OverDrive - Colabello on if the 2025 team is anything like the 2015 Blue Jays, the importance of the Jays’ veterans, and who poses the biggest threat to the Jays in the AL East

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Former Blue Jay Chris Colabello joins OverDrive to discuss if this year’s Blue Jays team reminds him of the 2015 Jays. Colabello tells us the importance of the Jays’ veterans and how they can help the young bats. He gives his take on which AL East team poses the biggest threat to the Blue Jays

Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Bryan Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Sons. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada.

The station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeartRadio app So the Jays finishing off their pre all-star run visiting the Oakland A's in Sacramento Chris Colabello is here for a Blue J Chris welcome. How are you today? I'm great guys. Thanks for having me our pleasure

We had Joey bats on earlier in the week and he was comparing this year's team to the 2015 version which you were on would you do that, too? Yeah, I'm gonna text them and tell them first of all that I feel honored that I would be on the radio the same week As him, you know, obviously Joey that's legend So I'm gonna send him that text when this gets done. But yeah, I definitely agree with you guys And it's fine. I did you know one of the shows last week or before the Yankee series and, you know, I was around the team when they were here in Boston and, and, um, you know, I was talking to Schneid talking to Bo and a lot of the staff and, um, you know, I think the teams are very seasoned and obviously like

George has bounced back well and having him and his presence, you know, fit in and then having some younger guys that are kind of like really taking on more responsibility. Yeah, I think they're a good team. I mean, you hate to make comparisons to previous teams, but because I think that puts a lot of unnecessary stress or pressure on anyone like that they don't deserve but certainly like they have the makings of the opportunity of doing something special here. Well there's been a lot of talk Chris about how you know this run has been fueled by contributions from a lot of different guys right it's not

it's not like the Yankees where Aaron Judge does so much of the heavy lifting they don't have a player of that nature maybe nobody in the American League does but it's really been a collective effort and there's a chemistry that you can does so much of the heavy lifting. They don't have a player of that nature, maybe nobody in the American league does, but it's really been a collective effort and there's a chemistry that you can sort of feel. George Springer's talked about it being like a group of brothers in that clubhouse. I mean, in your experience, how much does that stuff matter?

Just the closeness of a group and the feeling that everybody's picking each other up when they need it? It matters more than anything else, certainly more than talent. I've reflected on that 2015 team just a bunch and obviously that's my experience so I can speak to that but I've been on really good teams and like every one of them had that right like whether it be an indie ball or in high school or in professional baseball like it's so important because you spend so much or dealing with some stuff, it's a collective effort to kind of make up that one, two, five percent, whatever it is that they can't contribute. Yeah, it's important. I think personally, just from being around them, I spent all of BP with the guys and

it was great to catch up with DeMarlowe and Scott Weberg, the strength coach and you know, all the guys that I still know. And you could tell like they've gone through some tribulations over the last few years, the expectations were high and you just probably had a bunch of guys that, you know, for one reason or another weren't ready for it, but now they're kind of, you know, more seasoned. Um, and I think specifically to, to, to Vlad and, and to bow and, you know, even George dealing with the injuries and things like that. And uh, it's really, really important for teams to have that because it's what gets

you through the tough times, right? And it's, it's what allows you to, to run off streaks of nine, 10 in a row, whatever it is. And those are the big things that you need to really flip the season on its head. I'm watching it happen here in Boston. You've got to have a good run to position yourself to then play 500 baseball when things aren't going well. There are some great contributions from young ballplayers.

In a lot of sports, if you make an early splash, it might take a year or two for the opposition to figure you out. With 162 games, that can be done in one season. So going in after we get through the All-Star break and into the stretch run, what do those kids have to not be concerned about, but maybe adjust to keep it going? Well, you know, the funny thing is, I think if you have pretty good, you know, veteran presence that you just become a contributor, right, as a young if you have, if you have pretty good, you know, veteran presence that it, you just become a contributor, right? As a young guy, like, and you don't need to worry too much about your own personal stuff when you're, when you're much more concerned about the

team winning, right? And I think that was, that was a reflection of, of that 2015 team is you had guys like myself and Ryan Goins and Kevin Pilar and Devin Travis that, you know, Oksuna, Sanchez, Stroman, like we didn't have a lot of time in the big leagues, even though I was, I don't know what a decade older than all of them or whatever it was, but, um, you know, when, when you can take that younger core group of guys and like get them focused on winning as opposed to their own personal success, then it becomes very, very easy.

