CJ, Kyle, and Dan dive into the J's in just a second, but it should be noted, CJ, that on 9-11, you were actually playing for the New York Mets.

Yeah, 25 years ago, man.

Hard to believe.

Yeah, it is always a weird thing.

I really struggled to come up with the right words, right? Obviously, we wish it never happened.

I'm appreciative that I was there just because I grew up in the area, went to college in Queens.

And so, yeah, we were in.

And beyond the frustration level, as you have already stated, everyone should be on a short leash at this point, should they not?

Can you make sense of it? What the heck happened to this team's bats?

Yeah, it's hard to say for sure.

I mean, Springer overall has been swinging a good bat, but not necessarily seeing that power.

I think when you're not led by the guys that you expect to be led by, and here we are now almost in September with Vladi still no regular season home runs, um, at home, is, is pretty shocking.

And it's not to say that the other guys, it affects them necessarily in a negative way, but also the way that guys are being pitched, right? If you have, uh, your star who is not getting it done in the power department, um, that changes things a little bit for an opposing pitcher, um, where he gets a little bit more aggressive going after him as opposed to maybe pitching around Vladi, uh, and then working, uh, the guys that are in front and behind him a little bit more aggressively in the zone.

You don't have to do that now as an opposing starting pitcher or, or relief pitcher for that matter.

So that has something to do with it, certainly not all of it.

Yeah.

been offered any of those cameos in these sports movies?

So I have a couple of credits.

I was in the movie 42.

Did you see 42? I did not.

Okay, so when you watch 42, there's a scene that gets really sideways, and the language is awful, where our manager, Ben Chapman, who was the real manager, I played Dutch Leonard, and I'm on the mound.

I face him three times in the game, but the first time when he comes to the plate, our manager is just saying the worst things you could say to a human being in that moment.

I'm there.

And I'm like, why are you fighting with these? You can't win

Toronto Blue Jays in a nutshell.

And that's what you need in situations like this.

Of course, Daz is the son of Mike Cameron, who's a longtime big leaguer, had a great career.

So I, I followed Daz a little bit because I've been close with Mike over the years.

He and I played again- against each other quite a bit.

He lives down not too far from me, uh, in Georgia, and he's a great guy, he's a great player, and still involved in the game.

Helps out the Seattle Mariners, loves talking about the game still, uh, to this day, even though he was a, a, a player of pretty good stature over the years.

From your perspective, how much does that contribute, the way this team just has found itself together again contribute to the run they're on?

So how much of that factors into the confidence of this team moving forward? They've got the Yankees coming into town this weekend now and they might be catching them at the right time as well.

Yeah, so I just saw the Yankees actually about a week or so ago, and they're a beatable team.

They're a good team.

They're going to pitch well.

It's the same kind of thing where you can probably expect a lower output of offense from anybody that's facing the New York Yankees right now because their starting pitching is really good, and it can only get better once they get Carlos Rodon back.

That's the challenge, but at the same time, you pitch well enough.

These are games that you should be able to win or keep close because the offense right now with the Yankees has not been particularly good.

New blood, right? Have you seen this before where the team just dramatically changes because of all these fresh faces?

[laughs]

...

so co- lot of ground coverage.

Um, well, I think, listen, there's, there actually seems now, as we're getting closer to this thing, that starting pitching, I think you guys heard me say multiple times, it is one of the more difficult things to acquire at the deadline 'cause the asking price is so high.

It does seem like there is a decent amount of starting pitching now, um, that is going to be out there, and so maybe we will see more movement than we did a year ago.

Maybe those prices come down because the inventory is a little bit higher, not for Tarik Skubal, certainly, and guys at the very top.

But, um, it sounds like, and it seems like we'll have a little bit more action than maybe originally anticipated, um, which, uh, you can look at it as good news, bad news, I guess, for the Blue Jays, right? Because if you are a team that clearly is looking to sell a guy like Kevin Gausman, um, you'd like to think that it's going to be at a premium.

Do you see the retooling in the starting pitching happening at the trade deadline or the off-season, or a combination of both?

Kind of your handicap on, on where you see the other National League East teams a- and what they're capable of.

of.It's been a little bit of a surprise to see the Phillies struggle here all of a sudden, right? The Braves were up 10 and a half really quickly, uh, at the beginning of the year, and you felt like, "Are they just gonna cruise?" But we all know there's a long way to go in the season.

They end up firing Rob Thompson.

