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Chapter 1: How has GM Ross Atkins assessed the Blue Jays amidst injuries?
All right, well, welcome to Blair and Barker for 24th. Jeff Blair, Kevin Barker for your listening and viewing pleasure. Parker for the first half hour, or first hour, anyhow. We'll be joined by Dan Shulman, Ricky Romero. We'll get you set for the second game of the third game of the Jays-Astros series. Let it beat you. Fairly. 7.07 first pitch tonight. Trey Savage on the mound for the Jays.
Mike Burrows for the Astros. Again, that's a 7.07 first pitch. And without wasting any time, let's get to our first guest. He is Ross Atkins, executive vice president and general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. Ross, thanks for joining us today. We greatly appreciate your time.
Chapter 2: What does Ross Atkins think about the competitiveness of the AL East?
Just a general question to kind of get us started, because I know you addressed or you spoke to the media yesterday. But how do you, just in a general sense, assess where this team is right now?
Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys. Good to be with you. Yeah, I mean, as I talked about yesterday, ideally we would be in the driver's seat, which we are not. So not where we set out to be at this point.
nearing the halfway point, but we do have a lot of confidence and belief in the group here, and we're seeing very good signs as we get to the tougher stretches of a season with some good depth behind the 26-man roster and some good stories from some younger players. Happy to get Kirky back. We'll be excited to get Barger back and
Shane's outing wasn't what we or he had hoped for yesterday, but have a reason to believe in him based on track record and arsenal and just ability to compete. Not ideal from where we'd like to be on a win-loss perspective, but do feel like we're in a strong position from a competitive standpoint.
How much, I'm going to use the word comfort, and I don't necessarily mean comfort, but we've talked about this a lot in the show and elsewhere as well. It's not a great year for the American League right now, to say the least. How much comfort is there, at least in knowing that you are still very much a wildcard team or a wildcard contender?
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Chapter 3: How is Kazuma Okamoto transitioning to MLB, and what are his strengths?
And there's obviously, there's still a lot of runway left before the season's over but can you at least take some some comfort in that or as a front office is it almost you don't want to focus on that you want to focus on what on you being as best as you can
I mean, there's a lot of different ways to think about that. You're competing against a group where we don't have as low of a floor, and maybe some of the ceiling isn't there in the AL East that many have expected, but there's still a lot of talent in the American League, so a lot of things could correct.
I expect a lot of things to change and the end results to look different than they look today. But what I am confident in is that we're in a strong position to be a positive aspect of those end results and feel like our best baseball is ahead of us.
Ross, what have you liked that you've seen from Okamoto on both sides of the ball in June?
Yeah, he says that that's a hot month for him, and it certainly has been. I can't imagine really just being more impressed. We expected that his offense was going to have a little bit different shape with the adjustments made to different arsenals and different weapons being attacked by pitchers he's never seen in his life. And an entirely different league in different ballparks.
And, you know, defensively, we expected the transition to be a little bit smoother. Having said that, he had been playing predominantly first base. So he's really exceeded our expectation. And they were high coming in.
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Chapter 4: What growth has Ernie Clement shown this season?
So... The teammate, the way he's handled everything from, you know, every foreign player is different in their transition into Major League Baseball, and his has been as good as I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's interesting you're bringing that up because I think sometimes, you know, Ross, we live in a social media age and analytics are very much a factor and all that, but sometimes you lose track of the fact that there is a human being involved here and he's essentially going from one culture to another and doing his job in front of 40,000 people.
That's kind of the base level of this, isn't it? Sometimes we forget that that has to have at least some sort of impact on a guy.
Yeah, and if you just think about it from free agents that, you know, key free agents that change organizations for the first time and go to different organizations, how big of an adjustment that is. Now add a layer of your everything about the environment is different except for the fact that you're playing this game of baseball. But everything else is going to be different.
The language spoken, obviously, the food that's eaten, the training regimens, the strength and conditioning routines, the surfaces, the feel in the air. And, you know, all of those things changing and him staying as consistent as he has has been important.
an incredible testament to his his focus and and his ability uh rosh you mentioned okamoto moving from one side of the field to the other playing first moving to third it's kind of different angles comes off the bat a different way ernie's kind of done the same thing he's played a little second in the past but not on an everyday basis how proud of him are you that he's kind of made the adjustments cleaned up some of the things he was going through early in the season now all of a sudden he's
kind of the guy you want the ball hit to all the time, and obviously offensively he's taken off. So how proud of him are you, just all the transitions he's made?
Yeah, he's such a fun player. We use cliches like throwback all the time, and I think in many ways he can fit into a lot of different cliches, but when I watch Ernie play, it's just so enjoyable to watch him play because you see how relaxed he is, and that has come into the fold as he's made that transition back to second.