That's just the hard thing to do when you're young in the big leagues. And I was talking to somebody with Boston about this stuff the other day, like how do you get young players to not worry about themselves, right? Because it's hard. It's hard to be in the big leagues. It's hard to get media scrutiny and attention. And you know, when you go two for 20, like you're stressing out and worrying about getting sent down or moved or whatever it is. And, um, but when you can get young guys to really focus on, on the team,

then it changes the dynamic. So I'm not necessarily worried about like the bargers and Clements and of the world that like they're in a good position and you can see that they're having fun like even the you know the pop-up thing happened the other day and I saw that and Clement and Vladdy had their their laughing moment on the field so it was really cool and and when the older guys are promoting that then it makes it significantly easier. Chris you're a Boston area guy the Jays obviously trying to win the American League Ys for the first time since you were on the team in 2015. When

you look at the Red Sox, you look at the Yankees and the Rays, I mean who do you think poses the biggest threat to the Blue Jays in their pursuit of that division crown? It's funny, you know, like the Rays, everybody wants to write them off every year because they keep changing personnel and You keep looking up and down the roster and you're going I don't know how they do it. But you know Tampa's here in town right now and Tampa's doing it through really really good starting pitching right like they've had five guys as starters and they've stayed healthy on the mound. So You know, I want to say

that there are cracks in that armor, but it's hard to say that because they just, they keep being in contention. Um, the Yankees are the Yankees, right? Like, uh, as they're known in Boston as the evil empire. So like, they're going to, they're going to be a threat no matter what. Um, and then, but ultimately, and I'm not saying this as a Homer because, you know, I'm, I'm a Homer to homer because, you know, I'm a homer to Toronto at this point, like I'm a Blue J through and through, but I think Boston is really coming together at the right time. You know, the diverse trade was controversial, but like I'm watching them play quite a bit

and they're going to get healthy here soon with Bregman coming back and they just look like a team that's kind of figuring out how to win now, granted, um, they had the nationals and the Rockies here in town, but they're still major league baseball games, right? And you got to win them. So, um, it'll be really interesting. I think the East is going to be super tight and, um, generally like the best division in baseball, but my, if I was a, if I was a betting man, I would

say probably, you know, Boston and the Yankees,, but my, if I was a, if I was a betting man, I would say probably, you know, Boston and the Yankees, but too many times have I counted out the raise and then they show up late in October and you go, how'd they get here? So, uh, it should be fun though. I mean, it'll be really competitive. So that's the good part. So, um, you know, with Boston trading Debers, you know, trading their best player and they still find the legs and are competitive. We have that problem with the hockey team, best player left and trying to sort of fill in the blanks, if you will. How does that even happen that you actually get better? Yeah, well, it was different, right?

Like the Devers situation, if you look at it, and we can reflect back to that chemistry thing we talked about, right? I certainly don't think Rafi is a bad kid by any stretch of the imagination, but if you look at like his personality, right? Like he's, the analogy I'm gonna use is he'd be a great Robin, right? To a Batman. Rafi is still a young kid.

He doesn't embody, like I think of, you guys mentioned Jose and I'll bring up Edwin and guys like Tulo, they were just steadfast, right? Like they were just leaders. They were the guys that like you knew you weren't gonna break them, right? Every day they were gonna just keep showing up and doing their job.

Where Rafi is a little bit more volatile as a personality, not to mention the fact that he was, he was the DH, right? And then they had the whole position controversy and all that stuff. So I think a lot of that had to do with the reason why they moved him. And I think they saw a path to a, I don't know, a more cohesive group.

And I feel like that's what's happening. Only time will really tell. But yeah, that's how it happens, I think. And it's just a matter of the personality fitting in with the group at hand. Hey, Chris, you've been around a lot of great home run hitters. That 2015 team that you were on had some incredible power hitters, and Joey Bats, and Ed went on down the line,

Josh Donaldson. There's been a lot of discussion about Vladdy here in town. Obviously, the Blue Jays are winning, the Blue Jays are hot, everybody's happy, but they're also observing that Vladdy hasn't been hitting out of the ballpark like maybe a guy that just earned a $500 million contract should be hitting out of the ballpark

with just 12 home runs. You're a guy that pays attention to the details of hitting. I'm curious when you watch him and you see what he's up to, what do you make of the fact that the balls aren't flying beyond the outfield wall in the way that maybe some people think they should be? Yeah, I mean look, beggars can't be choosers is the first thing I would say., look, 10 games over 500 or 15 years or 500, whatever it is. And, uh, you know, if the team's playing well, like it really ultimately doesn't matter. And I think his ability to like really just, he's going to impact the

