OverDrive - Griffin on the Blue Jays' masterful consistency, the bullpen support and the management positives

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

GriffsThePitch.com Columnist Richard Griffin joined OverDrive to discuss the Blue Jays standing atop of the AL East, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. looking to bolster his bat, the support for Jeff Hoffman in the bullpen, Max Scherzer's ceiling for the season, Daulton Varsho returning to the lineup, Ross Atkins' positive year and more.

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Intact insurance, your auto service ace, certain conditions apply. Listen to Tech Talk with Mark Saltzman Sundays at 5 p.m. on Newstalk 1010 and the iHeartRadio app. The show that makes sense of the ever-changing world of technology. Brought to you by LG CareQ, keeping the life's good promise with elevated customer care. Here he is from griffthepitch.com, Richard Griffin. How we doing, Griff? Doing great. I was very impressed with Cameron Mabin and Strud. I got to tell you, I got four kids. I spaced them 10 years apart from first to fourth. But, and they were born in the same hospital in Montreal. And all i went there with was a pocketful of quarters in a wooden phone book

and i wasn't going to drop a quarter call any talk show in the entire field that like you no kidding i couldn't believe it duties like guys he needs a minute and i'm like what they're not get frustrated with what's going on here is like

by you know his wife just had their fourth child. I'm like, well, her water just broke. Yeah. I mean, that kind of, that's reasonable. Yeah. We, we appreciate him still finding time and watching the game last night. And you know, he's obviously he's pretty high on the J's. Everyone seems to be pretty high on the J's and everyone's got a different thing that has seemingly impressed them most recently. Do you have one thing in particular, or one player, one manager?

Where does your head go first, Griff, when you consider how well they've been playing the last month, month and a half? Well, I hate to say it, but we, on exit philosophy, we were burying George Springer early in the season. And I think it comes down to George Springer having a great season, a bounce back season. He's swinging harder, he's making more contact

with velocity, and I think that the clubhouse atmosphere, if your older players, if your leaders aren't able to lead on the field, they're not able to lead in the clubhouse. And I see a team that is following guys like Springer and I know that Vlad is 26 years old but he's one of those guys too. But the Springer influence to me is a big factor that separates last year from this year. And how much of that you know you see George do that, you see him produce, if you're Vladdy, does

that drive you to have a little more leadership and kind of take ownership? Of course, there's the contract that goes with it, but it feels like Vladdy, maybe there's more of a maturity to the way he's kind of conducting himself right now. Yeah, I think he has in the past. His leadership involves that dive into home plate the other night and coming up, you know, showing that kind of enthusiasm. I mean he looked like an early morning divot that you hit on with a nine iron, you know, sliding in, not very graceful but quite effective. And but quite effective and he's not like a he's never been even in the minor leagues home run threat but he does I mean a huge home runs right everybody thinks he

should be hitting the 48 that he hit that one year but he's got 60 walks 60 strikeouts which is very rare for a guy of his stature. Last year around this time, he had 13-14 home runs. I think he'll get to his 30 and his leadership will start to show. I don't think they need to go out at the trade deadline and get another right-handed hitter. I think Vlad and Bo and George Springer are pretty much the answers to that question. After the way that they put Hoffman in the ninth inning last night, did that kind of highlight the

fact that maybe they want to spend some assets to get additional arms in the as relievers? Yeah, most definitely. And I don't criticize John Schneider for bringing in Jeff Hoffman because Hoffman is a gamer he wants the ball and then as a manager you have to say who is my best option at this spot in the game ninth inning tie game and and your closer has stepped up for the fourth time in five games and says I want the ball you got to give him the ball because he is the best option. They only have three leverage relievers at this point and five guys who sort of fill in, fill in the

gaps, fill in the innings and when you're winning that many games in a row, you're competitive, that many games in a row, you have that much leverage, you need to go out and get a couple of more guys and I think the Pirates are good at the deadline. The Pirates are good targets, even just for two pitches. For David Bednar, who used to be their closer and really isn't, and when you're 20 games under 500, you don't really need him that much. He's like the Pittsburgh Maytag repairman

and I'm dating myself there. But then you have Mitch Keller who is a starter under control and I gave a plan for a six-man rotation to Pete Walker and John Schneider at spring training and they looked at it and said that's all well and good but who's our sick guy. Now if they go out and get a sick guy I have another plan that I'll show them that takes them from the trade deadline to the end of the season and you see guys you see all of their veterans starting pitchers say how much they appreciate an extra day's rest

well if you've got a six-man rotation they're all getting that rest and my plan has it set up that rest and my plan has it set up so that the three big boys are available and in rotation to start any playoffs here. With Richard Griffin, yeah, I mean it is a smaller sample size, but the last couple times Kevin Gosman in particular has had extended rest. He's looked phenomenal, you know, a couple nights ago being the best example of that. I don't think there's any doubt Scherzer would probably approve of that and I can't speak for Barrios or Bassett but like you said he's a veteran guys. I think if you're Eric Lauer you're like I don't know if I need that I just want to keep pitching I want to be on the bump

