OverDrive - Braden on the Blue Jays' confidence level, the Red Sox's leap and Guerrero Jr.'s regression

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Former MLB Pitcher and Baseball is Dead Podcast Host Dallas Braden joined OverDrive to discuss the confidence level in the Blue Jays', the potential playoffs push in Toronto, the Red Sox's massive step in the AL East, Max Scherzer's ranking as an all-time great, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s lack of power in the spotlight and more.

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. Anyway, Jay's Red Sox tonight. Seven big games down at the dome this week. Sox for four, Yankees for three. The Jay statistically are alive. It's a high mountain to climb here.

We're generally fairly optimistic. I think our next guest is a very optimistic guy. We're going to put him on the spot, banking on some mountains. optimism here. Former MLB pitcher, host of Baseball's Dead podcast, joining us on the Maple Toyota Hotline. There's our main man, Dallas Braden. Dallas, give us some optimism here, man. The Js, I know they've got to jump six teams. I know there's only 43 games left. I know they're dealing with injuries. What are the chances they can at least make it interesting the rest of the way? Well, let's start with what you started with. How many games do you got against the socks

for to start this series? Yep. Where do you sit? You're three and a half. You're three and a half out of the wild card right now. So within a series, within a series boys, things could look very, very different for you. And I think that's a heavy dose of optimism, considering what the Boston Red Sox have just done. Now it was my, green

and gold, my athletics, who brought their series run to an end. Stopped them from winning what was going to be 10 games in a row, but that's not to say that they can't pick up and start another run, because that's exactly what the Red Sox have done is they have been world beaters. All that to say this.

Sure, you guys have had some faces that left town, but you brought in a pretty good arm in Soriano, and in terms of more optimism on the mound, who's to say that Tyon's not able to get things together? Now, a bit of a bumpy start is last time out, and I understand that it's probably more about being able to account for innings at this point. All that to say, has it been a little left to be desired offensively for the Jays this year? No question about it. You'd like to have seen more from Vlad. I don't think anybody fly in the Maple Leaf thought that George Springer was going to repeat what he

did last year, I mean, darn nearly a career year in a lot of different ways for the elder statesman. So I think when you try to enter the fray with any sort of optimism, that's what I always think about is we have watched multiple teams this year go on great runs. There's nothing to say that your team two can't figure out how to win multiple ballgames in a row at an important time and sitting just three and a half out of the wild card. If I'm being honest, boys, just between us, that's about all the optimism. Yeah.

You're not alone, man. All things considered. I know. Listen, they've been baking the cake all year, right? They've played a lot of games. They haven't been able to hit. They haven't been clutched. They've been taxed in their bullpen more than any other bullpen in Major League Baseball.

Defensively, they perform poorly. Like, they deserve the record they have. They have earned the record. They have not been very good. And now you get injury issues. Okamoto's out tonight. Your Savage might be done for the season. You know, there's, it's a climb because they've earned the climb.

but fundamentally they have played better recently. And I don't know if you can point to anything in particular. Is it getting past the trade deadline? Is it finally acknowledging like, hey, boys, we've been pretty sloppy and we've got to snap out of it? Like what would small sample size, but the last 10 to 12 games, they have played their best baseball? And I think it's a combination of having that come to Jesus moment, right? We are past the deadline. As you look around to your left and right in the room, this is exactly who is going to help us get to where we want to be.

There's nobody else coming for help, all right? And I think you need to quit looking for the help. And I think a conversation that is permeated through the A's Clubhouse is probably one of similar status, which is we've got to play with some pride here. At the end of it, we can look up towards the end of September, and if we're able to put together diligent, fundamental baseball day in and day out, and we're able to go about our business the way we think we should be able to, then we can look up in September,

and I think you'll like where you're at, comparatively speaking, to where you have ended up in the day. this point. So I think just being able to hold the next guy accountable to you and being able to feed off of each other, that's really all you can ask for right now because it's not like you're going to turn in to a juggernaut that you haven't been all season long. It's not like you're going to start rolling out a rotation full of Syung candidates that just haven't been there. And to the point about potentially losing you savage, that's the whole idea of nobody else is coming to help. So it's going to get done. It's going to get done with these guys in

the room right now. And one of my favorite sayings is hold the rope. And the idea is if you've got 25 guys on this roster on one side of the cliff holding on to the rope, any given day, that 26th man sitting on top of the cliff, he's got to be willing to hold a rope until his hands bleed, until they burn, until they're ready to get ripped off if this club is going to go in the direction that they want to go. Because I just go back to being within striking distance. That's one thing I always try to maintain when I'm being serious for a minute about the optimism is four games. I cap it at four because if you have a four game set against a team that could very well dictate your future, that means you can dictate your future.

