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Chapter 1: What impact did the Mets' managerial change have on their season?
All right, welcome back to Blair and Barker for Friday. Reminder, the 7 of 7 will be the first pitch tonight as the Jays continue their series against the Texas Rangers. Nathan Uvalde on the mound for the Rangers. Patrick Corbin for the Blue Jays. And Blair and Barker will be along following the game with Blue Jays. What are you looking at me for? Last night, it'll be a winning edition.
Who said that? You said that last night. You were wrong. I was right. You were? I was. I said that. Saturday's pitching matchup is Kamara Rocker against Dylan Cease. And on Sunday, Port Hope, Ontario's Cal Quantrill, friend of the show, will take the mound against Shane Bieber of the Blue Jays as Shane Bieber looks to work his way back.
Well, I mean, that's a lot of work in that rotation right now. There is a lot of work. There is. What was the quality start number again?
Chapter 2: How does Albert Pujols fit into the Mets' future plans?
Three quality starts in the last five weeks. That's no bueno. They have 19 on the season. It's like 25th in baseball. Yeah. That's not good. It's not a lot. Not a lot. It needs to get better. It does indeed. But they need to score more runs too, so. Yep. It all goes hand in hand.
Yeah. The Mets will be in town following this series, and the Mets fired their manager or made, they moved on from him, I guess is the way to put it. They moved on from Carlos Mendoza. Andy Green has been named interim manager of the Mets, friend of Barker's. Yeah. It's bringing Jeff Passan, ESPN MLB insider and host of Sources Tell. Hi, you're funny.
Chapter 3: What are the Blue Jays' chances for the playoffs this season?
Passan, how are you, Jeff? Hey, buddy.
Good, gentlemen.
How are you? We're doing well. What was the Andy Green thing? Don't worry about it. Okay. Anyhow, so the Mets have... I'm getting the impression he was a former Barker teammate. You're going to go down to see him, though, aren't you? Who? When? Where? Well, when the Mets come in town. Ah, he couldn't pick me out of a lineup. Okay, well, anyway.
Probably no great surprise, Jeff, but, you know, John Harper of Sportsnet New York posted something on X today suggesting Albert Pujols might be interested in managing the team. But we know Albert, I think, has expressed interest to a bunch of people about potentially managing the team.
He managed the Dominican team at the World Baseball Classic, and I've got to think that this would probably get the thumbs up from Juan Soto. What do you think the odds are of him getting that job?
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Chapter 4: What issues are affecting Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s performance?
And is he the right fit?
You know, I think it would be a really interesting fit because, like you said, Juan Soto would be on board with it. I mean, Albert Pujols' resume as a player, there are no holes you can poke in it. He's one of the best right-handed hitters who's ever lived. And the fact that he's been willing to...
put in some time and some work to see what it's like being a manager, whether it's in Winter Ball or for the Dominican Republic team in the World Baseball Classic. That, too, is a good sign. I know one of the places he interviewed this winter for the open managerial job was a little turned off by the fact that
Uh, he, he felt that he, they felt that he wanted to have a little more influence in areas of the organization that managers don't necessarily now like the farm system. But of course, I also understand why Albert pools would want something like that because the man knows a lot about the game.
So, uh, does he, the question for, for Albert, I think, does he want to subject himself to being what it's like to be the Mets manager? I think that's a hard job for anybody. And there are a lot of secondary and tertiary issues that just because you manage the Mets, you don't have in a lot of other places. But there are only 30 of the jobs, guys.
And if being a major league manager is something that Albert Pujols truly desires, then... Seems like it would be a reasonable fit.
Yeah, I'm glad you made that point because one of the things about Albert is, you know, he hasn't played in the largest markets. Now, okay, Southern California is a big market, but he wasn't with the Dodgers.
Yeah, but the Angels are like a small market team.
They act like it at least.
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Chapter 5: How is Corey Seager's preparation influencing his success?
Exactly. And I always thought, hey, Albert Pujols managing the Cardinals makes perfect sense. But that isn't... you know, doesn't look like it's necessarily going to happen. I'm with you. I mean, I like Albert. I'd like to see him in the game. I think he'd be a really interesting manager, and I think he'd probably have some really good ideas on an organization in general.
But, man, I don't know about New York.
Well, there's the New York element, Jeff, but there's also the analytics element to it. And I'm not saying that Albert Pujols by any means is opposed to analytics. I don't think that's the case. But the way that David Stearns runs his organization... The manager is often a functionary of the front office above him. And the power dynamic there would be a little tricky.
