Chapter 1: What are Vancouver's plans for an MLB team?
Welcome back to Blair and Barker brought to you by Capital One. Capital One giving Canadians credit for 30 years. Why are you laughing? My coffee's cold. Well, get someone in here.
I'm sorry. I was texting and... I mean, he wanted to... I forgot.
I'll go and warm it up in the microwave while you do this. That'd be great. While you carry on with the show.
Well, I already carried the first hour, so what's new? It's nothing new. Don't let it beat you.
I carried the first hour.
You did?
Petey's great. Well, I am waiting... To see the lineup today. And see if the first half hour you spent talking about the lineup, see if it comes true or not. If it comes true, before we go off the air, I'm going to bow down to you.
I mean, it's Captain Obvious, but I think there's a better chance of it not happening.
How's that? Let's bring in John Marossi of the MLB Network. There he is. How you doing, Mr. Marossi?
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Chapter 2: How do the Blue Jays and Red Sox compare this season?
Cold coffee's not it. This just happened, well, I mean, an hour ago, maybe a little more than an hour ago, and I don't know where it's going to go, if it's going to go anywhere, but it does interest me. The mayor of Vancouver, John, is... Well, he's come out and he is suggesting that Vancouver gets serious about entering the bidding process for an MLB expansion franchise.
Just going online, Vancouver politically is a very left... Well, let's just say it's not being greeted with wholesale rejoicing. But, I mean, look, it's a city we... It kind of sort of gets mentioned whenever expansion comes up. It kind of sort of fits into the... what we think will be the geographical focus for expansion. One to ten. I know this is horribly, horribly early. Let me ask you this.
One to ten, what do you think the chances are that this goes from an idea floated by the mayor to actually getting in front of owners? You know what, John? We're going to have to reset because... There it is.
There we go. My mic is back.
I remember my first time.
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Chapter 3: What issues are the New York Mets facing?
You of all people. You of all people, man.
I had it all creatively... presented, and then darn it, it just went away for us. Here we go. Hold it just like this for a second. How about this? I've got it at a five. I've got it at a five. Just to at least get in front of the owners, I think it's a very strong chance because
Clearly, it is a market that when you look at a lot of the underlying elements, okay, very strong business community, very strong downtown community. And one thing that is different from Salt Lake, for example, is you don't have to deal with as much of the
atmospheric questions about what the games would feel like relative to, again, you think about playing at altitude for Colorado and the issues there. It's a lot of the same in Salt Lake. Vancouver, of course, obviously mountains everywhere around it, but right in the city center and in the ring of population around Vancouver, not as much of a concern.
So I think that for a lot of reasons, I think it's a fantastic idea. You should at least market-size put it on a similar wavelength to Portland, Oregon, which in their case, they've been quite far advanced. I mean, I do think looking big picture, there are markets that have already done a lot more work, outwardly at least, than what Vancouver has done. Nashville, you would say, top of the list.
They seem to be everyone's popular choice. You wonder about Charlotte, North Carolina, again, if they end up going with one more east. But I think that the general premise, Jeff, and you alluded to this, if the idea is one that is east of the Mississippi, I think that we would probably say Nashville is the strongest candidate there. And then west, it's not as obvious.
Certainly, if it ends up being the – with all the enthusiasm around the Utah mammoth, if it ends up being this, the same ownership there with the Smith family, obviously they are well known in sports. They have already proven that they can successfully operate a franchise in salt Lake city.
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Chapter 4: Who are the standout teams in the National League?
So there's a lot of proof of concept there. But when you look at, The ability to market and the geography of it all. And also, the Jays have proven this extraordinarily well. The success in having an entire country, multiple provinces, obviously, being a home market is incredibly beneficial from a business standpoint.
Now, certainly the Jays will have, I'm sure, their own thoughts about marketing-wise what that all looks like. But you look at the map and you see where all the teams are. Vancouver especially, there's no more NBA there. There seems to be a lane and a spot to Vancouver being a major league city in a way that hasn't always been obvious in the past.