They bring in Don Mattingly or have him take over right around the time Zach Wheeler got healthy, and they went on an unbelievable, uh, run.

They probably need some help as well.

S- uh, s- what scares me a little bit about the Phillies is Dave Dombrowski is not afraid, um, to make a big move, right? And so I could see them going out and getting another big starter, and then you talk about putting together a playoff caliber rotation, and the Philadelphia Phillies could have that really quickly.

They need some offensive help as well.

... you think that they're, they are not only viable to get in but to make a deep run, who is that team for you right now in the American League?

... hasn't gone that way, so how does a team like this in this position with these guys signed, a few guys coming, a few guys going, how do they position themselves at this trade deadline?

Yeah.

So I think you look, get through those first three series that you're talking about, then you got the Nationals and the Cardinals, right? The last two kind of leading into it.

You're gonna have your, your real hard answer after I think these first three 'cause of the competition level, um, that we've talked about.

So now it comes down to, okay, what do we realistically have to move that other teams would be interested in, right? Like, y- the biggest piece that the Jays have that should not be going anywhere on the pitching side in that bullpen is Louie Varland.

I think obviously that was a great acquisition for them, but he's still gonna be under three years of service time.

So while you look at that piece and saying that'd be really highly valuable in the market, they're not going into any version of a deep rebuild.

But I think for him, even just moving forward through his career, it's important to have a very consistent, uh, uh, p- presence on the mound across the rest of his performances for the rest of the season.

How do you try and put a finger on what's going on, and how much belief can there really be at this point that there's a bounce back to even kind of a B-plus level that's still there?

Yeah, so I believe in a bounce back for sure, again, just because of age and talent and track record.

I think what we're seeing going on is two things I think that any fan can see when they're watching, and that is that Austin Riley's getting caught in between.

You can tell when there's time, especially a right-on-right breaking ball compared to the fastball where he seems, timing-wise, he's going to get caught in between.

And it happens at times, but it's happened longer, I think, than we've anticipated so far this year.

I think there's a little bit of a mechanical angle to this as well.

of getting caught in between but there's also something going on mechanically with him where he is getting under a lot of fastballs things that I kind of started looking at a little bit like you see it with your eyes and then you look for some data to say do I think I'm seeing what I'm seeing and what I've been seeing is him just missing and getting under fastballs and hitting them at a much higher launch angle than he ever has and a lot more fly balls right so he has not been able to get to the barrel to get the barrel to the baseball on fastballs in particular especially upper half of the zone and and drive those.

I mean, how do you feel right now about the way that position is situated the rest of the way?

Um, are you seeing anything different in Michael this year to correlate to the success that he's having?

I think a little bit more what he's doing on those pitches outside of the strike zone.

You're right, the chases.

I remember last year when he made the adjustments, and we're coming up on about a year anniversary of that in his, uh, mechanics and getting the hands up and getting opened a little bit more on that front toe, and then he just rolled, right? So he rolled the last couple of months of the season, and I remember late, like I'm gonna dig in here and we're gonna do a little graphic and show the difference in the metrics, and his chase was actually higher over that time.

I'm like, "Oh no, that doesn't work.

That's not a story that we could tell anymore," [laughs] because we know the chase has always been a thing.

Chase works for certain players.

And then as we kind of look towards the second half of the season and we get down the stretch here, what are some maybe storylines that you're looking forward to watching and following, whether yourself or on Braves Vision or what have you, even maybe some that continue from the first half, but is there something in particular in the second half that you're really looking forward to, to following and tracking as the rest of the season, you know, cut, winds down?

What are your thoughts on the shortstop position? Can Jim Jarvis hold this down? Could he potentially be the guy even when Hassan Kim comes back?

I think for all of us, we have this conversation.

I think we have to be honest with ourselves and go back to January.

And I will tell you for me, Hassan Kim was an absolute must.

Remember where we were with like, man, there's not a lot of shortstops out there.

I mean, I was throwing out, can we trade for Jeremy Pena, can we trade for Corey Seager? Like there is a hole at shortstop and we know Hassan Kim liked Atlanta.

Can they get him back? They had to be aggressive, obviously, to do it on the $20 million deal.

But behind the plate, what are you seeing from Drake Baldwin, game calling-wise, all of that?

What, what have you seen, not just bullpen management, but just overall Walt Weiss in, in his first, uh, year with the Braves?

Yeah, so big picture I think first of all, um, thinking about what happened early on and out in Los Angeles with Jorge Soler.