And, you know, maybe after the offseason that the Mets had, after the tenure that David Stearns has had so far, A little bit of sway back to the manager's side would not necessarily be the worst thing. But at the same time, if David Stearns is around next year, you know, Steve Cohen has emboldened him to go out and build the organization that he wants.
And I have trouble believing that even after a tough year like the Mets are having right now that. the majority of that decision-making is going to be taken away from the president of baseball operations.
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Chapter 6: What does the current state of the American League look like?
Jeff, is there anybody on that team that maybe the Jays would want come trade deadline?
In your mind. Do you like relief pitching? Absolutely. Because A.J. Minter and Brooks Rayleigh are two very good left-handed relievers. And, you know, I understand the Jays have some decent lefty pen arms, but... At the end of the day, I don't think you can have too many. If only for matchup situations.
If starters aren't going to be going as deep into the game because it's the postseason and that's generally how it's gone in recent years. And if the three batter minimum is in place, then you're going to have opportunities to use left-handed relievers, I think, in a very... tangible way. And so either of those guys, AJ Mitchell or Brooks Raley, would look great in Jay's uniform.
And I don't think the cost, frankly, is going to be all that high. Relief pitching, I understand, especially with the lack thereof that's likely to be available at this trade deadline, might go for a little more than you would anticipate. But You know, Arjun Damala and J.J. Parker aren't going anywhere. Johnny King's not going anywhere to go out and rent a relief pitcher.
Yeah, what's your confidence level in the Jays?
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the MLBPA's proposed betting regulations?
I want, okay, I believe in the Jays more than I should. They have done nothing to show me that they are a contending team this year and we're halfway through the season. The great hope of the Blue Jays right now is the fact that they play in the American League and the American League, as I posted earlier today, is a wasteland.
So it's like every time the Jays get back to 500, you think they're going to go on a run here and what do they do? They urinate down their leg in the last. Three days, I think, are perfect examples of that. All close games, all losses. And at this point, it's just that that's unacceptable if you want to be a playoff team.
You have to win the close games, and they just haven't shown a propensity to do that this year.
All right. If we end up with five J's in the All-Star game this year, how dare you, Jeff? Voted in by fans. Our head's going to explode as a result of that. Look, we all know what the fan voting is. And, you know, we've all accepted it by now. And I don't have a problem with fan voting.
But I'm just kind of wondering how a preponderance of players from a team that could be 500 or under at the All-Star break would be ā if it would be a storyline or not, Jeff. And I don't know. I just ā it's ā
Yeah.
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Chapter 8: How will the proposed contract length changes affect free agents?
You know whose head should explode? Who? Americans. Because what a pathetic showing by them. You have a country of 40 million people and they're whipping your ass and voting? I mean, I know we don't do voting very well here. I mean, I was, you know, you're...
I was waiting for somebody to say, I don't want to say anything, but I saw people unloading boxes outside of Blair's house the other day. There was a whole van and they were moving boxes out and they looked pretty shady. And I don't know, maybe they're, you know, maybe they're stuffing the ballot box. Yeah.
A very prominent person in the industry called me earlier today and said, what the hell are we doing with all-star voting? How is Ernie Clement the top vote-getter in the American League? And I didn't think it was an entirely unreasonable question to be asked. And I say that because I don't know if I'm the charter member of the Ernie Clement fan club, but I'm a big Ernie Clement guy.
I love the way Ernie Clement plays. I love everything about his game. I think he gives hopes to all of us ā average-looking, like, sub-six-foot guys everywhere. That being said, that being said, we've seen this before. I don't know if you remember, but the year after, it was either the year after the Royals made the World Series or the year after they won the World Series.
So it was either 2015 or 2016. The entire team, the entire starting lineup was practically Kansas City Royals, which is to suggest, guys... that any fan base that has a modicum of organization has the ability to go and make their whole roster all-stars if they really want to and if they're really committed to it. And I give Jays fans a lot of credit. They love this team from last year.
They wanted to reward them. And so far, at least, they've done a really good job of it.
Just because you said that, I just went into the Google machine, Googled Royals and All-Star voting 2016. And one national writer, I'm not going to say who, it's not because I'm going to denigrate him, but Jeff, this is the headline that came up. Ballot stuffing Royals fans again skewing AL All-Star voting.
So, yeah, I mean, you were right. Change, change, change the year, change the team name. And nothing ever really changes. Exactly.
Jeff, from afar, what do you make of Laddie from afar?
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