Halford & Brough in the Morning - Canada Soccer Appeal Rejected

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

In hour one, Josh Elliott-Wolfe and Jason Brough discuss the rejection of Canada Soccer's appeal to the six point reduction given to them for the drone spying scandal that has clouded their stellar play so far (5:00). Sportsnet's Shi Davidi then joins the show to break down the Toronto Blue Jays' moves at the trade deadline and where all of them leave the club now (26:00). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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How close did you come to a trade for either a bow or a vladi? No, no, no, no no good morning mancouver 601 on a wednesday a wet wednesday outside it is halford and brough no halford still josh elliott wolf but it's still brough too good morning buddy how are you i'm doing well when is the rain gonna stop i don't know i thought it was supposed to stop today, I believe. It's all misty rain, too. It's just annoying. I know we're going to get a good stretch of weather, and it's going to start getting hot,

and we will probably be like, I kind of miss the rain right now. That was fun. It was a good stretch of rain. Basketball Ben, how are you? Fantastic. Nice. Laddie, good morning. Hello, hello.

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Another full show today. Shy Davidi at 630 is going to join us. Sportsnet's baseball columnist covering the Blue Jays. They made another couple trades yesterday, few trades yesterday. Nothing huge, but we'll get into them with Shy. How close did they come to trading Vladdy or Bo? I know. It would have been fun, but definitely wasn't expected.

But we'll talk to Shai about that and what their future looks like with the Blue Jays. At 7 o'clock, Julie Stewart-Binks is going to join us, covering the Olympics for CBC. We'll go around the Olympics with her. Impressive win for the Canadians in Rugby 7s that we'll get into shortly. Well, win of a medal. Right. That event.

It was an impressive win over Australia. And then, I would say, a gallant effort against New Zealand in the gold medal game. We'll also talk women's soccer with her, Summer McIntosh, everything going on at the Olympics. 7.30, Brady Henderson covers the Seahawks for ESPN. Hopefully we'll connect with him. Hopefully he wakes up today. That would be helpful.

So we'll talk to him about training camp. And at 8 o'clock, Thomas Trance. He had a one-on-one with Abbotsford Canucks head coach Manny Malholtra for the athletic. I had a few questions about, like, are there going to be any changes to how Abbotsford is run this year? And the big thing last year was that they really wanted to be aligned between Abbotsford and Vancouver. And I'm wondering if that's still, it should still be the priority, but what changes between Jeremy Colleton and Manny Malhotra? Yeah, I mean, also my big question with Manny Malhotra,

we all know he's a good guy and a smart hockey guy, and he's had experience as an assistant coach, but how much more of a challenge is this for him coming out to Abbotsford and setting up the whole thing and being the head coach because he's also had to hire some assistant coaches. He's had to catch up on the players that he'll be coaching, the system that he'll be coaching. It seems like, based on the article that I read in the interview that Drancer did with Manny Malhotra, Manny Malhotra has had a busy, busy offseason,

and that's only going to continue into training camp. So working in reverse, Thomas Drance at 8 o'clock, 7.30, Brady Henderson, 7 o'clock, Julie Stewart-Banks, and at 6.30, Shai Davidi. That is what's happening. Let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened?

I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance, making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools resources and safety training visit bccsa.ca so we will start with the latest developments in the canadian soccer saga and the olympic committee canadian olympic committee had appealed the decision to

give canada a six point deduction in the women's soccer tournament and we all know that's where they were early this morning about an hour ago um the ioc said we're going to dismiss this. Yeah, it was actually, it was the court of arbitration for sport dismissed the appeal of the six point penalty against the women's soccer team. So the women's soccer team has to win today. That's basically, they will still get that six point penalty.

Now they've done incredibly well to overcome that penalty. They beat New Zealand. They beat France, obviously in France, incredible come from behind effort. And now they're going to have to beat Columbia. Now they should beat Columbia, but certainly no guarantee that they will. Canada is ranked number eight in the world, and I think Colombia is something like number 22. So this is going to be a tough test for Canada

because not only is the pressure on them to win this match, Colombia is also going to be trying to win this match. And a draw is not good enough for Canada. So they have to go out and win. And if they do, what a win it's going to be to overcome this six-point punishment that a lot of people, including their own Olympic committee, thought was too big a punishment.

