OverDrive - Duquette on what the Jays need to do before the deadline, who could be available for the Jays, and the risk of early aggression in the trade market

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

MLB Network analyst and former MLB GM Jim Duquette joins OverDrive to give his thoughts on what the Jays need to do at the deadline. Duquette shares some names that could be available for trade, and the risk of early aggression in the trade market

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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. Here's MLB Network Analyst, former MLB GM himself joining us here on the Maple Tota Hotline. Here's Jim Duquette.

How are you doing, Jim? Hey, what's up, guys? Good afternoon. How are you? Doing very well. If you're Ross Atkins and you're on the ship here in in toronto what uh... what do you need to do between now and august first uh... well i

you know i'm by the way just uh... uh... of notes and they just got back from atlanta a lot of talk about the trade in life his name and the jason uh... they come up often as one of the more aggressive GMs out there right now. Obviously nothing's happening, but nothing's happening around the sport either. So, I mean, he's trying, but if I'm in his shoes,

I'm looking, I believe they could use a starting pitcher and an offensive piece of some kind, and they're gonna need a nice bullpen piece. I'd like try to go one of each, but that's really difficult to do in this environment because it's a seller's market and I mean each piece that you acquire is going to be pretty expensive. So if I was looking at one or maybe let's say two pieces, I might go two bullpen pieces if possible because generally there's more bullpen arms

than anything else. It's not a sexy move, but I think they've shown they're good enough for a postseason run if they could tighten up the bullpen in my mind. Yeah, well, Hoffman's an interesting one because I think he's third or fourth in the league in saves, but he's got an ERA up over five, which is crazy for a closer. Would you trust him in that closing role, or when you say bullpen, do you think you need a guy that can close things out in the ninth? So I would, there's a couple guys,

and one in particular that would fit really well there in Carlos Estevez, if Kansas City decides to move him, which I think they would, who can do, he can, he can do both. They could do a co-closer type situation, right? So they could, they could keep Hoffman in that spot and, and, and, and, and include Estevez. They could put Hoffman in, you know, in the high leverage, you know, they, a lot of these

teams will use their high leverage relievers earlier in the game. Uh, and you could have Estevez close, you could do Hoffman there. You could, you know, they would give you a lot more flexibility, give John Schneider a lot more flexibility to do both if he could get a guy like Estevez, Kenley Jansen, and the Angels right now are on the cusp and they're arguably in it, I expect they'll be aggressive if they're in it

in another week, but I think he's another guy that could be available. So somebody like that I think would be a perfect fit to kind of share the duties there with Hoffman. Jim, early on you mentioned offensive piece. So where would you see, let's put the cost of acquisition to the side. Where would this offensive piece fit in, the lineup, if you could wave your magic wand type situation. Well, yeah, I think the hard part there to me is finding the, like, you know, I know they're

waiting for Varsha to come back. I don't think he's back yet, but you know, like I'm not waiting around. Like, you know, so there's, you know, Cedric Mullens is gonna be a guy that's available, was getting a lot of attention with teams like the Mets who could use an upgrade. I think they, you know, to me they could use some kind of upgrade in the outfield. You can even put Mullens in left field. So, and then, you know, he's a guy that would give you versatility depending on, you know, a right-handed batter. You could hit him towards the top and against the lefty, you put him down, you know, in the seven hole like he's been doing with the Orioles. That kind of thing. And he's a really good defender, which they value. So for me, a guy like that would be ideal in that type of situation. So that's the kind of guy that I'm thinking. But again,

they may decide not to go that route because of the expense and just go pitching, which I would totally support as well. How much of what the Jays should do is predicated on what the Red Sox or the Yankees might do? Does it become an arms race in the AL East because all three of those teams feel like they really have a shot at it? You have to keep an eye on them. So let's just say that the Boston or the Yankees or both are more aggressive out of the gate and make a deal here in the next couple of days. That adds added pressure.

You have to at least keep up with what those two teams are doing. Ideally, it'd be better to be more aggressive. I made this point the other day on my show that the one issue you have with being aggressive now is you don't know what's gonna be available later. So we think that Arizona might sell in another week or so, but if you go out and get a, let's say a Mullins, but you really would rather have, let's say a Merrill Kelly as a starting

pitcher, but you're not sure he's going to be available. Being aggressive isn't always the best thing because you're jumping the ship a little bit early without understanding and you're having to give up chips for that that might get you somebody better if you're willing to wait a week to 10 days. Jim Ducat, MLB Network Analyst, former MLB GM. You mentioned with Arshad in particular maybe not waiting until he gets back into the lineup and going out there being aggressive. Then there's Anthony Santander who's on the 60-day IL at this point and isn't even swinging last time.

Schneider gave us an update, so who knows when he could become a factor but I'm curious as a GM like how you juggle you know those balls in the air where you're looking at you know maybe a power battle you could everyone wants a power back clearly but like what if you think Varsha will return what if you think Santander will return like how do you how do you formulate your plan with kind of these unknowns where if they are healthy you know they're going to play and they're making a lot of money and they're good players? Yep. Yep, yep.

And right, and then getting a bet, the chip that you have to give up, if you know that they're going to be healthy, you'd rather use it for something else. And in some ways, that's a little bit of a roll of the dice. If you have those position players back and your medical team's telling you, listen, they're gonna come back, we're just gonna be a little more conservative with it, then you kind of make that decision.