Yeah, I can't wait to see it play out. And more jobs, the better. The more baseball players that get to play, I can't wait to watch that. Speaking of baseball. Oh, go ahead, JP. You got something else?
Yeah, the one point, Kevin, on that note, talking about more jobs and more high-end baseball players having a chance to play, we just saw Justin Turner sign with the Mexican League.
The Mexican Summer League, this is related to the point that you're making, the Mexican Summer League, if you talk to people around it who see that league often, they will tell you there are more high-end players who are of Major League caliber in that league now than ever before. And what that says, and that is... affiliated with Major League Baseball, but not directly.
And what that tells you in general is that the playing population of Major League Baseball, we see it as well in the World Baseball Classic, guys on different teams, whether it's Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela, come Coming in throwing 95 and 96. You look at your roster. Where does the guy play? The answer is either AAA, Mexican League, in Asia.
You're saying to yourself, there are so many great players right now. More than enough to fill out rosters. The pitching is, I think, has always been the question of the past. Kevin, you remember expansion happened around the time you were playing pro ball. The question was always, is there enough pitching to sustain it? The answer right now is a resounding yes.
Yeah. I played in that league twice, two years. There's a lot of good players there, a lot of good pitching. A lot of good players. The Toros, I think, is where JT's going. It should be a lot of fun. I want to flip it over to the American League East. And, you know, this is sort of overreaction Tuesday. Tuesday? Yeah. It is Tuesday. Tuesday. Who are you more worried about, Jays, Red Sox?
Hmm.
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Chapter 5: What makes Jacob Mizorowski a unique pitcher?
They have had, in a similar way to the Jays, a bit of a bizarre start to the season. I referenced the Anthony defensive struggles. Pitching-wise, Crochet has gotten off to an uneven start. It's been a strange beginning to the year. And they should be better than they are. I think eventually they will get there. But...
To me, it has been a concerning start, more of an anomaly in different ways than it is an indictment of the job that Alex is doing, at least in my opinion.
Yeah, I know it's too early to ask that, but they've never really played good defense with him as the manager, which is very odd.
And he...
Chapter 6: How is Tim Dillard analyzing the Brewers' current performance?
It is odd. And on opening day, Kevin, I'm glad you mentioned it that way. Because opening day, I was in Cincinnati. So the day before I was in Toronto with you, I was in Cincinnati with Red Sox and Reds. And Alex just said how many times he said, we're going to have a much better defensive team. I hated the way that we played defense last year. He actually used the word hate.
The way we played defensively, I couldn't stand it. And I'm paraphrasing what Alex was saying. I played in the big leagues for a long time because I could catch the baseball. And they're not doing that. And that is, and Roman Anthony is part of that problem, but he's not the only reason. There's too many outs that should be made that are becoming hits or just misplays.
And again, you referenced it a bit with the Jays in the context of Okamoto. One of the things I look at a lot at this time of year, I'm sure you guys are the same way. Who is playing clean baseball? It's almost as though at the end of the year, and you're not going to play perfect baseball for seven months.
But I'm a believer that the game rewards the teams that play clean because when you play clean baseball, you turn the double plays when they're there, you don't give up extra outs, your pitchers are in better shape in the middle of the year. Your team has rhythm. Your team is athletic. Those are the teams, I think, back to the Royals that beat the Blue Jays back in 2015.
That Royals team has a future Hall of Famer in Salvador Perez, But it was not chock full of all-stars top to bottom. They played the game the right way. And I think that you get a reward for doing that. And the Jays really haven't. They have not gotten the reward because they haven't played that way. And the Red Sox haven't either. And it's always interesting to me early on.
And it's hard sometimes in the transition of weather. You're not always having great weather days. And it's tough to play great defense when you're freezing. I get all that. But I pay attention. Who's playing clean baseball?