Six points, that's a lot. And they will go through to the quarterfinals with three points despite winning all three of their matches. But imagine if they draw today and they go 2-2 with one draw and they don't get through. Now, opinions are going to be mixed on this sort of thing. Sean and Delta texted into the Dunbar Lumber

text line at 650-650 and you can text in on the Dunbar Lumber text line. The Bridge Street, Dunbar Lumber and Ladner has moved to Progress Way in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome. Details at DunbarLumber.com. And Sean and Delta says, Team Canada Soccer

lost its appeal and rightfully so. What they did was stupid. It's cheating. They got caught and are getting what they deserve. If this was China or Iran, everyone would be cheering this punishment. I still don't understand what Team Canada soccer was thinking. I think this always comes back to,

is it fair to the players? You can go back to boycotts of the Olympics in 1980 and 1984 and say whether or not it was fair to those athletes who had prepared for those games and then politics got in the way and they weren't able to participate in them. What Bev Priestman and her coaching staff did was very wrong, in my opinion. Some people have downplayed the notion of spying on other teams' practices and said it's not a big deal, says everyone does it. Well, I don't know if everyone does do it.

And there's a standard that I think we should have in Canada that we don't do that sort of thing. But you have to feel for the players who now have to go out there and definitely get a win over Colombia. That being said, this has clearly galvanized the group because they've gone into hostile territory and beaten France, one of the best teams in the world. I'd be surprised if they don't win today against Columbia, but again, Columbia is, they're not among the best in the world, but they're still pretty good.

And you have to wonder at some point if the mental exhaustion is going to play a factor for Canada because these women who have been through so much at these Olympics, you know, it's a lot to ask for them to win all three of their games in the group stage. The thing that comes up for me that I was kind of thinking about with this is it almost feels like, for a hockey example, when a team is trying to make the playoffs and they're pushing really hard to make the playoffs and then eventually they do it everyone's pumped but then you get there and you're like well we did it and they kind of fall flat yeah in the postseason i wonder if that's what could happen

with this and hopefully it doesn't hopefully that they in this game specifically or into the quarter into the quarterfinals i think you just got to take care of business in this game first. It's not over yet. They're not through. For sure. They're going to win today. But yeah, if they do win and they do get into the quarterfinals, it will be interesting to see what they did. What else is going on Olympics-wise?

So just before we move on, that game, by the way, at noon, because we get a text asking what time the game is at. It's at noon, we get a text asking what time the game is at it's at noon our time against columbia so olympics wise throughout the night there wasn't anything super major aside from that announcement there was canada got fourth place in women's synchronized 10 meter platform diving um but most of the noteworthy things, they did happen yesterday. Canada up to six medals following the silver win in women's rugby sevens. And we talked about it a bit. Impressive win over Australia.

That happened during the show yesterday. And then they played against New Zealand in the gold medal match. And it felt like there was a moment they were leading at the half. Canada was. Where it was like, hey, you know what? They might do this. They might do this. They might pull this off.

They might figure out a way to beat the Kiwis, and New Zealand came back. They got the win, but it was still a wildly impressive result for Canada. And New Zealand deserved the medal. They didn't make any mistakes in the second half. Canada missed a few tackles and that's all you need to do. The game of Rugby Sevens is a game of possession. If you can hold on to the ball, you're probably going to win because eventually you're going to break down

the defense because it's so exhausting to try and defend in Rugby Sevens. Early on, Canada was playing incredibly defensively and New Zealand actually made a few mistakes. They got sin-binned in the first half and they turned the ball over a few times and Canada was able to take over. But those Kiwis are pretty good. And all in all, it was a really, really, really good performance by the Canadians and

talk about a tough day for the Aussies. Yeah. They got beaten by Canada unexpectedly and they were probably thinking, oh, we're going to have a gold medal match against New Zealand. This is going to be incredible. There are big rivals in, uh, you know, Australia and New Zealand.

Uh, and then they lose to Canada and they're in tears. And then it looks like they've got the bronze medal wrapped up against the Americans. And then the Americans with just a few seconds left get essentially like a last second breakaway try, uh, pretty much the length of the field to win bronze. So a tough day for the Aussies in that. We got a bunch of texts into the Dunbar Lumber text line that I want to read because I want to talk about this women's soccer story just a little bit more.

