OverDrive - Law on expecting the Jays to pick a shortstop at eighth overall, the Jays' outlook with the deadline approaching, and whether MLB should implement a salary cap

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Senior MLB Writer for The Athletic joins the show to discuss what the Blue Jays will do at the MLB draft. Law shares his thoughts on the Jays and if they should be buyers heading into the trade deadline.

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The draft goes Sunday. And to help us with both those, Keith Laws here, Major League writer from the athletic. Keith, welcome. How are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you? Very good, thanks. So your recent article, you have the j's up eight overall

taking billy carlson uh... position player a short stop at a high school uh... what do you think is that is that we're gonna stay or what do you what are your thoughts on that uh... i may change and do one more mock draft earning which i writing that so i would like to take I have plenty of time. But I do believe the JAs want to take a short stop.

I think they would consider they would rather take a short stop. College and high school, so short stops are generally one of the safest things to do because even if they don't stay at short stops, they tend to be able to play a lot of other positions. Also short stops are just really valuable. That's one of the most important conditions on the field. If you have too many of them, you can always trade one of them to try to get something else that you need. I think in the unlikely events they don't like the short stops available to them, they might try college pitching, there were one or two candidates for that spot. But any which way, obviously I've mapped out lots of scenarios, at least one really good shortstop is available at that pick, I think they would take. And Colston's really good. I think that would be an excellent pick. I'm just not certain that he is the one. I

know he's on their shortlist. Keith when you look at this sort of this draft in the in the scope of the last decade or so how does the quality at the top of the draft rank compared to recent years? I think the top of the draft is really cool like the Washington Vicks first overall we don't have anything close to a consensus number one prospect. I happen to have Ethan Holliday, another high school shortstop at the top of my list. But you could argue me out of that pretty easily. There's several college lefties this year

who are all really good, who all have arguments to go up there. There are a couple of other college position players I like a lot, but nobody who's really one-to-one in a typical draft. What this draft does offer is a lot of depth. So the teams that have the results and are just traded to get an extra pick in the 30s, one of the few picks that you're allowed to trade in baseball. That's pretty smart because there's a lot of talent

that's going to come off the board between, say, 20 and 50, because there's a lot more depth in college position players. There just aren't guys who project the superstars, which is what you're trying to get when you drift at the very top especially in the top five. What do you think like when you you you spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff Keith like what do you what do you think the hit rate is on guys who've been projected as superstars like I me just ballparking it who actually turn into superstar and what what is the scouts the consensus views hit rate on that he is it is it pretty good you think or how do you look

at in the grand scheme of history i'd i think when we project the guy to be a superstar can you have that you get hurt which i think he's you can't really predict that or you can just predict all pictures of your party, you'd probably be right in the end. You'd be right more than you were wrong on that. In terms of guys where health isn't a factor, I think we're pretty good in terms of guys we think we're going to be superstars turning into superstars.

If I would bet that ends up close to 50%, which is a very big hit rate, given what happens in the drafts overall. What always happens though in the draft, we get superstars from later on. Mickey Betts was a fifth rank pick. Paul Goldschmidt was an eighth round pick. Albert Walsh was I think a 12th round pick. We do find superstars coming from later in the draft, college, junior college, high school.

It's one of the things they really enjoy about the job. Tariq Schubel, Tariq Schubel was a ninth rounder, where if you go to baseball reference, look at his performance his last year's draft year in college. He missed the year at Tommy John, came back, he threw hard, but he wasn't any good. Couldn't get strikes, couldn't get a lot of outs. That guy turned into the best pitcher in the American league. I love that stuff. But that is also one of the big challenges that we know the people are going to

address knowing there's some start out there we're going to take a moment seven-day twelve round you hope you're lucky enough to get what might be so to that end once you get through the top one hundred who might the j's be targeting beyond the top one hundred Well, I don't see that on a second round picks that really limits their flexibility and if they do

what I'm expecting which is take probably a high school shortstop at that first pick and consume not all but most of their slot pool for that pick my guess is they will stick once they get to the third round and beyond. It'll be much more college heavy. They'll go for college performers, particularly guys with good command of the strike zone. I know that's something they value pretty highly.

And there are some interesting college pitchers where once you get to the third round, fourth round, and beyond, the slam dunk starters are already off the board. So you're looking for guys who have a particular pitch you like or something about the delivery you particularly value. And I know under Mark Trimuda, who's the County Director now for the Jays, they use a real blended approach of traditional scouting and the data, which is what I personally favor. Obviously, Mark and I worked together a long time ago, and I'm surprised we think so much

similarly. Keith, obviously a lot of excitement in Toronto right now around the revival of the Blue Jays who have gone from more than half a dozen games out of the American League East lead into the lead by two and a half over the Yankees as it sits today. When you look at the Blue Jays and you look at the East, I mean, how do you think the Jays should approach the, sorry, the July 31st trade deadline? I think they have to be buyers. I look at them as they've gotten a bit lucky. They are not the best team on paper.