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Chapter 7: What is the Brewers' identity heading into 2026?
And the teams playing clean baseball have been besides the Red Sox and the Blue Jays right now.
John, when you're shifting focus to the National League, Marlins, Pirates, Padres, who are you buying? Who are you buying as being the real thing? Pods are 8-2 in their last 10, 5 in a row. Pirates are 7-3 in their last 10. The Marlins are 4-6, but they are 9-8, and they're very competitive.
They are. I like the Pirates a lot. I'm going to give you the answer to the Pirates because I think that Griffin's only going to get better. Check out the numbers. Someone that obviously played a lot of games against the Jays over the years, Brandon Lau. Look at Lau's numbers with Pittsburgh. He has been outstanding to start the year.
And second base for the Pirates was a longstanding weakness for them where they didn't have enough defense. offense, their even defensive ability there, too. And so I think as Lau has come in, he's really solidified that lineup. They signed O'Hearn, of course, as well. It's a younger team, and we know well what they've got on the mound with Skeens, and it's not just Skeens.
They've got a pretty solid rotation that's given them chances to win. I'm really bullish about them. And again, the Brewers... I'll be really curious. This series that the Jays are going to play is fascinating to me because it's two playoff teams, two of the final four, if you will, from last year, neither of which is really in a good run of form at the moment. So who's going to get hot?
Either the Jays are playing Milwaukee at the perfect time because they're playing bad ball, or Pat Murphy's team's about to get going hot again because they're not going to play that poorly for a while. You mentioned the Marlins. They were going really well, and then they played the Tigers over the weekend. The Tigers were...
Similarly, a team in the same boat as the Mariners and the Jays, playoff teams that were kind of scuffling, the Tigers all of a sudden got healthy over the weekend and started playing a lot better. And that was at the Marlins' expense when they played that series in Detroit. So I do like the Marlins.
I think that you look at Sandy Alcantara, what he's been able to do, the three Canadians, which, by the way, have you both landed on your favorite nickname for the Marlins?
three canadians is it do you have it as the snowbirds rcm rcm3 there's a lot of different ways you could do it uh i'll have to think about it we got to workshop that one because it's it's too natural you've got a third of the marlins lineup is canadian we've got to we've got to find a proper nickname for that group are the braves this good or is the 10 and 7 start just a hot start
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Chapter 8: How does Gary Sánchez fit into the Brewers' lineup?
Wheeler has maybe one or two more starts in the minor leagues left before he gets activated. And Christopher Sanchez, for me, He's in the realm of maybe one of the top five starters in the game. He is elite with the way he is performing right now. And their bullpen's actually been better. They lost a tough series over the weekend to the Diamondbacks.
But when I look at their lineup, Schwarber-Homer twice yesterday. They're maybe not an elite team. They're not on the level of the Dodgers, I don't think, in the National League, but they're still a good ball club. The team I'm worried about is the Mets. I think the Braves are good. Philly's good.
Marlins, I think, are ascendant in a lot of ways with Alcantara is all the way back for me, which is awesome to see what he can do. But the Mets, to me, in that division, I worry a lot.
You know, every time I hear somebody talk about how bad the Mets are, I think to myself, man, it just screams Bichette Jays trade. It just does. I hate to say it out loud.
I know a guy who's a good bat to ball guy. Bring him over. Don't have a cleanup hitter?
I don't know that.
Hey, listen. No, no. You got the Lenine Sosa's coming in. You got Jimenez as well. You've brought back some former White Sox. The Jays are good. They're all set.
With Leneen Sosa, I was going to ask you, obviously, I wouldn't say fell out of favor, but it's pretty clear that when Murakami, I'm going to butcher his name. Murakami, Murakami, yeah. Murakami, when he came over, when he came over, that Sosa kind of lost his spot. I mean, he's moved around. He's played... various positions. What is he now that, that, that the J's happening?
We always got to hit 22 home runs last year. He is versatile. We get all that, but what type of player is he?
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