And, you know, it's, it's a kind of a silly moment, but Walt's in the middle of everything and kind of keeping, um, everything kind of calm as best he can when he, when he ended up kind of tackling Jorge Soler.

Not that these guys already didn't have it.

Um, but there's something about knowing that your manager has your back, um, and the way that's...

I understand it's kind of a physical situation there, but the way that he handled that I think spoke volumes to these guys who have known him forever anyway, right? These guys already know him, they know what he is about.

Um, but I thought that was in, in kind of a little bit of a silly way a really defining moment at the very beginning.

Yeah

What, what have you seen, not just bullpen management, but just overall Walt Weiss in, in his first, uh, year with the Braves?

Yeah, so big picture I think first of all, um, thinking about what happened early on and out in Los Angeles with Jorge Soler, and, you know, it's, it's this kind of a silly moment, but Walt's in the middle of everything and kind of keeping, um, everything kind of calm as best he can when he, when he ended up kind of tackling Jorge Soler.

Not that these guys already didn't have it, um, but there's something about knowing that your manager has your back, um, and the way that's...

I understand it's kind of a physical situation there, but the way that he handled that I think spoke volumes to these guys who have known him forever anyway, right? These guys already know him.

They know what he is about.

Um, but I thought that was in, in kind of a little bit of a silly way a really defining moment at the very beginning.

Um, but again, the relationships have already been established.

Yeah

Can you think of any times during your own career where something the equivalent of this may have happened?

Yeah, so different times called for different kind of actions over the years, but absolutely.

But just real quick, going back to your point, is also we're getting obviously now just a series away, three games away from the All-Star game.

When you're having kind of a down season, even though they're still in this thing, the All-Star game, you start kind of keeping an eye on it and looking forward to getting there.

And if you're not careful, you fall flat the rest of the way, and then you limp into the All-Star break.

And the Jays can't afford to do that, right? So a little something like this.

that injects some energy, again, a little bit of fun, rally around it, goof around.

What's the cutoff date here to truly turn this thing around?

And you're like, Vladdy, do you not see what's happening here? You're striking out like a Little Leaguer.

Yeah.

And so I think if you go to a little league game and when you hear coaches yelling for me, a lot of times I'd sit down the line so I wouldn't have to hear that.

But when it's your huge big time player who has done a lot of things in the game, you feel like those adjustments should be made.

You know how much the back thing is real and it's affecting that.

I do think it's got to be a small part of the conversation, because if it is an issue of what you are probably doing, then at times just starting your swing a little bit earlier.

So that chase is going up, Sam, pitches down and away like you're talking about.

It's disjointed baseball at this point.

You

are year one of a 14-year deal, $500 million.

I did some digging today on Vlad and trying to get a feel for what's going on.

He's still getting to the fastball, and batting average doesn't tell you everything.

There's other things that you want to look for when you're kind of looking into what's going on with the hitter.

But the batting average numbers are good against both the four and the two-seamer players.

The two seam fastball is not surprising because remember, we know he's a low launch angle guy, doesn't hit the ball high in the air.

So they don't want to put a mediocre product in front of those, uh, fans who are paying a lot of money for those tickets.

Am I seeing this wrong? Or was I correct in saying, what the hell is he doing out there for the eighth?

So I thought the same thing kind of watching this.

I was a little bit surprised and regardless of pitch count, pitch count is one thing.

How many times you actually get up and go back out for an inning or another thing, right? We kind of hear that sometimes referred to as ups.

We talk about it with guys that are coming off of rehab.

is part of it.

As much as I appreciate the idea of pushing your starters a little bit more, I'm 100% with you.

Hey, what can we expect Blue Jays fans in Chicago? The Cubs, they are above 500, but the sense is they are not a team that plays that way all the time.

But if this ship doesn't turn around, is there any chance they're sellers or they're looking to move pieces or try and land a big fish like Scooble somewhere in there?

Yeah, it's an interesting one.

I don't know about Scooble.

Scooble, I know everyone's going to be excited about him potentially getting traded.

the detroit tigers are going to have the pick of the litter right where they go and what they ultimately decide to get in return they should be in a really good position and they can't miss right so for certain teams and i do think the blue jays are one of them you have to be okay giving up pieces knowing you're going to lose school probably in free agency but then of course you can replace those pieces because you have the resources to do it when people talk about the small market teams like oh wouldn't it be cool to see milwaukee uh, trade for a school.

I don't see it because what it's going to cost to give up, then they don't have next year.

