Like he had his, you know, not unexplained to the team, but we have no idea why he was away from basketball activities for however long it was. And, you know, the team was able to keep that story quiet, not quiet and that we weren't asking questions, but I'm not saying what it is because we don't know what it was. And I do wonder if there's an element of that there. Now, again, I'd still would like him to say, Hey guys, that was great. You did me that solid. I'm going to go play in the Olympics. So, you know, Steph Curry, he's going to be there. Yeah, he's doing it. Yeah, I'm going to shake his hand. We'll play each other with a picture. Great picture. You put all warriors, social, do banger numbers, twitch stream. I don't know. Whatever kids are doing these days, TikTok, you could do it all. He's allowed to go and I can't. That's the part of it. That's just frustrating. I think the other thing that goes to it is that, you know, I was thinking of like the warriors would rather he not go, I don't know, like the thunder maybe given their druthers would rather lude or like forget shape for a second. No one's telling Shay what to do. But that's a part of it is that you're not telling Shay, he can't bring Lou with them over to France, right? Like it's all kind of tied together there. And I just think that that's the part of this that is that has to be mentioned as well is that I do think they're that Wiggins kind of probably wants to do a solid for the org given how they were able to kind of keep that thing under wraps, which again, like, if I was a Warriors fan, I'd still be dying to know what exactly happened there. So it's just, it's incredibly disappointing. And it just seems like for a time when Canada basketball, everything was supposed to feel so perfect. And look, man, like the Olympics can still be great. I'm not sitting here crying because O'Shabersett, Zach Edie and Wiggins aren't there. Like I like no disrespect to any of those guys. I think they'll be okay. It's like, that's the other thing about Wiggins is like there was a kind of perfect spot for him, but you also don't, you don't, you didn't need him, right? Like there will be a game where everybody else isn't going. You go, huh, maybe Wiggins could, you would, you will say that at some point in time, but like the idea of Canada dying for another longish wing defender that can, they're, they're kind of covered on that part of it. So I think that's the other element. It's just, it's so sad that it really did feel like everything was kind of reaching this crescendo. And who knows, maybe they go compete for a medal, go win a medal and not say that can't happen, but it just, it doesn't feel like rainbows and sunshine's like it did even what two weeks ago when we were talking to Rowan. Yeah, for clarity too. So I mentioned O'Shabersett, the other two guys was Leonard Miller and Carl Alexander. Right. Leonard Miller was brought in in lieu of Lou. Nice. In lieu of Zach Edie being drafted. So he was brought into camp and then within the span of what three days he's now gone. He disappeared, which is crazy. But, you know, I think there is something to, you know, you make a commitment, you got to stand by it. Totally. And, and I do feel like in, in this climate, it's too easy for a lot of these guys to just say, ah, you know, the, you know, pressure sort of amping up, it's ratcheted up a little bit, you know, I got my agent in my ear. I got the team in my ear. I'm just going to go sit at home. You know, like that happens too much. I hope Canada basketball remembers that. I do. Like you, Andrew Wiggins, and you know, like, let's see what his season looks like this year too, right? You want to talk about a guy at a crossroads of a career in terms of what to expect from him coming, right? There's a world where Andrew Wiggins performs to where, okay, like, let's have the conversation again. Let's do this again. But, you know, an O'Shea Brissette, somebody of, of that ilk, it's like, Canada basketball is not going to be producing fewer NBA players in the years going forward. It's only going to get tougher and tougher to make the team. Yep. And I don't think that should be like, O'Shea Brissette is now blackballed from Canada basketball. I'm not saying that or calling for that by any means, but I don't know, push comes to shove. Like we see this in all sports at all times. You know why guys go play in the World Hockey Championships? Part of it. There's like subclass of player that is looking going, I'm never going to play this best on best. I get to wear the uniform for my country. I'm going. There is absolutely an element to that. There are also some guys who probably played long NHL seasons and went, I'm kind of done, but they wanted to show up so they're continually on the radar, showing good faith in the program for the country. And I think as Canada basketball, it goes from, all right, do we have 12 to who are the best 12 to 15? You have to remember these things you do. That's a, that's a great point. And I think obviously it speaks to the influx of talent that continues to come into the program. And it's just, and as you mentioned, Gunner, it just keeps getting better and better and deeper and deeper. The thing with Wiggins, there's, you know, we love using the term proof of concept that phrase. There's an actual parallel here between him and Dylan Brooks and what the benefits of representing Canada this summer. God, God, like this is a great point. Think about how the image of Andrew Wiggins could have drastically changed if he went to the Olympics, played, you know, reasonably well, had a few moments. Yes, him Rudy. Go Bears face 100%. Had a few moments shows. And as I said, gosh, there is the maple Jordan guy we all, we were supposed to have was advertised to us for years. And then the perception of the player completely shifts in a two month span to now when he goes back to the NBA or even heck before the season, it actually helps the Warriors in making him a more valuable trade asset. Like nobody at this particular point in time probably has a fervent desire to table a meaningful offer to the Warriors of saying, you know what, we'll take that awful contract because we like the Wiggins guy. We like him. No, but if he went to the Olympics and he performed well, look what it did for Dylan Brooks in terms of rehabilitating his image after the Memphis Grizzlies explicitly told the world we're done. This guy does not belong here. We're done through him under a bus and ran him over twice. And then yet he still came out looking like a great soldier