Triple-A

But the highlighted story for this one was Jonah Tong making his return to the big league roster.

It was a move that a lot of Mets fans anticipated with a recent run of good starts at AAA, plus the fact that the Mets should probably see what they have with Jonah Tong at this point, considering that he's probably going to be a big piece of the pitching staff next year.

It got off to a rocky start.

There was a home run in that start.

We'll see how it stands up against other major league hitting.

But it's his first start of 2026, his first start since September of last year.

He had a 4.54 ERA in AAA this year.

But like I said, the last few outings for triple-a or the strong encouraging sign that i think the mets needed to convince themselves to give jonathan a shot it was really nice to see him in the post game you know celebrating the team win knowing what he needs to improve on but ultimately happy with the results because i think if you're a jonathan fan and a jonathan believer it's going to be all about getting through five to six innings and proving that you can handle that you know starting pitcher workload you working in the tertiary pitch as much as you can and trying to induce contact with it, and ultimately keeping the walks down, not being afraid to go after hitters, not being afraid to throw fastballs in the zone.

The minor league one is great when we do... recaps for Roto world because I'm looking at rehabbing starters.

I can go beyond like, Hey, Nick Pavetta through 44 pitches and AAA.

It's like, okay, what did those pitches actually look like? And that stuff's great.

The process plus stuff is great.

it's not like

give me your info and then we literally just

want you to try it because we think it's so good and we think that you will love it too and speaking about the rehab stuff like I made it so that it is the most recent game for every injured starter so for example I have Justin Steele Justin Steele who has apparently three rehab starts so far, all in AAA.

He's thrown 36 pitches, 27 and 31, and sitting 90 and 91.

And tomorrow we get to do it again.

And he was talking about being up and down from AAA back to the bigs and the role that Shelly Duncan had again with Susan on the field.

He's

got a tough gig to take in all of us.

This is the Friday episode where we dive in with an insider or a ball player, and I'm super excited to have today's guest.

Returning to the show, shortstop and third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays organization, currently playing in AAA with the Buffalo Bisons, Josh Kasovich.

Welcome back to the show, my man.

Thanks for having me.

They decked that place out.

So the clubhouse is sick.

It's probably the nicest AAA setup I've ever seen, so really cool.

And so you get the old kind of historic part, and then you get the new kind of glamorous part.

pretty funny.

CJ, I think for me personally, the last loss in the series to the AAA Sacramento A's, and I'm just going to keep calling them that.

Yeah.

A 2-0 loss to that team.

And, of course, we still have the dispute going on between Major League Baseball and the veteran umpire.

And here today, Lanny Harris from Richmond, Indiana, up from the AAA ball in the last couple of years, last four years.

And I understand that Mr. Harris from Richmond, Indiana... has been signed to a major league contract.

He'll be working behind the plate.

He's

playing for the AAA team.

That's hard.

Trust me, I think if we could, we would have put Hazer Sanchez in AAA a long time ago.

I'm not in charge of the team by any means, but I'm more than willing to just say see you.

Thanks for your time.

But if the Dodgers win it again, it's like... 90% of fans are going to want a cap.

What is the salary cap for the AAA team that the Dodgers have? Because they're going to have to get rid of $150 million if they get that.

Where are those guys? What are they going to do with a team that's $150 million over the new cap? What do they have to

do? Are they going

His season as a whole is still pretty subpar, but his OPS is up to a 716, better than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with as much as he has struggled.

Now, a few other developments we have to discuss today, and it began with this late last night, with Anthony Santander not being in the AAA Buffalo Bison's lineup, and with like 15 games or so left to play for the Toronto Blue Jays.

I mean, we're all kind of I don't want to say counting down whether or not Anthony Santander is going to come back.

I know a lot of people don't really think he's going to be good, but he wasn't in the lineup, which is very odd because of the fact that there's not many games left, both in the Jays season and time for him to return.