They don't have him next year either.

how long when this team is healthy do we give them to say okay now show us what you got a month

They should be very proud of the team, what they accomplished this year.

Yeah, and it's fun to break out your St. John's gear, right? I mean, that's the big one is that we get to be proud of where we're from and where we got to have our baseball careers.

Not that we ever weren't, right? But, you know, you throw on, especially I'm still traveling a bunch and working for the Braves now, right? So you throw on a St.

John's T-shirt, sweatshirt, hat, whatever it is, and all of a sudden people start, hey, great year basketball-wise.

And, wow, look what the baseball team is doing.

So we love that, right? There's a special sense of pride that comes along with it.

And Johnny mentioned that start to the year.

I mean, how good is that?

So now having seen them for three games, your initial take.

Uh, I think probably a lot of what was anticipated, right? Once, once you s- get to see a team play kind of, you know, a little bit more consistently, uh, you do get a better feel, but there really weren't a lot of surprises.

There were some good things definitely, um, that were going on.

I think the bullpen is in a pretty good place right now in the way things have been reshuffled.

Um, I thought the bullpen looked really good, uh, for the most part in this series.

Uh, that was encouraging.

Even though some of the swing and miss down at least big picture, um, is not, uh, exactly where we want it to be as far as the, racking up the strikeouts, the guys that you count on at the end are doing a really nice job.

One problem: he has not had a good start to the season.

Where's Spencer Strider at in your mind?

He's pretty close.

He's different, right? So this is not the same Spencer Strider that everybody knew.

It wasn't 99 at the top of the zone with really high vert and a slider.

Um, the fastball's come down a little bit, although that induced vertical break that we talked about, the ride at the top of the zone, um, it's getting there.

It's not that far off of where it was.

The velo will, will probably never see 99 with consistency again, um, just because it's two elbow surgeries, right? One in college, and then the internal brace that he had a couple of years ago.

Oh, okay, yeah.

while they see themselves through all these injuries.

For me, every time I look at Patrick Corbin, I feel like it's an indictment on Major League Baseball, right? Because of what he's done.

You're absolutely right.

He is pitching well.

He's keeping you in games.

It's never gonna be a, you know, a seven or eight inning dominant type of outing.

It's gonna be four, five, maybe six if it's a good night, and you're gonna be in the game, and you're gonna have a chance to win that game, right? It was four runs in his first start with the Jay, as a Jay, and it's been three or less every one since then.

Okay

I mean, as a left-handed hitter and a catcher, to be as this productive this early, I mean, this is not something you see.

No, and it goes back to the very beginning when we saw his swing in spring training.

He got excited about it because it was level.

He was willing to go the other way early, which is the sign of a mature hitter before he'd ever gotten to the big leagues.

I was just looking this morning in my prep, right? So the Braves have played 47 games so far.

Drake has started all of them.

Last year, he only had 21 of the first 47 where he had started.

CJ, if I, with my layman eyes, put a piece of video up of Bryce Elder today and Bryce Elder one year ago, would you be able to explain what he's doing differently that has made him this successful?

And if it does look back, could this be a string of the quote, unquote, "second-tier players" delivering these big moments and taking some of that pressure off Vlady?

I hope so.

They have to, right? There's no way that you're gonna go through a season where you end up having a winning season, a deep run in the postseason, just like you could say from a year ago, that there weren't other guys that were stepping up, or there weren't surprise, um, production from different guys.

Like, I think the, the year last year in totality for George Springer was kind of, uh, one of those moments, right? There was other things that happened.

But what they got out of him last year, of course, he's got the great track record, but he hadn't been trending in the right direction, and there were some real concerns.

So we had a lot of those moments last year.

You need more than just your couple of big dogs to do it, right? I'm sitting here in Atlanta.

So how do youFind what's going on with V- Vladi without filling his head with every single nuance of his swing.

Give us something to be positive about the Toronto Blue Jays on a four-game losing streak.

Yeah, the losing streak obviously is the bad news, but there are some really good signs and a lot of different places to go.

I think the Akimoto part maybe is the most encouraging and most exciting because we will always track with guys when they come over.

How are they doing on adjustments? First of all, how are they doing against the competition? And then how are they doing on the adjustments? I think for front offices across the board, they know there is risk.

when you're bringing in players from both Japan and Korea, because you're never exactly sure how it's going to play out.

It's been some great success stories.

You look at Murakami in Chicago, there was a lot of teams that passed on him.

So the team is stuck in a tough spot.