Canada lost its appeal in the court of arbitration for sport said, no, it's going to be a six point penalty. And Omar and East Van text in, hey guys, what about the theory that for every person that gets caught doing something wrong or illegal, many others, if not most people, are also doing the same thing. It's just that the individual was unfortunate enough to get caught red-handed. Are we to believe Team Canada

is the only team cheating in some way? No, we are not. But Canada got caught. They got caught. If you're in favor of smart cheating, it was not smart cheating to be flying a drone in France with all the security out there, but I don't see it that way. I see it that they got caught and it doesn't really matter if other teams didn't get caught. They got think most Canadians, uh, want their teams to not cheat. There are going to be some people out there that, you know, have the mantra. If you're not, you know, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. That's not me. If that's you. Okay. Um,

but I think as Canadians, we were, um, embarrassed at this story that it became so big. But at the same time, we felt for the players. My anger is 100% directed to the coaching staff on the Canadian women's team. And I imagine some of the players are in a very, very tough spot because while they might be angry at the punishment, they might be angry at their own coaching staff. The anger at the coaching staff might be a little complicated because they probably also really like Bev Priestman because she's been the manager for a lot of their successes. And, you know, I imagine that there's respect there for the management. But, you know, I just, to answer Omar and Ysvan's question, are we to believe that Canada is the only team cheating in some way?

No, but I would like to think that we hold ourselves to a high standard of ethical behavior in Canada. And I know a lot of people, the response has been like, you know, in a lot of countries, the media would rally around the team. And, you know, first of all, I think that has been done in some fashion, and certainly when it comes to the players, but I don't think it's the media's job to cover up or excuse the cheating of Team Canada's coaching staff. So the latest from, speaking of media covering this, Rick Westhead on Twitter, I'll read this out real quick. FIFA had evidence of Canada Soccer's historical spying program soon after assistant coach Joey Lombardi was arrested by French police.

Canada Soccer provided FIFA's discipline committee with head coach Bev Priestman's emails as it considered sanctions after a Canada Soccer analyst emailed Priestman four months ago to say that they refused to spy on opposing teams closed training priestman emailed a human resources consultant on march 20th 2024 four months ago to ask for advice this is the priestman email she said quote seeking your advice and input here regarding this formal email on spying it's something the analyst has always done. And I know there's a whole operation on the men's side with regards to it. It can be the difference between winning and losing and all top 10 teams do it.

She just came out and said it. She just came right out and said it in the email that Rick West had quoted in a tweet and in an article. So Coquitlam Joe texts texts in and says it seems strange that the soccer players get charged with six points which should have cost them a chance at medals and would have to wait four years yet the ones responsible only get one year ban and and have should have gotten a lifetime time ban not even penalties well i don't think bev priestman's ever going to coach for canada again no like this And she's going to have a tough time getting a –

I mean, she might be able to get a head coaching job for a club or for another country, but I don't think she's going to get a high-profile coaching job like the one she had for Canada. In women's soccer, Canada is one of the high-profile teams. Yeah, so that's the latest from Rick Westhead. And yeah, I find it hard to believe that any of these people, even though it was a one-year ban, will be able to snag jobs quickly.

Okay, so elsewhere at the Olympics, Canada did miss out on a few other medals yesterday and overnight. Kylie Moss got fourth in the 100-meter backstroke. Francois Gauthier-Drapeau in judo lost the bronze medal match. Canada came fifth in the women's artistic team all-around gymnastics. Medal chances today and notable things. Obviously, we talked about Canada-Columbia. Summer McIntosh, the latest on her.

She competed in the heats in the 200-meter butterfly. She's on to the semis. Those are at 11.45. And Ilya Karun. By the way, this is an event that Summer could win, the butterfly. Honestly, all of them. In swimming, they just call it the fly. Do they?

Yeah, in swimming circles like I belong to. I'm just like, yeah, it's the fly. Of course. The free. Free. The back and the breast. to. I'm just like, yeah, it's the fly. Of course. The free. Free. The back and the breast. Right. I think.

No, they might not call it that. Yeah. Yeah. They don't roll with butter for butterfly, though. They should, though. They just say, I'm a flyer. I'm a flyer. I'm a flyer.

I'm a flyer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good for them. I'm cool. Yeah. I want to be a flyer. Ilya Karun. Speaking of the flyer.