every fifth day if I can. The thing about that rotation is that if you have six men going in there, if something happens to Scherzer and Hayes, we talked about it earlier in the year that we didn't expect them to start more than 14 games, especially after that first start injury. So if somebody does go down, somebody does get hurt, then you've got a guy already on board who's not sort of pitching out of the bullpen. He is in a rotation that can come in and fill and now you go back to a five-man rotation I

think that that is the smartest way to go about it. Barrios has seven straight seasons of 32 starts and has never missed a start due to injury so you don't worry about his health taking the ball but you do worry about uh... his endurance in a marathon that hopefully for them carry into october well that's that's where it's gonna get interesting like if you if you put the car before the horse and put them into october uh... and you assume that they pick up

you know a starter that can factor in in some capacity so they're at least four deep or if you're you're in a divisional series certainly a championship series you're gonna need a four starter but like you mentioned they have three guys that can really really rely on in the bullpen i i think they need at least one if not two arms there but let's say they let's say they get one let's say they get a starter like is is there could you picture a world where Scherzer is a middle reliever in the playoffs?

Like what's his role look like? Hell no. He's going to be a starter in the playoffs if he's healthy. I mean he's got the experience, he's got the determination, he's got that look in his eyes that he wants the ball. It's going to make a very deep... Can he do it though, Griff? Like that's the look in the eyes he had had it last night and chism, you know

That ball still hasn't landed yet. Yeah. I heard you earlier. That's that's very funny It's true though not if max is listening but no, I know I hear you but the yeah, I mean everybody's acting and I'm agreeing with you here, everyone's acting like Scherzer's back. And just because he's throwing 90 pitches and able to get through five innings doesn't mean that Scherzer's back. Those aren't Hall of Fame credentials, but for a 40-year-old who's going into the playoffs

who will be extra adrenalized, you've got three guys, the three veteran guys that we're talking about, Barrios, Gosman. I would put Gosman at the top of the rotation to start a playoff series. Then you have Barrios, Scherzer, and Bassett. Tonight is gonna tell a lot. Yankees throwing Max Freed,

and the Jays throwing one of their three interchangeable guys in Chris Bassett. We'll see how that turns out. But this is such a huge game. You can't overestimate how much this game means to the Blue Jays. If they win, they have the tiebreaker against the Yankees going to the postseason with no playoff, no one game playoff. They will have the tiebreaker. They will have won the season two. If they don't, the Yankees have a three-game series in the Bronx to look forward to in September. And you know that their momentum will carry from today into

September, and then through the trade deadline, where they're sure to make improvements, and the Jays have to make improvements. It's a huge game tonight, Griff, but I guess if you look at the schedule, how would you kind of handicap, and tonight would be the start of it, how would you handicap the Jays' chances of finishing first in the division? You have a tough series against Detroit, and then you're going to play some teams like Kansas City and Colorado, where you should be able to stack up some wins. How do you think the next couple weeks go for the Jays? Yeah, I mean in baseball it's a different animal to go down a schedule like that because

everyone's on the schedule for everybody. You play every National League team, you play the American League teams in your division and in your league the same number of times. So it all depends to me on injuries whether sure, I mean, we saw Scherzer at the end of his outing looking at his hand. We saw George Springer yesterday looking at his left heck after a swing and who knows what the injury situation is going to be. And baseball is so different in terms of playing every day, playing every night with with leads coming and going in the division

I mean they were on May on May 28th. They were buried and now everyone's talking about Well, Jay's fans are such that they're looking for what's gonna go wrong. That's the way they look at baseball If they're in first place, they're going well What what can we do to screw this up? Because it'll happen. And the Yankee fans are going, and Michael Kay and those guys are going, this can't be happening. We're a much better team. So those things will play themselves out.

I think the Tigers series, the Tigers are in the same situation. They're not used to being where they are in the standings. So it's not like playing the Yankees when you play the Yankees There is that air of superiority that they give you that they exude and it's not gonna happen at Comerica Park so they're on an even footing there We'll see how they come out of that or right now things are looking good I wouldn't even go I wouldn't even hazard a guess on whether they're gonna win the division or not But I would say that there's a huge chance that they will be in the playoffs in October.