lineup no matter what, how many homers he hits, right? Like the threat, the fear, the, the, the, the imposition of having him in the middle of your order is similar to having Jose or Eddie or Josh in the lineup, right? The production, it doesn't matter as much as the threat of the production because what it's done is it's opened up a lot of opportunities for other guys, right? I would rather Vlad Guerrero Jr. take his walks and stay in the strike zone and make sure that he's having competitive at bats over and over again because he's going to get his, right, whenever it happens. And people have seen Vlad go on runs that are, you know, non-human in a lot of ways

because he's capable of it, right? So who's to say that he won't hit 30 in the second half, right? Like we don't know. More than anything else, right, like I used to have a pitching coach at AA that used to say, homers are thrown, they're not hit. So, you know, it's a combination of factors. The one thing that you want to see from a guy like him is you want him to be taking his hits to right field.

When Vlad is standing in the big part of the field, which is true for just about any hitter, that's when the whole field really opens up. And there are just a lot of different considerations. The signing the contract, how does it affect you? Like being in the negotiations, all that stuff. It all plays a small role in it, right? It's taking up bandwidth somewhere. So I'm not too worried about him. He's got hit in his DNA, so like, he'll be just fine.

And I'm rooting for the team to make a good run. I think I'm past the point now where I don't want any Blue Jays team to ever go past where we were because I'll be jealous at that point. So. Oh, it's a good place to be. And things are going so well, we can be concerned about this.

Julio Rodriguez will not be in the All-star game brandy a rosarina has been named to replace him so george springer gets stiffed again does that make any sense mom no i think george's you know borderline ben uh... you know he should he should be in the considerations for the for mvp this year uh... you've just seen the impact of like a healthy George Springer who's playing up to his capability, um, has on a team. And,

and certainly like if you just look at the makeup of the team, really like, what's the really the biggest change over the last few years? Sure. You could point to, you know, to, you know, the young kids that are playing, but having George as a cornerstone guy, it doesn't really make sense, but then again, not a lot of things in Major League Baseball make sense. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, hey, I was wondering,

you've been a member of the Players Union. There's been rumblings of Rob Manford, the commissioner angling for a salary cap, the one sport of the four major North American sports that still doesn't have one. When you hear that, what goes through your mind? There's just a lot of caveats, right? There's a lot of nuance to the whole thing. You know, prior to becoming a big leaguer, I didn't know most of this stuff and then I learned it along the way. Look, I think, and I'm going to say this candidly, for a long time, the Players Association took

a position that they wanted an uncapped salary structure. Right now, the luxury tax threshold in some capacity does that already. Unless you're a team like the Dodgers or the Yankees who, you know, you're going to make infinity revenue if you want. So, um, it's going to trickle back down to the league, right? That it's too, it's too hard and too complex to talk about, like on surface levels, but what I will say is that. Not having a cap and not capping what the best players make, right?

Like the PA took a position for a long time of like, we want our top end guys to get paid the most and that'll have a trickle up effect. Now the league counterpunches, the owners all counterpunch by saying, okay, like you guys want to do that. And you've seen this over the last really five, 10 years in the game. Like they've promoted the younger player. So like that mid tier free agent, right? Like is the guy that gets hurt the most, right?

Because they're going, Oh, we'll give Otani 70 million and Soto 70 million or whatever it is. And, and then like, we'll just replace those mid level players with like the guys that are getting to free agency in their sixth or seventh year. And probably we're ticketed to make eight to 10 million or 12 million or whatever it is, like we'll just replace those guys with $700,000 players. So there's just a lot of nuance. People have to give on one side or the other.

I certainly think as being one of those guys who was probably more in the middle, like I would really like the guy that I consider like the stones and baseball like the rocks the guy that you know What you're gonna get out of them, you know after his six or seventh year who's slated to make eight to ten million but they say ah, well we can just replace you with a Young kid the difference is that young kid you just you don't know how they're gonna deal with the game emotionally like right you can look to Boston and see Christian Campbell and and And the up-and-down that he had this year and now you've paid him a lot of money because you're trying to, you know, trying to buy out the years of production with, you know, less money.

And so I'm not against the salary cap in a lot of ways, but I think there's just got to be more consideration to it because there's more detail there. Chris, appreciate your time. Thanks very much. Enjoy your weekend. The biggest songs in the world. You've heard them countless times. Now, learn the details of how they came to be. Join Ruby Carr for Encore, the stories behind the songs you love. New interviews and newly unearthed archive footage make for a fascinating weekly deep dive. Stream Encore, the stories behind the songs you love on IHAR radio or wherever you get your podcasts.