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Chapter 1: What are the reasons behind Vladdy's struggles this season?
What's going on? It's Jay's Talk Plus. Blake Murphy with you. Jay's back in action tonight after an off day yesterday. That's the last off day they'll have until July 2nd. Feels like we just did the whole 17 game and 17 day thing and the toll on the bullpen and all that. Well, 16 and 16 starting today. But that's fine. For the purposes of this show, I hate off days. So this is great for me.
Dylan Cecil take on Peyton Tolley tonight. 6.45 start at Fenway Park where Vladimir Gerrard. Junior has historically hit pretty well. David Schneider's had some big moments. Jays need to get winning sometime soon here. So maybe a struggling Red Sox team with a lot of bad PR and bad front office vibe.
Although they did win a series at home this weekend for the first time since the second week of April. So, I don't know how much they're hanging their hats on that, but we'll get into all of it. Chris Cotillo will join us a little later in the show to set up the Red Sox side of the series. Brook knows ball, and Joel Laflamme will join us at 11 o'clock to talk some stats stuff as well.
But right now, for the first hour, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, of At The Letters, is in studio with me. BNS, how we doing, buddy?
Doing great. Happy to be in here with you. As J.D. Bunkus just pointed out, I have never been in studio for his show, but for your show, we're here. Happy to talk some baseball, so... Yeah, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good. I feel, I mean, I just did JD's show in studio, so I don't feel too bad for him.
I don't feel bad for him either, to be clear, because his show is very early. So getting in for a 9 a.m. show is a little different than getting in for a 10 a.m.
Yeah, and like, I don't know, when he's only doing one hour for the summer... Like, whatever. When he's doing two hours in the winter, I would love for him to get some in-studio guests. But if you don't like it, pitch better, JD. That's it. Speaking of if you don't like it, pitch better, how did your fantasy team do last week?
You know what, Blake? Let's just say it's a long season, right? It is a long season. And sometimes you go up against a really good opponent. So it's just you got to be patient. You got to just stay the course.
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Chapter 2: How can lineup shifts improve the Blue Jays' offense?
They have a couple more guys hit the injured list and dealing with day-to-day stuff in the case of Jimenez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and things like that. They've got 16 games in 16 days here. That takes us into July. How... Where is the kind of urgency level to get going here and get winning? I know John Schneider referenced it Friday as well. And obviously 162 all count.
But you want to be in a strong position heading into the All-Star break for your kind of mental side and then pre-deadline so you know the direction and how aggressive you're going to be.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, to be four games under .500 is technically fine. We all know that the American League is weak and there's a lot of time left. That being said, if you lose 5 of 7, all of a sudden it's not fine, right? So this is where they've kind of put themselves into a tough position. So they do need to start winning. That's the most obvious thing.
I think we all know that and feel that and see that. The players certainly are aware of that, the coaches, the front office. It's not a secret. At a certain point, you've got to get this thing rolling, and the sooner the better.
And the other thing that I think comes with the time of year and having gotten a couple guys back, even acknowledging that other guys hit the IL, it's a long baseball season, guys will get hurt.
The fact that you've gotten guys back, the fact that we're in the middle of June now and not the middle of May, is the, oh, we've been injured stuff, like, doesn't really, it's context, it doesn't really hold water the later you get into the season. Like, you don't have a choice. but to get going here.
And I think the longer we go, the less the focus will be on that, not only because guys are getting back, but because we're now at 70-plus games of sample about some of the things that are wrong with the healthy people who are here.
That's exactly it. Because it's no longer, okay, this is just a small sample, and of course Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is going to get it going. We can't say that, right? It's possible that he gets it going. It's possible. Possibility doesn't get it going. And there's a health question now, too, with the back.
And it sounds like there's optimism that he'll be back today in the lineup against the Red Sox. But, I mean, that's one of the big ones. I think the back of the rotation is another one where Scherzer, Corbin, Those are pretty big questions.
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Chapter 3: What is the outlook for the AL playoffs this year?
Yeah. No, that's it. And, again, it is like a large-ish – it is a large – sample. It's a meaningful sample when you look at 70-plus games at this point in the season. I think he's going to be a really good hitter from this point to the end of the year. I think he's going to hit a lot of line drives and hit a bunch of doubles and probably find ways to draw more walks, but
I can't sit here and forecast 20 home runs, which is, I mean, that's a pretty low bar for a first baseman who's supposed to carry your offense.
And, like, to give you context on, like, what half a year of data does to your projections, prior to the season, using the Bad X, which is our preference for fantasy baseball, Vlad was projected to have a 901 OPS. They've dropped that to an 868 the rest of the way. So already, like, projecting forward, they're like, okay, well,
he's 30 points of OPS the rest of the way worse than we, than we thought coming into the year.
Right. And that's before we get to Springer, who's also having a very disappointing offensive season. And I do think there are more signs there with Springer that he's probably about to do some good things offensively. And you know, Not to the level he was last year, clearly, because that was incredible. But if he posts 800 to 850 OPS the rest of the way, I won't be surprised at all.
He'd be the team's best hitter that's playing every day anyway. I know Sanchez and Pignango are a little ahead of that right now.