It sounds like Varshow is going to play a few more games in the minors and he'll be up, whether the first or second city they visit on this road trip. How do you manage kind of reincorporating a player that obviously is important for you, but the chemistry seems to be rolling with this lineup right now? Yeah, I would not worry about the chemistry and Varsho disrupting it. I think that even Andres Jimenez, when he comes back, will be put back into the line-up. I mean, in the case of Jimenez, it's the contract and the defense. In the of Varsho it's because he fit in centerfield that's the plan for him and you know that clubhouse is going to stay positive no matter who's in the starting lineup as long as they keep hustling in

and creating excitement and as long as those home games there's 42,000 fans leading 85,000 hot dogs. Yeah, and that's, I guess, what happened last night, the breaking records, Griff, for eating hot dogs and all that kind of stuff. Don't get me started on that. Everything's coming together with Richard Griffin. Yeah, Varsho, it's interesting, when you get a veteran like Daddy, he hasn't been here forever, but I'm always curious how they feel about a scenario like this, where teams playing this well without

them, it's got to be kind of strange. Yeah, I think the pitching staff, every pitcher on that staff is looking forward to having Dalton Varso back out there. Miles Straugh is a great defender and he's better coming off the bench in certain roles defensively in one of the corner outfield spots or as a pinch runner, pinch hitter against a left-handed reliever. That's his best role.

And the difference, one of the differences between the Blue Jays and the Yankees is defense. And you look at, you know, you know you look at wow what a plucky Blue Jays team it was well if the shortstop hadn't thrown a couple balls into the dirt and spiked them that wouldn't have happened so the defense is a huge separator for the Blue Jays and it might be what caused the Yankees down the stretch because they boot the ball around a little too much to be a World Series winner. Yeah, that's been coming out recently. There have been reports on that that I guess the Dodgers in the World Series just said,

you know, force them to make mistakes. They will. You know, like that's kind of the way the Yankees operate. And that's a real shot at Aaron Boone, isn't it? Like Boone, Boone just takes bullets from everywhere, including in New York. By all accounts, there aren't many Yankee fans that support him. Yeah, there's not very many managers or coaches, head coaches that have skin as thin as Aaron Boon. It's fun to see his reactions, but I'm sure that there's he gets so much social media reaction He shouldn't even he shouldn't even be on any of those because he's gonna get buried every day on that

Yeah, so I think Aaron Boone does take a lot of heat But it's not him who gave The team defenders that really can't make the plays, that a team that for eight years, the Blue Jays have been talking about run prevention. I mean, that was Ross Atkins has it tattooed on his left shoulder, I think. But that is, that to me is a big difference between those two teams and the pitchers, the starting pitchers and the bullpen appreciate the fact that these guys pick up in fact if you go get another picture starting picture or reliever from another team

they're gonna benefit from the from the team defense at the blue jays flash and it might even make the numbers better uh... and you get extra value for what you get at the trade deadline well you mentioned Ross and you and that has been, I think, an evergreen debate in this market,

and especially with how they're playing right now. How much credit should the GM be getting and the front office be getting for the current success that the team's having? Or it's not the additions they made in the offseason. Those guys aren't even playing for the most part. How do you answer that, Griff? How much has Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro, by extension, redeemed themselves just based

on the way the team's been playing and how many wins they've had recently? Well, I mean, they've had those three starting pitchers for a while. And what's the expression about squirrels? Black squirrels? Black squirrels and nuts. Yeah. I mean, they, they made a trade for, uh, money to sign Roki Suzuki who didn't sign, instead they got Miles Straw and look at how that turned out.

So, you know, you make enough moves and, and some of them work, some of them don't, but you build it around moves that you made years ago with those three starters in the rotation and So yeah, okay. They were very patient In in staying with the program, but I don't give them As much credit as a lot of people must well the players ultimately deserve the most credit like George Springer now They brought him in that's what I said yesterday Griff like they've been here so long everyone is their player you

know for the most part yes they didn't technically sign Floddy but they've I mean what I mean by that is when he was 16 not this past offseason right but literally everyone in the organization is is their their people yeah and there's there was an undervalued farm system that was really run down in every major publication, Baseball America, MLB, Pipeline. And they've produced guys like Addison Barger. They've produced, I mean, Alejandro Kirk

came out of the farm system. They've produced guys who have really stepped in and done a job for them. They signed Nathan Lucas and I give them credit for that. But to me, guys like Nathan Lucas and Will Wagner and Joey Loporfito, the favorite of Cameron Mabin, I believe, they're all being showcased at this point. They're helping to win, but to me, they would be gone in a heartbeat in a trade if the right deal came along because they're replaceable. You look at all the short stops, you look

at Leo Jimenez, the Pirates are using Isaiah Kiner-Falefa and he's done after this year. That's why you could put a package together for the Pittsburgh Pirates from your farm system and a couple of arms that are fringy big leagues arms and you could make a deal with those guys Well Game three of the series tonight It's gonna be a fun one down at the dome and the Jays are off to Detroit A lot of history between those two teams will be a lot of Jays fans down there as well like America I don't think there's any doubt about that

So it's gonna be a fun handful of days and as we get closer to the trade deadline, it'll be very exciting as well. He's Richard Griffin. You can catch the podcast, Exit Philosophy, griffsthepitch.com. Always great catching up with you, Griff. Thank you for doing this. Okay, guys. Anytime. Unmistakably Canadian.

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