I don't project them as the best records for the rest of the season of the Team Zed Division division But it also doesn't really matter how you've got here It's like those wings count I could argue all day that I think it was a little flaky It does not matter they are contenders by definition where they are in the standings right now. They're contenders. So they need to buy And I think they're a little hamstrung by the fact that the system is pretty top-heavy There are three or four really good prospects and then not a ton of debt to be on that. So I don't know if they can make a major acquisition, but so what? Go make the minor acquisitions. Go figure out what you think,

what weaknesses you think you can address through the trade market. It's probably the bullpen. That's usually the easiest thing to do when you don't have a lot of prospects to trade and aren't willing to take on a ton of salary. Also looking at the trade market this year, I think that's probably the biggest thing that's going to move is relievers. Relievers and maybe some platoon players for the bench. I don't know that we're going to see a Palski is not getting traded. I feel like we're making that up on the media side, right?

It just cause cause it'll get quick. That's for sure. But you decide, I was asked about this the other day And I was like, I don't believe it. He's money. He's literally money. They print money to Casey pitches Why would they trade him now? It's going to be lesser pieces, but those guys can really matter at least I think it's done an excellent job last couple years just picking up guys at the trade deadline We'll make an impact for them in the stretch run or even in October So how much of what the Jays achieved in that 10 game winning streak sort of changed your opinion or is I guess maybe the better way to say it is sustainable in the second half?

So any stretch in team, any stretch that short two weeks basically is not going to change my overall opinion. I'm looking much more at the entire body of work for the whole season. Unless you're telling me something's dramatically changed on the roster, right? You know, if somebody's been hurt for three months and comes back, and we can say, okay, they're a different team now because they got a couple of key contributors back. I don't feel like that's the case with Toronto.

I think this is a team that should be a little bit above 500. They're obviously quite a bit above 500, looking at just what their offense has been so far this year, what their run prevention's been like this year. But that said, you've already got those wins in the bank. If you, you know, if they say, look, we think our run prevention is the easiest thing to upgrade, right, that's, I'm repeating myself a little bit,

I apologize, but they need to approach the trade deadline with the attitude that we are contenders, we want to make this sustainable. What can you do to approach the trade deadline with the attitude that we are contenders. We want to make this sustainable. What can you do to upgrade the roster to make it more sustainable? Score more runs, prevent more runs, whatever the market is able to give you. Because like I said, they should be probably a few wins worse than they are, but no one is knocking at their door to make them give those wins back either. Yeah.

What do you make of the competition in the AL East, Keith? When you look at obviously, let's start with the Red Sox, cuz they traded their best player. Hard to get better when you do that, but they're on a bit of a tear right now, winning six in a row here. Do they have a chance to kind of revive themselves into the second half, you think? I think they could because

I agree they traded their best player but they also had one of the best offenses in the American League at the time they made the trade so I even argued I didn't think they got enough back but they could say the offense was already good we needed some help on the pitching side and obviously they wanted to clear some salary and they got Jordan H J stand just familiar with that is actually helps to their bullpen which I think is the red box big disheveled They probably need to go and get another starting pitcher, but I think they absolutely Can make a run they are starting in kind of just there. They're just in a worse position They have to make up more ground they have to pass Multiple teams so I would say of the I we're not even talking about the Orioles the Red Fox are probably the least

of a threat but they exist they absolutely could end up back in this race and it would probably be driven still even without the others still driven by the Afros. And between the other two teams that you assume are threats the Rays and the Yankees who scares you more if you're the Blue Jays? Yankees. I think the Yankees are the best team on paper in the American League actually. You could argue Detroit. Detroit's legitimately good. They also benefit from a pretty weak division. I think the Yankees are the best team on paper. I think the Rays are also legitimate though. They're absolutely contenders. They just traded the draft pick to Baltimore to go get some relief help. That's basically just what I was talking about, that's the kind of trade

we'll see a lot of this month. The Yankees would scare me if they did nothing. I also think they're incredibly motivated to do something to try to get back to the world series. And they do have a lot of secondary pieces in their farm system, who they could slip in trades that they might be able to put something together to go get an impact guy at the deadline. I don't know who that would be. I don't really know. I can only guess what impact players might get traded. But the Yankees would be very competitive with the prospects they currently have in the system to go get an impact player at the end of the month. Is there any way