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Chapter 5: How is the organization supporting Vladdy through his struggles?
His ability to find that relaxed aspect of, you know, his athleticism and maximizing his athleticism with different footwork and different angles, different arm angles, the pivot at second and, you know, relying on those instincts and getting and having to change those patterns is not easy. And he's done an incredible job of it. And then offensively, he's been as good as he's ever been.
So we're, you know, man, he's, yeah, he's been awesome. He's very, very impressive.
Ross, what tells you that Vladdy might be ready to take off? And is there anything the front office, and I'm talking about the analytics people, like anything that they can get involved in or anything they can do to help the coaching staff, and frankly, and to help Vladdy himself kind of find that slug, find that power?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because all of the markers, whether it's analytics, any stat that you can look at, Anything biomechanical that is using data to understand patterns, changes, timing, all of that is very positive and encouraging. So that gives us a great deal of confidence and belief that it is a matter of just being synced up. And he is showing those signs every day. It's not just
You know, we see signs and then it goes away. But the line drives up the middle, the really hard line drive yesterday, the near misses, even, you know, really, really good swings and 0-2 counts and he's just missing breaking balls that were up.
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Chapter 6: Can Jesús Sánchez become an everyday player for the Jays?
It just looks like himself and it looks like his timing is getting better. But, you know, you guys know that very well, that better is not good enough. It has to be near perfect. And he, for the majority of his career, is. So I believe it is very close for him.
Ross, what's the future look like for Jesus Sanchez? Maybe in the outfield, offensively, I don't think he's playing today. You know, he's kind of had his bumps in the road, right? Outfield kind of route running, jumps. You know, it looks like he's happy when he catches the baseball. You know, you really don't know. Don't laugh, Jeff. You don't really know what to read into that.
Just kind of in your mind, what's the future look like for him? And what's he need to show you going forward to basically say, okay, you got a spot on our team.
Chapter 7: What concerns exist regarding Louis Varland's increased usage?
You can play every day, especially against lefties. You know, if he's confident enough with the swing and the way he's playing in the outfield.
Yeah, it's just explosiveness. I, you know, I think he is, um, he's had that his whole career. And if he gets to that explosiveness and the, the defense and base running aspects of his game where that first step is, is as good as it can be for him, which he has it in him. We know that it's there.
So just finding the right position and the right pattern to have that first step is going to allow him to be a much better defender. Everybody's defense gets to the end result a little bit differently. Some guys do it with you meet instincts and, you know, really good understanding of reading the ball off the bat. Some guys can, can make up for things with speed.
Some guys have a really long levers and can do a very good job of retrieving and closing on plays really good hands. So there's, you know, we can talk about that for a long time.
Chapter 8: What strategies might the Jays consider for the trade deadline?
And what he has is explosiveness. He has closing speed. He has really long levers that, and he has a strong arm. So if he stays within himself and taps into that explosiveness, he's going to be fine. And that ebbs and flows throughout players careers. And, and, We've got to make sure we're supporting him to put him in the best positions to lean into that and to be relaxed.
He's changed three teams in the last couple of years, and that makes it difficult as well. But offensively, he's exceeded our expectation this year. His average is on base. His you know, the slug is fine and the homers are going to continue to come for him. So he's a good player. Future's bright.
And if that defense is really steady for him and he's turning singles into doubles and scoring from first occasionally that, you know, such a big lever as a baseman or someone who's an average to above runner can be, he can be playing every day for us. And that certainly is the goal.
Ross, how do you think the change-up has helped Louie take his game to a whole different level?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really the – sure, yeah, it has. You know, you add that weapon that you're throwing. It's really the fact that you're just throwing it for a strike so consistently. And, you know, the fact that he has three other weapons that you really can't sit on anything. And that just adds another layer to it.
How often he's in the zone just makes it a little bit more difficult to ever sit dead red. And he is a man who's about as good as it gets.
Yeah he's been unbelievable any worry with how much you've had to throw it throw him and because you've had to throw him so much does that sort of push you in a direction now coming trade deadline and where the team's at that you may have to go out and get maybe a I don't want to say a Louie 2.0 but somebody that kind of would match that could pitch some high leverage innings could take a little pressure off of Louie just how much he has to throw.
Yeah, those guys are really hard to acquire, but sure. And, you know, it's interesting. We always get asked how much we worry about whether it's performance or workload, whatever it may be, win-loss records. And there's always a sliding scale. And we turn that worry into things that we can control and just work on the things that we can do to help people.
Louie be in the best possible position and monitoring his uses is part of that. Part of being a winning team is you're going to absolutely use your best arms when our medical staff and the pitching staff and the player are telling us they're available. We monitor it with
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