And that's where the Js sit right now, albeit against some very stiff competition. Dallas, when you look big picture at this Red Sox team, I mean, there's probably no sport that minimizes the manager, you know, the head coach, whatever you want to call it, comparing to the other sports, as much as baseball does, right? We get the sense sometimes the managers aren't even running things. It's the guys with the spreadsheets who make most of the decisions now. And yet, in the case of the Red Sox, they're 10 and 17 when they fire Alex Cora and a handful of coaches, and they've been lights out ever since. I mean, how much are you a believer that just changing that mix in terms of the manager and some key coaches

has been responsible for what's happened to the Red Sox? I tell you right now, boys, if you and I went over to Japan, tried to get on a subway and try to figure things out. Us together, collectively, I don't know if you speak Japanese, but it'd be pretty tough for us to figure out which way we were going, right? We could look at some pictures, and it might take us a while to figure out the pictures. You'd like to think we could get to where we were going, but what if? Now, stay with me here.

What if we had a translator? What if we had someone that spoke the language? What if we had somebody that was actually familiar with what the heck we're trying to figure out and what's going on, has been there, and has that comfortability, has that familiarity. Well, I bet we get on the first train we need to, and we get right to where we wanted to go from the beginning. And I think that's what Chad Tracy has represented, is somebody who can translate what is being said

or what is being asked to be achieved from the top, down through him and his staff and through the clubhouse. Because sometimes all you need is a calming, steady presence outside of maybe feeling like there's been pressure and there's been expectations and maybe not quite the communication that has bred positivity and has bred the energy that you'd like to see from a young group who's trying to figure things out.

And I think that's what the Red Sox, frankly, have benefited from, is the calming presence and the familiarity that Chad Tracy has brought to the table. Because this is a guy who knew who these kids were as they were coming up through the system, was familiar with them. Now they're here in the big leagues. And I think he and Craig Breslo have a great relationship. I just spent the weekend in Boston. I spent about 45 minutes catching up with my old teammate, Craig Breslo, and got a really good pulse of why things have gone the way they have, why he believes the team has started to trend the way they have. and I think a lot of it has to do with the respect that these players have for Chad Tracy, because I understand what you mean by almost minimizing the impact of a manager.

But if it's that guy who writes the lineup out in conjunction with the information he's getting from the analytics team, and it's that guy who is steadily sending the positive messages that has this group all pulling on the same end of the rope together. It's 26 guys on the top of the cliff. Nobody's dangling on the side. I think that's what you have seen with the Red Sox, not to mention. They have one of the best bullpins in baseball. They've got some absolute studs. I mean, if you're talking about getting Garrett Crochet back,

you're running out a guy in Jake Bennett, 6-6-240 pounds. Peyton Tolly, 6-6-250-plus pounds. Garrett-Crochet, a behemoth of a man, 6-6-250-plus pounds of left-handed monstrosities. On top of what Sunny Gray, the boy wonder, I think, has continued to do. Even in his aging twilight has been outstanding. So I think the Red Sox, from a collective pitching standpoint, have pitched their way into the situation they're in. And I think a lot of it has had to do with Chad Tracy and the message that he's been able to send not only to the lineup, but the staff, starter and reliever likewise.

With Dallas Braden, over the weekend, Max Scher, you know, he turned back the clocks. Like, he looked good. He was, he's competitive, but he had A-stuff. He was striking out guys left, right, and center, actually moved into top 10 all time in strikeouts passing Walter. Johnson, which is wild. He's up to 3,50016. That's a big move, man. And we were discussing it earlier, like, of the modern

studs, you know, the Scherzer's, the Verlanders, the Wurlanders, the Kershaw's, maybe throw DeGrom into that, Chris Sale possibly into that, maybe scubles in that. Like, where would Scher rank for you of the last 15 years? Like, best of the best, where is he on your list? So I think he's top five in there, no doubt. And I think I tweeted this the other day, actually,

Max Scherzer, in my opinion, and my humble opinion, is probably the poster child for living up to slash surpassing expectations that have come along with signing the mega contract. I think he was one of the first guys. You're talking about a guy who was a Cy Young winner, a World Series champion, a perennial All-Star. We're talking about a dude who finished, you know, top ten, an MVP conversation.