And because of the three needs that I was talking about earlier, you might decide, well, listen, I don't have any, like Alec Minnow is, he's coming well, listen, I don't have any, like Alec Manoa, he's coming back. Well, I don't trust that move. So I would go and get a starter, or I don't have any relief helping in the system or coming back from injury,

so I'll put my chips in that area and then hope that the offense comes back. That's a very real conversation, it you do have kind of these finite resources to go out and get you know upgrades and talent so you know that very much very well might be the move that they take and I don't I don't think it's a wrong take I but we just if I was in their shoes we need Tantan there to swing the bat the way he is, you know, obviously what they gave him the money for. Well the ultimate wild card could be Max Scherzer, who, you know, has now had a few starts in

a row and his last outing, he looked closer to kind of Prime Scherzer in terms of his, I think, body language in terms of what he was throwing, in terms of just feeling comfortable. But that's an extreme wild card, isn't it Jim? What are you going to expect from Scherzer? Because it just feels like he's a start away from saying, I can't do it anymore basically every fifth day. Yet, if he's anywhere close, if he's ninety percent of prime actions are he's better

than anything else you got right what like how do you how do you handicap the chances of him actually being a real factor for them in september and maybe into the playoffs that that that one of the most difficult one because the city bed against the guy you know he proved guy, you know, he proves you're wrong. He'd rather it that way be proven wrong than the other way, which is like, hey, I'm buying in and you know, he's the guy and then he disappoints you.

You know, that one's a really, really difficult one to kind of figure out. That's why, you know, in my overall general feeling was, you know, go starting rotation. Uh, you can always flip a guy into the bullpen if need be, but that gives you the best protection for any type of injury or re-injury, you know, a re-injury to Scherzer in that sense. So, um, you know, and Lauper has been so good as he's pitched well above what you could have ever expected. And he would, he would be the guy that, you know, you might, and you might go with six starters if you went out and got a starter for a period of time,

just to buy yourself a little bit of time. So, you know, to me that would give them the most flexibility. It's also going to be the most expensive. So, um, you know, that's, that's, you know, and for me, the guy like, you know, you got the Yankees for six games in the second half, uh, that gallon is a Yankee killer. So if you have a chance to go get him, I would do it. That would be the number one, you know, there's certain fits that you look at and you go, okay, that one's, that one's the right, the right one gallon would be, would be perfect for the, for the J's against the Yankees. And he's been pitching.

You know, his numbers don't look great, but he's been pitching better here his last few starts. You know, if we talk about a power bat, one of those power bats already lives on the Toronto roster and it's Vladdy who's having an okay season, but they don't pay Vladdy to play okay. You know, 12 home runs is not what you pay Vlad for, especially when you see guys like George Springer has 16, Addison Barger has 13. It goes without saying they could really benefit from Vlad having caught fire here after the

All-Star break, but how optimistic are you that that will happen coming out of the All-Star break? I always feel like we've had this conversation in the past too with Vlade and the numbers and, you know, I'd say in the first month or first half, and I don't have his second half, I didn't get a chance to look at his numbers in the second half at all, I don't know if you guys know,

but I always feel like at the end of the year, Vlade's a guy who ends up with the numbers, you know, somehow ends up where you need him to and expect him to. And there are some signs, you signs, just talking to a couple people around the Jays that it seemed like he was gonna be trending in the right direction. There's no guarantee, obviously, but usually you bet on the stars of the game figuring it out and producing

at the level that they need. So you kind of go through these checklists of, it out and producing at the level that they need. You kind of go through these checklists of, all right, who am I concerned about in one, two, three? He's down on the list. Do they need him to get going? Absolutely. But I always feel like he's a guy that you can more often than that count on.

As a barge, you had a good first half of the year. Do you expect the league to catch up to him the second half of the year? Have you seen that with other rookies similar to the way he plays? It does happen. Just the length of the season is something that you have to be concerned about with young headers. Having said that, up until this point, he's made some adjustments too along the way. The league these days catches up with you and finds your weakness a lot quicker than back when I was in the front office when we had scouts seeing you every once in a while

you're advancing and you're like, oh wow, this guy's, he's got this hole or that hole. They find it the next series. The fact that he's been able to produce like this, I feel pretty good about the second half for him. Having said all that, there is the fatigue factor you have to keep an eye on. That would be my only concern with a young player is, is that grind of a full season

that really catches up with some of the younger guys. Well, it's go time tomorrow night and uh... we were asking you know different guests yesterday we were talking about it you know the the take of where the game is today compared to where was ten years ago the swing off of the all-star game which i thought was great theater you know pitch clocks and all these different you know the a b s system all this kind of stuff uh... and it

just feels like it's gonna keep evolving and evolving and evolving. Do you anticipate that, Jim, that there's no reason to believe Manfred or whoever the commissioner is gonna be in the future is gonna stop the kind of evolution of the sport and implementing new rules? You know, it's funny, I'm glad you brought that up. So we, including myself, we had a chance to talk to Manfred on Tuesday before the All-Star game and I brought that up in particular, the rule changes. The ABS system is definitely coming next year probably. They're working on the technology to evaluate whether you made a check swing or not, whether you actually went

or not. I haven't seen the tech in that, but they're going to, I think, unveil it in AAA next year. It's very promising. The other thing that I asked them about, and this is, I don't, the short answer on this is it's not going to happen in the next year or two, but there has been some talk about repositioning the outfield and not allowing the outfield to be as deep as they are playing right now. I don't think they'll go that far. That might be five years from now, but there's a lot of data that the outfield

has obviously gotten a lot better improved positioning is the big reason why I am more athletic, I think as a sport and they're playing guys deeper. So we're not having as many extra base hits. So that's something that I know has been talked about from within the league offices, but the long windwinded answer, that part of the rule change isn't going to happen in the next couple years anyway.

If we see it, we might see it in year three or year four. Okay. Yeah, there's certainly more to come. I don't think there's any denying that. He is Jim Ducat, MLB Network Analyst, former MLB GM. Always great catching up with you, Jim. Enjoy the second half and we'll do it again soon.

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