Every time I see the butterfly, I think of, oh i'm gonna date myself here does anyone uh listening because i know nobody in this studio remember this alex bauman had a uh he was a swimmer for canada by the way oh okay uh he had a a commercial for eggs and it was a get cracking commercial. And he was doing the butterfly in that commercial. Does anyone remember that listening? Probably not. How did the eggs, how do eggs and butterflies? He was,

he was sponsored by eggs, you know, like get cracking, eat eggs, you know, I don't know, like big egg butterfly was sponsoring Alex Bowman. And listen,

why don't you just go on? Cause I feel like if, if Halford was here, he'd be like, I remember that commercial. But you guys don't because Josh is like 14. So whatever. I'm like 13 and a half. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, anyway.

So the eggs powered him in his swimming? Yeah. Okay. And he got crack. That was back in the day when people would be like, yeah, I put 12 eggs and I mix them up and I just drink them raw. That's healthy.

Yeah, this is good for me. I'm a model of health. This is good for me. Holy cholesterol. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, the egg council guys got to you too, eh? Yeah, yeah.

All right. Keep going. Sorry. Ilya Karun, speaking of the fly, he is in the men's 200-meter butterfly final. That is right before Summer McIntosh's semifinal. So that's at 11.37. So those are the notable things happening in the Olympics today. Canada, again, at six medals, two gold, two silver, two bronze.

Did you watch Simone Biles at all yesterday win Olympic gold with her team? She's still got some individual events to compete in and to be perfectly honest with you, I don't know if she's favored to win gold in any of those events, but for her to return to the team event that she had to leave essentially in Tokyo and win gold, uh, I thought was an incredible story.

And, um, just because of what she went through with the quote unquote twisties, which is essentially the yips for gymnastics. And I wanted to actually bring Basketball Ben into this conversation because, you know, the yips is a big golf thing. It's a big baseball thing. You can get it in a lot of sports

You can get it in the free throw line And basketball Have you ever had to deal with the yips? Very serious case of them Really? Yeah So was it your driver? Was it your chipping, putting?

Just like an involuntary muscle spasm Right Right before impact So when did you have to deal with those and how did you deal with them? Because I've had the yips before. Last year in college. Really?

Right before provincial championships on the team. So was it like three foot putts or was it rag putts, every putt? And the practice stroke would feel perfect. And then your hands would just explode basically. Right before. And the women's captain came up to me and was like, what are we going to do today?

Well, like, what are you going to do? So I changed the grip to a claw grip and still use it. Yeah. Um, but you have to change something, like something's got to physically change to get your mental state out of that. The thing I find fascinating about the Simone Biles story is, well, there's a couple of things. Number one, um, if you yip. Number one, if you yip a putt

or if you yip a throw in baseball, you're not going to hurt yourself. You might embarrass yourself, but you're not going to hurt yourself. The twisties are dangerous to get. Oh, for sure. Because you essentially lose all control or internal knowledge of your body

while you're in the air doing these, uh, incredible, um, I don't, I don't want to call them tricks. What do you call them? Stunts, gymnastic flips, whatever moves in gymnastics. Um, and number two is, I know you felt probably like the world was watching when you were in your tournaments, but the world literally was watching Simone Biles. All eyes were on her when she did the vault and for her to have to deal with that pressure and the thing with the yips and I imagine with the twisties is you can practice in low pressure situations and go, yeah, I feel good. I'm not having any problems, but you don't know until the pressure's really on whether you're over it or not. And that's the best way to get your confidence back is by putting yourself in those situations.

And then when you have some success. Yes. Okay. I'm good now. I know I can do this. I imagine it can go the other way too though. Yeah. Yeah.

And some people, some people never get over them. They've ruined baseball careers. They've ruined golf careers. And, you know, we were all hoping that it wouldn't happen to Simone Biles because she is considered the greatest, uh, you know, female were all hoping that it wouldn't happen to Simone Biles because she is considered the greatest, you know, female gymnast of all time. And I just found it like, you know, I've said before, I, you know, I'm not a huge summer Olympics person. I found it very compelling yesterday watching her with all the pressure. I mean, there are celebrities in the arena.

There are millions of people watching at home. Her teammates, perhaps most importantly, were relying on her to help them get a gold medal. And she was able to overcome that. And I thought that was just really, really impressive. And even though she's not Canadian, I was really happy for her. And she has some individual events coming up later in the week as well. It is Halford and Brough. Moving forward, we've got Shai Davidi on the other side.

Talk about the Blue Jays, the trades they made, how they're shaping up ahead of this offseason. That could be a pivotal offseason for the Toronto Blue Jays. It is Halford and Brough on Sportsnet 650. 631 on a Eurodance Wednesday. Halpern and Brough, Sportsnet 650. Going to be joined in a moment by Shai Davidi of Sportsnet. Going to talk Blue Jays and what they did at the trade deadline.