This is a guy who has been absolutely lights out more times than he has not. This is a guy, I mean, and you want to talk about just quirkiness, this is a guy who battling thumb injury was like, you know what, maybe I'll, maybe I'll do my best Chopin. Maybe I'll do my best Beethoven and I'll figure out the piano and that'll help me. Like just his desire to get better, even at the age that he's at and the competitive nature, the impact that he's had on his teammates, those are all things that I don't know that necessarily show up on the back of the baseball card because there's not much room on the back of Max Scherzer's baseball card at this point in time. He's done just about everything you could want

to have a pitcher do. So I think in terms of the pantheon of all-time greats, I do. I think about Burlander. I think about Kershaw. I think about Max Scher. These are guys that I got to play against and watch perform from the other side of the dugout. I mean, I remember, I'll tell you funny story. I remember sitting in Sacramento during a rehab start for myself. and the Diamondbacks brought out this guy who was also on a rehab start, Max Scherzer, and I believe he punched out, what was it? I think it was 11 in four innings. And I remember thinking to myself, oh, oh, my God, oh, my God.

I've never got, what? How am I going to stay in the big leagues? Like, I got in a sniff. How am I going to stay in the big leagues? This is what happens in the big leagues? Good luck, buddy. I might as well steal the popcorn tray, because that's what I'm, I'm going to be doing. If I'm going to be performing in a ballpark, it's going to be as a popcorn

vendor. If this is the kind of stuff that I got to compete with. So, I mean, Max Scherzer is at or near the top of that list. And without a doubt in that conversation, when we talk about all-time rates. Well, you talk about Scherzer living up to the mega contract, Dallas. Obviously, there's a lot of talk about what has ailed Vladdy here in Toronto. Now, he's had three hits in his past two games. He had a home run on the weekend, albeit that's one home run in his past 20 games. But when you look at the way he's gone from being the

clutches of the clutch in the playoffs last year with eight home runs and 18 playoff games to what he's doing this year, how much do you think the money kicking in, the $500 million kicking in, could have something to do with it? There's always pressure.

Anytime you become the face of, I think there's a layer and a level of expectation that only a small amount of the population not only in baseball, but the world can really understand and feel. When you are the tip of the sphere, when you are the spear in general, that is a level of responsibility that at times is very difficult to wrap your head around. And when you don't necessarily have other individuals who have experienced that,

you can probably at times feel like you're on an island. And I think for Vlad, that's absolutely had to have had an impact because he wants nothing more than to make his country proud, make the country of Canada proud. He wants to bring a World Series championship to Toronto. No question about it. And I think when you factor in who he is as an individual player and the expectation he has for himself,

and we're talking about a guy six-time All-Star, right? Gold Glover, what, Silver Slugger, two times over, I believe. Like, he's done a lot in this game already. And he's all of, what, 26, 27 years old? So when you hand a guy that kind of money, especially with Vlad with the things he's already done, you can understand why, number one, he probably feels good and comfortable about what he's capable of, but then there comes the pressure.

And if you haven't performed up to the expectation not only of yourself, but I think of the baseball world, then you really start to feel the weight of that. I mean, one of the crazier statistics going in this year of baseball, I believe, has got to be the fact that he is still, and correct me, if I'm wrong, still yet to Homer at home? Yeah, that's a fact. Like he's got seven, and these are two teams, again, throughout his career. he has enjoyed playing against, Boston and New York. Like, he loves Yankees Stadium. He loves Fenway.

But, like, it's a legitimate conversation we had an hour ago, Dallas, that he's got seven home games. He's healthy. And will he hit a home run? You know, which is third. And probably a defining reason for why they're in the position they're in right now. You know, if you're a big believer, it's got to be, right? Like, it's the number one reason. If Vladie is performing to expectation,

they're probably a game out of the wild card. If he's exceeding it, they're probably tied for the wild card spot. Like he may be worth that much. He should be a five-win player right now based on contracts and talent, etc. He's a win. He's a one-win player right now. Yeah, and I do. I think, look, for all the excitement that I think Okamoto brought to the table early on,

I think what you got from George Springer last season and what you're not getting this year, it's almost disingenuous to think about putting any sort of, I don't know, responsibility on George Springer saying that if he would be better, of course, if he would be better than he is right now, the team would probably be performing better. But I just don't know that anybody on planet Earth expected George Springer to post the campaign he did last year. And that was a major, major reason why the Jays were in the position they were in, why they were battling for supremacy of the sport at the end of it all.

So I think you can look up and down this lineup and realize that there were some key contributors that just have not quite been those contributors up until this point. And I think when we watch young teams collectively get better and surprise folks and arrive a little early, I think the same can be said for teams that have performed well collectively and then collectively regressed, and you wonder why they haven't showed up. And I think that's where the Js are at right now. Absolutely. Great stuff, Dallas. Always appreciate you doing this, buddy.

We'll do it again soon. No problem. Have a good one, boys. Good luck this series. You got it. Thank you. There's Dallas Braden. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free I-Hard Radio app. Gets the blood going up.

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