So that's pretty interesting. Also very interesting to hear that he might do a little bit of outfield. I'm not holding my breath on that, but I think it's an interesting possibility because... I mean, with Kirk and Valenzuela back, that creates a situation where you might want both those guys in the lineup at the same time.
And then with Pignongo, and with all due respect, just how bad his defense has been, well, George Springer's probably better than that. So there are a couple reasons where it might make some sense to have Springer in the outfield.
On top of which, like... Whether he's better or not, like 2023, this team would just not have put that quality of defender in the outfield. But they have obviously had to shift their bar for defense to get some semblance of offense in the lineup. So even if Springer's comparable to Pignango, if it gets you Kirk's bat in the lineup one extra day a week... then maybe that trade-off is worth it.
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Chapter 4: What analytics are influencing baseball content creation?
Yeah, my only thinking is more so you don't need to put Jimmy Garcia through more in order to prove he's ready. If you want to wait in the major league side, sure, but I don't think he needs six more.
Six more appearances. That's very fair. Do you have a lean on... Like, Spencer Miles has been too good. He's obviously not going anywhere, and he's a Rule 5 guy, so you can't get creative there. Tommy Nance and Simeon Woods-Richardson have no options. Braden Fisher and Mason Fluharty have options, but they have obviously been extremely heavily used in important spots.
Probably comes down to Nance and Simeon Woods-Richardson.
I would think SWR is the... is the likeliest candidate to lose his roster spot. Yeah, exactly. And so with that in mind... Whether it's today after Cease, probably not. You're hoping Cease goes seven and you go to Rodgers and Verland and win the game that way. But with Scherzer going on Wednesday, tomorrow, yeah, maybe SWR pitches after Scherzer in some capacity.
And if it doesn't go well, I think that's your obvious DFA.
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And then, who knows, maybe he can get outrighted to AAA and remain there as depth. He might get claimed as a minimum guy who... Had that four inning.
Yeah, he looked good in that one appearance. Our friend Chris Black was certainly impressed by it.
Yeah, I think Chris Black's piece was before that. It was. No, I know. Not predicted, but was like, here's some ways he could be better. Yeah, Chris Black's a smart guy, it turns out. Of course.
I need to see a little more.
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Chapter 5: How does winter ball in the Dominican Republic impact player development?
Right.
I mean, you can't build your offense around platoon bats. And even if Jock Peterson, when healthy, is a pretty good platoon bat, you can't build your offense like that. So I just don't see enough juice there. Maybe they could make a trade, but when we're talking about these 500 teams, I think that that's one that's just very beatable, whereas I think Houston, there's a little more upside there.
As far as how many wildcard spots are up for grabs, obviously the White Sox lead the AL Central right now, and the Guardians would be in the second wildcard spot. The Guardians kind of find a way most years, but Jose Ramirez is going to miss a bunch of time now with a ham-ape bone.
What do you think the chances are that the Guardians kind of come back to that and make it a race for the two wildcard spots, or the White Sox?
I feel like the White Sox are the ones that are going to come back. You hate her. I don't want to be a hater. I know that for a lot of people, including Bunkus, this is a really exciting team. People like watching the Chicago White Sox, and that's awesome. I just don't really see it, to be honest.
I think that Murakami, obviously, Antonacci, you look at the offensive side of things, Vargas, there's some real skill there. I think on the pitching side, I'm just not seeing enough to the point that I liked Davis Martin, not love, but I like Davis Martin. I really like Grant Taylor. Other than that, I'm not sure that this is, like, a true playoff pitching staff.
Are you surprised? Obviously, it's too late in the season now, but that two years in a row, they've kept Grant Taylor in this kind of, like, you're an opener, maybe you're a bulk guy, we'll pitch you in leverage.
But despite kind of having starter stuff and being so good and only being 24 years old, like, it's not like Spencer Miles where he was a Rule 5 pick and he only pitched 14 innings in the minors and you have to – jump his role around because he's got to stay on the roster. Like, this is a guy.
A guy who was a second-round pick, and they rushed to the majors, and this is... Are you surprised by that at all?
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges facing the Red Sox this season?
And, you know, the ask is, I don't know, JoJo Parker plus. Nolan Perry. Your two best pitching prospects. Are you doing that?
Me, probably, but as this front office, probably not. Like, that many years of control and, like, the pipeline of, you know, we've talked so much about how there hasn't been pitching at AAA and things like that. Like, they have such a good young group of pitchers. You don't want to trade them all away. You traded three away at the deadline last year.
And in this case, like, even when this front office has been aggressive in trade, it's pretty rarely been for rentals. Yep. So you got to consider that when thinking through Scooble as well. Why do you... Because it would be a rental. Because you're a very reasonable guy. Like, why do you say that you would do that?
Because I think the goal... Obviously, at this point, the division is far enough away that I don't think it is a reasonable goal. I think it's a... If you get hot in... June and July here, awesome. But realistically, you're playing for a wildcard series. And I don't think, I think Cease and Gosman are very obvious in a wildcard series. I think Trey Savage has been a little shaky. Right.