with no notice at all that you could come up with an acquisition that pushes the Jays over the top? but no notice at all that you could come up with a an acquisition that pushes the jays over the top it'd probably not apologize you got me in the car driving home from my early game here hey i what when they want to ask you keep it they're gonna figure roll out the a b s uh... robot umpires at the all-star game on tuesday as as we move

closer to you know that automated umpires in real major league games, I'm assuming. I'm sure you've seen this used in spring training and in minor league games. What's your opinion of how this would and could work at the major league level full time? I love it. I actually most recently saw it last Wednesday at a AAA game in the

high valley and I've seen it in fall league. I love it. I actually most recently saw it last Wednesday at a AAA game in Lehigh Valley. And I've seen it in Fall League. I've seen it in other AAA games before. I think it's great. One, it's obviously going to give us a few more accurate calls. We're going to fix a few mistakes every game. And that alone makes it worth doing. I wish teams had a few more challenges, but I'll take what we can get. Also, the way that they've implemented it, fans really like. Empire turns around, says the batter has challenged the call or the pitcher, and then within about 15 seconds, the graphic shows up on the Jumbotron and they show digitally the path of the ball and whether it was a ball or a strike. And fans always respond to that. I mean, even in the fall league,

where there's like 400 people in the stands, you can hear people getting involved in it and cheering when the results come through. And I love that. Anything like that, this is not like instant replay, which I understand we need to have, but instant replay is really boring. The ABS implementation is not.

It's actually fun. So I hope it comes to baseball, to the majors, as soon as possible, and I hope they end up expanding it at some point, but I'll take whatever I can get. Well, it's like tennis. There's no arguing the call. Once you see the replay, you go, okay, that's good. We move on. No debate.

While we're talking about things that could happen down the road, I'm sure that Jays would like this, but I don't know if that would ever happen. Salary cap in Major League Baseball Is that even possible? Only if the union decides to just completely fold they have fought Attempts to put a salary cap in place for decades I don't know that I mean salary and Jays don't need the salary cap They're playing one of the largest markets in North America North America. Jays could spend with the best of them. I understand ownership refuses to do so,

but I put that squarely on their ownership. I personally oppose the salary caps because all I think it does is make owners richer and takes money away. And I'm not sure that it's really going to give us the kind of parity that people are looking for. I just think it's going to mean the nuttings of the world, he's a guy named Capirots, just gets to put even more money in his pockets instead of the players taking it home. The players are the ones doing the work. They should get paid. Well, Keith, I mean, the parody argument is the only one that kind of makes sense to me because I'm with you. To me, it's just going to make the owners richer. But when you do

look at the way the NBA has clamped down, they don't have a hard cap but with this second apron, they're forcing the elite teams to maybe divest some of their assets. The Celtics have currently gutted their roster to meet some of those requirements and lessen their tax burden. It does seem like it's made the NBA a more egalitarian league and certainly the NFL is is a case in point but do you not buy the parody argument when you think about how much the Dodgers are spending and how successful they've been? I don't I mean I look at the NFL I don't apologize and never just longer he's never been an NBA fan but the NFL kind of feels the same teams in the Super Bowl, or at least

getting to the conference championships pretty frequently. All those sports, they do work a little bit differently. I do know in the NBA, right? If you get one or two stars, you're pretty locked in at that point. But... I think we lost them there. I think we lost them. Driving home from a minor league game. Yeah. Went under a there. We lost them. Driving home from a minor league game. Yeah, went under a bridge. We lost them. I always like Keith's insights.

Yeah, well let's explore that. I would totally agree because I think I said that to our producer Cameron earlier when we were talking about possibility of a salary cap. I said, yeah, if the union collapses, that's a massive work stoppage to get there and keep you still with us there you do you just talk about uh... you just give us your argument against uh... or or for the idea that you don't think a salary cap would bring parity to major league baseball

sure it just to try to be quick about it and one i don't it's a bit so we we've had a lot of bryan basically in our One, I know that basically we've had a lot of variety, basically in our league and overall in conference or individual league champions, and teams getting to the World Series, as much or more diversity there than you've seen in the NFL

or I think the NBA, I don't follow the NBAs closely. And also, any salary cap and associated floor structure is not gonna get get the pirates. And the Dodgers, they've got to pay for it now. And even if there is a floor in place, they're still going to be spending a fraction of what the Dodgers and the Yankees are spending. Those teams are going to spend right up to the upper limit and the Pirates are

going to try to stay towards the bottom. So I really don't think it's going to enhance parity. It's just going to take money away from the players and give it back to the owners. Keith, thanks for your patience and battling through. I really appreciate that. Thank you. My pleasure. Keith Laughlin, Major League Baseball writer for the Athletic. The biggest songs in the world. Come on! You've heard them countless times.

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