Halford & Brock is brought to you by the Dilawri family of Honda dealers. Experience the Dilawri difference today. Visit your nearest Dilawri Honda dealer today. Watch that commercial you were talking about in the break. The Alex Bauman one? Yeah. It's from 1986. You can tell. You can tell. A little before our time they put egg in food that's part of the commercial and it's just

like egg pizza egg hot dog right yeah it just doesn't work and we had a lot of egg dogs back in the 80s did you is that was that thing oh no never caught on and then the last one was like eggaroos and i had no idea what's an eggaroo i don't know it the last one was like eggaroos, and I had no idea what it was. What's an eggaroo? I don't know. It looked like it was like a little half of a wrap. Like a dunkaroo? Was it an egg? Was it an eggaroo? I love those.

It wasn't that. Imagine those with eggs, though. You'd be like, oh, man, this is the worst. When were you born? 98. 98? Jesus. Okay.

Okay. How dare you You were born You were born after The Blue Jays won Their World Series Yeah That's a tough break Yeah

I saw that I saw it in person I went I went downtown On Robson Hung out the window With a Canadian flag There was like a

Parade of cars Going up and down Robson When the Jays won Their first World Series. I actually got a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt. A bunch of old cars with wood paneling on the side? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like a bunch of Model Ts up and down. You guys eat make-a-roos. That's how the horn sounded. To the phone line we go. Shai Davidi, Sportsnet baseball columnist, covering the Blue Jays. Thanks for taking the time, Shai. How are you? Alright. I'm curious about this ticket

for hanging out the window. I remember in Toronto, everyone was hanging out the window just high-fiving police officers. So, that's pretty wild. I think the cops in Vancouver were reining it in. Yeah, the cop was a Mariners fan or something like that.

And like that we were celebrating. Well, you know what, back then I don't, I also don't remember the whole debate about, you know, whether people in Vancouver should cheer for Toronto or Seattle. We were just really happy that the blue Jays had won the world series

because, um, in a lot of ways it wasn't like celebrating for the country. Well, it was for a lot of people, but it was also celebrating that the country well it was for a lot of people but it was also celebrating that the team finally got over the hump because what a lot of people may not remember about those blue jays teams is like they came real close before and they would have these

well can't call them anything but chokes you know they had a 3-1 series lead in the ALCS over the Royals and choked that away. In 85. In 85, they had the collapse down the stretch in 87. 87. Yeah, and, you know, when they finally did get over the hump and they actually won it, it was like, oh, my God. Like, first of all, they won it. And second of all, a Canadian team won the World Series. That's crazy considering the Expos hadn't been able to do it. And it was quite a moment, and it all feels a long way away

at this point in the season for the Blue Jays. Oh, yeah, for sure. And it's interesting, and I know we've got some current stuff to get to, but just that 87 collapse. You know, obviously haunts the the dudes on that team but in talking to players from the era the 87 is the one that really sticks with them because that team was so good that might have been the best blue jays the most complete blue jays team ever and they had that division salted away and then tony fernandez gets hurt and Ernie Witt gets hurt and then they lose seven straight

at the end of the season. And that one is still, like, it's still raw when you talk to the players from that era, the coaching staff, like, they still feel that one. Yeah, I was actually glad when they tore down Tiger Stadium

because we didn't really have to think about that anymore. On to current times. Overall, how are Jays fans, or how should Jays fans feel after the trade deadline? Well, I'm certainly not going to tell Blue Jays fans how to feel, because there is ample room on the spectrum for every emotion right now. But, you know, this is an analogy I've used a fair bit over the past week or so, but,

you know, the Blue Jays were a house with a leaky foundation, you know, they started patching it up and, and are trying to get ahead of the leaks and that's really what they've accomplished. You know, it's like they're, maybe there's a super high end player in player in the group that they got back. Time will tell on that. But I'm not necessarily certain there's a franchise-altering talent there, but there are some pieces that help become part of the puzzle.

They've got some more assets to work with. They just have options and internal competition in a way they just didn't have before this actually what is the busiest period of trading in franchise history by a significant amount. So that's sort of where the Blue Jays are at. And now it's on to the bigger picture. So they've had to really manage against circumstance this year. You know, they didn't expect to be in this spot that they are is, it's a huge disappointment.