And I don't think anyone can match Scooble, Cease, and Gosman in a wildcard series. No, definitely not. Now, if it doesn't go well and you just sold a bunch of farm assets for a wildcard series, that sucks. But, like, you're leveraged to the tune of, like, $300 million and you saw what it looked like last year if you can get in.
And then once you get past the wildcard, like, who cares what happened in April, May, and June? Oh, of course. So I just think you would be better suited to win a wildcard than anyone else if that was the top three in your rotation.
I actually, I kind of think that they already are. I mean, I think that Cease, Gosman, Trey is already a
Yeah, I think with the workload questions and the shakiness of the last couple starts, I'm not quite as locked on Yusavage right this second.
Well, and that game also could basically be a bullpen game. Because you could open with Braden Fisher, you could bring in Trey for three, four innings, then it's Hoffman, you know, if he's on track at that point.
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Chapter 7: How do former Red Sox stars influence their current performance?
Here's some cool stuff about this player. And then really starting to branch out into other areas. So let's start back at the beginning. How did you guys... Start the channel. What kind of went into the genesis of, hey, we know ball. Let's get it out there for everyone.
So for those that don't know, this is my production partner, Joel, and we do everything together on this page with this dynamic duo that although I'm the one that is in front of the camera, he's very much involved behind. And we decided to start this page back in August of 2025. So we're coming up on our year-versary.
And the reason why we decided to start at the time we did is because Joel's a screenwriter and we were pitching a baseball TV series to Hollywood executives and hearing a lot of responses about, well, baseball is skewing too old or it's a dying audience.
And what we wanted to showcase was there's so much storytelling and narrative in the baseball space on top of all of the new analytics that we wanted to incorporate in this TV series that we've now started injecting into our social media page. That's the short synopsis. If I missed anything, Joel, feel free.
That's pretty good. Yeah, we started just about a year ago, and our focus has been kind of like this generational cultural approach where we're trying to bring kind of all fan bases together of all ages. And whether you're a brand new fan of the game or you're really into it, really into the analytics, we try to give something for everybody.
So first of all, I have to ask, if this ever moves forward, and this is not a ask, actually, this is a request. If you need a sports media person in a role or something, this is actually like a lifelong career goal of mine of like to play a fictional sports media person in a TV, baseball specifically, TV or movie.
Anyway, so Joel, you have a television background and Brooke, you have obviously a front of camera background. How did it kind of shift from this is a potential TV idea to, you know what, this will make great short form informational content, I guess, but also entertainment content for baseball.
It's like I can see how it would go from here's this idea for a show to here's this idea for social media. But how did that kind of come about? And when did you first decide, OK, Brooke knows ball. Let's let's get some explainers out on Instagram and kind of go from there.
We wanted to showcase that the type of narrative we wanted to create and the media, the content was palatable. So we decided to start going on social media back in August when Joel and I kind of just looked at each other and we were like, there's so many amazing stories of baseball and there's an audience for it.
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Chapter 8: What strategies can the Blue Jays use to fix their offensive issues?
That's so great. You mentioned some of the stats that you guys work with. And this is, you know, it's funny when this, again, this is a fairly analytics forward show or you guys are doing some analytics stuff on the channel and then small ball comes up.
And I think sometimes people think those are at odds with each other, but it's not because it's about advantages and finding, you know, inefficiencies and things like that. And the Brewers are such a great example of look at all the bases they steal and had the emphasis they put on running and defense in an era of, you know, three true outcomes and things like that.
So again, to the extent that you're willing to talk about it publicly, because I know you guys do some consulting work and things like that as well. What can you tell us about some of the stats you're working on and how we might be able to better publicly incorporate some of these small ball elements into the kind of bigger stats that we look at now?
Go for it. Yeah, so we've definitely been talking to some teams about it. That was kind of our launching point last year was talking about small ball. And obviously the Blue Jays went on an incredible run using contact more specifically in the postseason. The idea is that... With three true outcomes, those kind of disappear come postseason time. The pitching gets so much better.
You're not facing losing teams. You're not facing four or five starters on a team that's 30 games under 500 where you can really feast. You know, it's a feast or famine approach. So you can really eat up on.
lower quality opposition and then you know you suffer the consequences when you face top end starters and top end arms out of the bullpen and you'll see teams that absolutely dominate in the regular season but kind of I guess the money ball A's would be really good in the regular season and then completely inconsistent compost time.
You kind of see that and you've seen that in the last like 25 years of the game and you need to maximize scoring opportunities. Obviously a three run homer is incredible, but in a game where it's tied or you're down one or you need to take the lead late, you need to be able to put that one run across and small ball really takes advantage of the
the opportunities that you're given because with the speed, the velocity of pitching these days, the breaks, um, repertoires, and the fact that you're seeing probably only, you're only seeing a starting pitcher, maybe twice. Um, you really have to be ready to maximize any opportunity you're given. So, um,
Taking a bunt, setting up your team to be able to hit a deep fly ball to score a run where you don't even need a hit is it's kind of a different idea because it's been pushed aside for the last 25 years. But you really need to somehow score one run sometimes. That's. all you need in many, many situations at the end of the season.
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