because he performed exceptionally well for Canada, became a beloved figure in this country. And now we look at him differently. And all he did was put the uniform on. That's all he did. And that changed everything for him. Yeah, I know that's a that's really well said. I honestly hadn't thought of that part of it, right? Like the Warriors play and scared. What happened to light years? This is not light years ahead. Okay, this is dark ages stuff. All right, you got to, you got to live a little, you got to roll the dice a little. And so what? It's not my money. If Andrew Wiggins stuck on your books on your ear, because he's hurt, it's not my money. I'm incredibly disappointed by it. And I think the other thing that just my last kind of final point on it is that because of who Wiggins is, this is just going to kind of linger, right? There's not. Andrew Wiggins is not going to, whenever, you know, the Warriors come to Toronto next year, he's not going to hold court and ask to do a sit down with somebody and say like, Hey, this, I meant to sit down with somebody. He's going to say the same thing he says all the time. If he could ever just and look like he doesn't have to, it's his life. He doesn't owe us anything. But if he wants to be loved like that, especially as maple Jordan or part of the program or Canada basketball or whatever, it would just go such a long way to ever have clarity on anything. I'm like, Hey, people are, some people are private, some people are public. He's a clearly a public person who wishes he was private. And I can appreciate that, but it will also always be the thing that kind of keeps him at best kind of arms distance from Canada basketball and all the people who care about it, I think. Yeah, and my limited interactions with him and anytime I've, and obviously being in the orbit of the program that sort of, you know, he put on the map at Von secondary school and helped elevate to a different level. He's a very private guy. Like that's who he is. He's a naturally introverted person. He doesn't like the limelight. He's not somebody that is very good in those settings in terms of feeling overly comfortable or sociable. That's kind of who he is. And you know what, we don't need people to step out of their own skin in that respect. But you know, there is something to the way you conduct yourself and comport yourself in terms of these settings and the messaging. At a certain point, this is the, this is, I think, what's, what's done in more than anything. In every step of this journey, when it comes to him and Canada basketball, we've never gotten a clear message or explanation from him. That's about what happened. And so the more that it's just quiet and secrecy, cloak and dagger secrecy, that actually adds to a lot of the public discourse. And if he ever, as you put it, if he ever just said, you know what, they prevented me from doing this or this is why I didn't go this year or whatever, I think we'd have a different level of appreciation or understanding for the reasons behind it. We've seen some other guys do it. And then sure enough, occasionally every few years they'll show up. Somebody will show up. Jamal Murray, like we're not, Jamal Murray, this is going to be his first time playing for Canada since the Pan Am Games. And he's been a world class player. Certainly in the nine years since, he's been at various peaks in his career. He hasn't suited up ever. And yet we don't talk about him in that same vein. It's the same as Wiggins. Wiggins has played more frequently for Canada in that same period of time than Jamal Murray. And yet nobody's having that same discourse or conversation surrounding him. I just think because of the type of person he is, if he ever actually opened his mouth and said, this is, this is from my perspective, where things stand, I feel like we'd have a different level of understanding and appreciation for him. Yeah. And look, like Shea is the perfect example that you can be a private person if there's no questions about you. And we don't hold it against you at all. Like Shea, like, yeah, post stuff on Instagram. But it's like, he didn't even like the story coming out about his house that he bought and the crypto king and all that, right? So there's certainly rules that can be had a lot more on that, I'm sure in the three weeks, basically until Canada starts things up at the Olympic Games. It is now time for the Canadian football report brought to you by Securian Canada, the official life insurance partner, insurance partner of the CFL. Week five in the CFL starts with two teams remaining perfect on the season. Well, three others are searching for their first win. The Thursday night matchup sees our, our goals in Saskatchewan to play the rough riders who are coming off there by on Canada Day weekend. The riders are one of those undefeated teams, but have placed starting quarterback Trevor Harris on the injured list with an MCL injury. He's expected to be out for at least six games. Meanwhile, the R goes suffered their first loss last week. The defending champ, Alawettes QB Cameron Dukes is really showing some promise through the season leading the league with 76.3%, completion percentage. It's also got five TDs on the year. Friday night football sees the two in one red blacks and Winnipeg to face the winless blue bombers. Ottawa already has a win over the bombers this season in week two. They're looking to prove that it wasn't a fluke. The stamps are in Montreal on Saturday to face the undefeated als Calgary sits at nine and a half point underdog just the third time since 2016. The stamps have been at a number like that or higher in the regular season and wrapping up week five is the three and one lions taken on the winless tie cats at home. This should be an offensive affair is BC and Hamilton both sit at the top of the CFL in most average yards and first downs on the season. The difference could be on the defensive side where the tie cats rank at the bottom of the league, allowing over 31 points per game. That was the Canadian football report brought to you by security in Canada. The official life insurance partner of the CFL when we continue going to get back into the Leafs. Oh, the Leafs leaf talk will be back. Yes, we got to get into it. There's been the captaincy report. There's been the kerfuffle of free agency where exactly does this team sit. Now that the dust has finally settled, we'll get into all that more first hour of the show in the the books here on the fan mornin show with get with danielle and gunning on sports net five night of the fan.