And now they can start managing towards a strategy again, having plugged some of the leaks in their home. The prospects that were acquired, are they expected to contribute soon or is it going to be a few years? Could they flip some of those prospects for some win now pieces? Because that is the big question hanging over the Blue Jays, is it not?

You know, what about next season? What is your plan next season? Are you going to try and compete again or do you need to take a step back? Yeah, so in terms of the assets they got back, it's all of the above, right? So Joey LaPerfido's already on the roster. I'm expecting him to be in the lineup today. I haven't seen a lineup yet,

but he just arrived in Baltimore last night and should be ready to go today. Jake Bloss, the starting pitcher, he's on the horizon. He's just checking in at the complex in florida the jays are just going to do some testing with him there's going to see where he's at they want to protect him he's had a massive jump he's gone four levels this year and they just want to get to know him before they continue to pile on the innings on him jonathan classé is going to be up relatively soon as well. Another outfielder like Will Porfito with both a speed and a power game, who's a really interesting player.

And then Will Wagner, an infielder who's really a bat first player. He's on the horizon too. So that's the immediate group. and then down the road a little bit you know charles mcadoo uh player they got from the pirates for isaiah isaiah kind of falafel just having a monster season between high and double a uh another really interesting player cutter coffees and infielder who who's in high a's having a really nice year really young at 20 and doing some damage there uh He's down the line. So those guys are into more of the future class and sort of headlining the down-the-road class.

And then bigger picture, what are they doing? I mentioned managing towards the strategy. So if they're saying that they intend to be competitive in 25 and 26, well, how are you going to get there? Because the big league roster has a ton of holes, even with the players they acquired over the past few days yeah you mentioned it so ross atkins spoke to media he said they were focused on competing in 2025 2026 is that realistic and how aggressive are they going to have to be to achieve that so well i think you can look at it and say there's a pathway to it, right?

You've got Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Who's just been a monster over the past month and it's sort of gotten lost a little bit, but this is, this is like MVP caliber Vlad. And you're like, okay, if he's figured it out and he can carry this forward, that's, that's a stud you build around. And you've got go Bo Bich, who has had a miserable year, is on the injured list right now.

But that's a similar level of talent. And as you have two guys like that, you can be competitive. And then if George Springer's recovery this year is legit, and starting pitchers in Gosman, Barrios, and Bassett can hold up, and they hit on a couple of the kids in a couple ads in the offseason, and you're like, okay, you can see a pathway back to being competitive. At the same time, there's a whole lot of if in that. And so that's where you have to really be aggressive

in how you're managing that, because you do have right now, as things stand, just one year of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Boba Shett left after this one. And you can't let the assets go to zero there and the Blue Jays won't because they're just too valuable. So I think if you're going to go down that competitive road, you've got to start with locking up at least one of those two guys. You can maybe go into the season, into next season,

with one of them having some uncertainty, but definitely not both. And that becomes a springboard to bigger things. But there's a whole lot of other elements that tie into that if you're going to go down that road. Because, okay, you're going to commit a nine-figure contract to, say, Guerrero and then build around him. Well, what are you doing to leverage that? Because you just don't want to give them a bunch of money and have them be

Todd Helton rotting on the Rockies for a decade. So that's sort of like the, the overarching picture right now. And there's a lot of work. Is there a pathway? Yes. Is it going to be difficult? Very yes. And can they do it as this is, is this what they're going to fully commit to? We're going to be difficult very yes and can they do it as this is is this what they're going to fully commit to we're going to see um how how close you mentioned flatty and bow how were they were they close at all to even like considering moving one of these guys at the deadline and is there a future when we talk about hey hey, there's one year left with these guys? Is there a future where both of them end up on the team long term? So this got definitely blown up.

When I talked to people on other teams and other people in the industry, nobody said at any point they thought that this was a realistic possibility. And I mean, could somebody have come to them and just say, here's the Briggs truck, are you interested? And maybe that would have changed things. But the Blue Jays understood that, look, if you're going to try to stay in this window, you're not doing it without those two guys, right? Because you're just going to spend the next four or five years trying to recreate them.

And they don't have one of them in their system. So that, you can't move off them. Like, you know, when the Jays moved past Bautista and Encarnacion and Josh Donaldson, they had Vlad and Bo coming. And they don't have a Vlad and Bo coming now. And so that changes some of the calculus. The other thing is both those guys are going into their peak. They haven't had their best years yet. You know,

people have been really hard on Vlad and I understand why, because it's such a talent, but he's 25 and Aaron judge was 24 when he debuted, you know, Vlad's 25 is in a four-time all-star. Like he isn't the best version of himself yet. You know, it took judge a few years to become what he's become. And so, you know, to, to me, like trading them, the only way you trade them is if you're absolutely convinced you can't keep

them. And I think that there's a real opportunity. You can do both. The Blue Jays have a ton of money coming off the books. They have a lot of financial flexibility. And if you want to have two cornerstones in place, those are your guys. Get it done. But there has to be a commitment to it,

and they have to show both players that there is a pathway to winning because, again, they don't want to be a commitment to it and they have to show uh both players that there is a pathway to waiting because again they don't want to be here just just rotting and putting up numbers on teams that go nowhere there have been a lot of questions about ross atkins and his future this season but we got to this week and it seemed to be pretty well received by blue jays fans and and people looking at what atkins did at the deadline. Does that change anything in regards to where his future with the organization might sit? I mean, from a public perception, maybe it does change things.

But I don't know that you can isolate one moment and say, yes, everything's good now, let's go, right? Like, to a certain degree, selling is easy, right? It's building that's hard and putting pieces in place and committing money. That's where you make a lot of your mistakes. Like, right now, you're just, okay, what can I get for these guys? I'm going to do the best that I can. Like, that's not complicated, especially in what was a very, very clear seller's market where selling teams did remarkably well, at least relative to the past few years in terms of the types of talent they returned.

So I think that the Blue Jays will have to and they will look at this holistically, but it has to be part of the bigger strategy. Like, are you pushing forward in 25? And are you going to put some money on the books beyond 25? And if you're going to do that, do you have faith that Ross Atkins is the person you want leading that charge? And so that's the discussion point now. Up until this point, it was sell the assets and do the best that you can make sure that you leverage particularly Yusei Kikuchi and Jimmy Garcia the Blue Jays did that now it's on to the next stage and it's setting yourself up internally for what you're going to do in the offseason hey Shai I really appreciate you taking the time and have a good one yeah no problem guys take care there is Shai Davidi, Sportsnet Baseball columnist

covering the Toronto Blue Jays. So Tavi texts in to the Blue Jays, the Dunbar Lumber text line at 650 650 and says, this Blue Jays team is in that position of the 2022-23 Canucks. Have

a few young stars, a couple of good veterans and just need some third and fourth line wall guys to glue everything in. Um, they might need a new coach too. Yeah. New field manager and maybe just a new, let's call it a culture, uh, of winning. And, you know, I think this Blue Jays team, I know it's different than hockey. It's,

you know, it's, but you know, the home run jacket that goes back and forth, you know, we got the home run jacket and now we don't, we're bringing it back, you know, like just enough of this nonsense, right? Are you going to be a team that is serious about doing the things that needs to be done in order to win, or are you not? And I think the Jays have come across at times as a very unserious team, and that might be the maturity of the players on the team. Um, you know, I certainly haven't

watched as closely this season as I have in the past. Um, but you know, this seems to be a team sometimes that, you know how the Canucks would just, like, do really dumb stuff? Like, they would be protecting a lead, and they would be, you know, making, you know, drop passes at the blue line, or they would just do things that you're just like, come on, guys. And Rick Tockett came in, and he basically said,

yeah, like, this team needs to learn how to play with a lead and manage the game. This Jays team seems to make dumb mistakes. I don't know if they're making the base running mistakes this season that they have in the past, but things like that, that mature teams, winning teams don't do. But I know you've got some Canucks stuff prepared for today, and you wanted to have a discussion about some individual players and whether or not next season we can expect the same things from those individual players because we all know that the Canucks had some really, really strong performances this season that helped them make the playoffs. So yeah, yesterday we were talking about, hey, what can they be this season?

Are they a clear playoff team this season? And it kind of led into Elias Pettersson talk. And what I was thinking about and what I have been thinking about is what is most likely to repeat this season in terms of what we saw last year carrying over to this year. Okay. And so I thought of four examples. Four examples, okay. And I'll throw them by. They're all individuals?

They're all individuals. They're all individuals, so this is the most likely to repeat. Yes. So JT Miller over 100 points. he had 103 last year okay quinn hughes over 90 points he had 92 brock besser 40 goals at least he had 40 this year or alias petterson's post all-star play and we'll just say you'll like you'll know when you see so that's a negative that's a negative and you'll know when you you see it. So that's a negative. That's a negative. And you'll know it when you see it uninspiring.

Let's say it's under around a point per game. Whew, that's a tough question. I think it'll be, can I start with some unlikelies? Sure. I think it's going to be hard for Brock to score 40 again. That's going to be really tough. But I think he's fully to be hard for Brock to score 40 again. That's going to be really tough. But I think he's fully capable of scoring 30. I think it's frankly hard to expect a lot of those guys to repeat,

but they can still put up impressive numbers. JT Miller breaking 100 points, that's going to be tough just because it's always tough. Quinn Hughes' totals also. That being said, the power play is where you get a lot of points, and the power play wasn't very good for the second half of the season. So...

So you can expect an uptick there, but maybe five on five it comes down. Maybe five on five it comes back down. God, the most likely to repeat. That's really tough because I've said on the Pedersen thing, I really don't like, I could flip a coin, you know, like I really don't know what to expect from, from Petey, but I think it

is possible that he comes back and is still struggling to find his game. I think that's certainly possible. I hope that's not the case. I hope he has an off season where he gets himself together mentally and he does some different training that perhaps makes that tendinitis less likely to return and be a negative factor. If it was indeed a major factor. And according to Elias Pettersson,

it was, um, I would hope that the new signings guys like a Jake DeBrusque can help him on the quality line mates front. So I guess I'm more bullish than bearish that Petey will return to form. Man, this is a tough question. I'm just hemming and hawing on it because I think there were just so many. It's a tough question because you basically put three positives,

like three, like, will these guys keep going? And then one negative, will this guy keep going in a bad way yeah so for me like the the one i lean towards most likely happening again and if if i'm going unlikely i think it's elias petterson's post all-star play but i've kind of like planted my flag on that um most likely i think is jt miller over 100 points just because i look at it and I don't think this is the year we see the drop off of JT Miller, even the start of the decline. He's going to have similar line mates to last year. I do wonder if there's also points where it's DeBrusque, Miller, Besser, because it just feels like something that might be really tempting. And then the power play.

I mean, actually, hopefully not. Hopefully not. because that would mean that DeBrusque is with Petey, and things are going relatively well. But also the power play as well. He's such a key part of that, and if there is an uptick, I could see him getting back to 100 points again. And also, like, two years ago, he had 99. He's shown he's capable of it, and when I look at Quinnes getting to 90 points again

that's that's i think that's possible i think it's possible that's probably second i think quinn could i think it's possible that quinn could get 100 points one one season like he is that good offensively but when you're talking about a defenseman and the point totals, and this isn't rocket science here, so much depends on, number one, the power play, and that extends to the teammates. And a lot of points when you're a defenseman, they're either secondary points or secondary assists or they're just making a smart pass and putting it in the hands of players that know what they're doing, right?

And it all depends on your role too. Are you being used defensively? You know, when Eric Carlson put up his 100 points in San Jose, he basically did whatever he wanted out there. Yeah. You know? Had free reign. And really didn't have to, well, based on the

way San Jose played, didn't have to defend much, didn't pay much attention to defending. Nobody on the team really paid all that much attention to defending and he could freelance. So it's probably going to be a little harder for Quinn Hughes to do that and Rick Talkett's system because there's, there is creativity allowed in the system,

but there are also some rules where you don't just go crazy out there just for the sake of piling up points. And I think we saw when Eric Carlson went to Pittsburgh, although he did register some points, it wasn't like it was in San Jose. I'm kind of talking in circles right now, though. You haven't committed to anything.

I haven't committed to anything yet. We could circle back on it. I think I'm going to go Quinn Hughes 90 points. Okay. I have that much faith in the guy. Obviously, they have to stay healthy, but I think he's so good, and he plays so much and I

do hope the power play improves and I think he is capable of piling up points like that. It would be impressive. If he could get to 100 points I think, I don't know, I just think it's really hard to repeat seasons like this for a defenseman, but he's very capable of it

for sure it is halford and brough on sports net 650 on the other side julie stewart binks is going to join us canada at the olympics she's covering the olympics for cbc and we'll talk about the highlights the impressive win in rug or the impressive silver win in rugby cells for the Canadian women, the Canadian women's soccer team in action today, Summer McIntosh, all of that on the other side. It is Halpern and Brough on Sportsnet 650.