OverDrive - Phillips on Bichette's contract direction, Lauer's starter status and Red Sox heating up

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines from the Blue Jays, Eric Lauer's season on the mound and if he is a playoff starter, Bo Bichette seeking a new contract, the potential of the salary cap, the Red Sox elevating in the AL East and more.

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Call 416-457 plan or visit ask kelvin.cai.a. MLB analyst, Steve Phillips, with us on this Tuesday afternoon. Hello, sir. How are you? Aaron, did you take a wrong turn at 6 a.m. this morning? What's going on? You're 12 hours late for your ship. Yeah, we made a little switch in the schedule here on overdrive.

Brian Hayes needed some R&R, and I got called up to the big time, Steve. And I know you're on the morning show today talking about the Toronto Blue Jays as you are every Tuesday morning and I mean you have to be feeling pretty relieved right now if you're a Toronto Blue Jays fan simply because leading into last night

there was some anxiety and lost six of the last day the bullpen not looking great the bats go quiet and maybe a matchup against the Colorado Rockies is what is the needed remedy for this baseball team is that how you see it

oh my gosh those words are uttered in 29 clubhouses around the game we're getting to play of the rock Rockies, grab a bat, let's go. And I think that they have been the remedy for just about everybody this year to start to feel better about themselves. And, you know, for the J's, you know, looking at the box score yesterday, right?

You know, Pichette, we know is going to get his hits. He always does. But for Varsho to get a couple of hits, you know, Nathan Lucas at the leadoff spot, it's going to base five times in the game. For Barger to keep it going, low perfido to get it going. And, you know, to have those other bats, the last. left-hand at bats, keep on rolling, I think it's important for this team. Yeah, I think the connection on Steve wasn't good.

Let's give him a ring back. You never want to hear the delay. The delay is always the most foreboding. There was a click. There was a click at the end there, too. He lost us. He was very excited to hear me in the afternoon, as opposed to the morning. He's probably miserable to hear me in the morning as we wake up around the same time. He does morning radio as well, does Steve Phillips.

Like the converted starter converted into the closer. Jeff Hoffman at one point when he drafted. I prefer Mariano Rivera personally. Well, I don't, we're not going to go Rivera quite yet. Hazy B's the Rivera. Oh, no, no, no, he's like the Kurt Schilling, the Randy Johnson. He starts the game and closes the game is what he does. Yeah, sure, Roy Holiday.

Roy Holiday would work as well. So while we effort to get Steve back on the show, again, the Jay is taking on the Colorado Rockies game two tonight. They beat the Rockies 15 to 1 last night, and I think Blue Jays fans are hoping for a very similar result. So, Steve, I know you're back on the, line. I am curious to know what you think about this Eric Lauer situation that the Jays are facing because this is a good thing. This is a good dilemma. They have five really quality

starters, perhaps six as soon as Shane Bieber's ready to return. How do you see this all playing out as the month of August continues? I go to a six-man rotation. I do. I don't take Lauer out of a rotation at all. I go to a six man. And I think that I think it benefits to everybody. I think it benefits sure to keep healthy. For Beaver coming back from surgery, it helps him. And I think for, for, you know, the three, the big three of Bassett and Breos and Gosman, I think them getting, you know, an extra bit of time between starts just to have that extra little zip on their pitches, especially in August and September, I think is important. And I think going into the playoffs, I mean,

you want to have everybody fresh and everybody strong. And it's not just about getting there. It's about winning once you get there. And I really do think that a six-man rotation makes sense for the Jays, for a lot of reasons, to keep everybody healthy and strong and even better for the postseason. So I would go to that, and there's no way I'm shutting down Lauer out of the rotation. Now, once you get to the playoffs, if you don't need five starters, obviously, and six starters in the postseason, maybe Lauer goes into a bullpen roll and supplements from the left side. But I think for right now, I keep giving them the ball. I'm certainly not going to ease him out. Plus, I like the idea of the different look

from the left side, breaking up the right handers and giving a bit of a different look with it all. So I think he's earned the right to keep getting the baseball every fifth or six day. Well, you mentioned that for now you're going to keep giving him the baseball, but unsure what it looks like in the postseason. Like, is there anything he can do between now and October to earn a look as a postseason starter for the Blue Jays? Or is it, you know, just going to really go to the veterans ahead of them who are a little bit more solidified in their rules? Yeah, I think that, I think, no, I think that I keep up in mind about it because it's not only

going to be him pitching well is what are the other guys doing. And, you know, I mean, listen, as a staff, they've got a four, no, plus ERA. They're ranked like 21st, 22nd in baseball and starting pitching ARA, so it's not like the other guys have been shut down. So I think that, you know, as you get closer, I think you have to keep an open mind about the hot hand. And it's not just about his lower continuing to pitch well. What are the other guys doing?

And if the other guys are, you know, sort of middling or middle of the road, then I think you have to, you know, make a hard decision for yourself and do that. And remember, this is about the team. It's not about feelings. And the goal is to win the games and win postseason series. And sometimes you have to make really hard decisions when you do that. So, you know, as it stands right now, I think that, you know, he's part of the equation, but he's got to keep doing what he's doing, and then, you know, I think you evaluate everybody

else he's doing as well. Steve, what about as far as the batting lineup, and, you know, Varshal's back now and trying to find, you know, different combinations against different pitchers or different teams. Is you going to see a lot of that from Schneider as we head through the stretch here? let's bring him down here dukes let's bring him down here dukes let's bring him down i don't know where he is i don't know i wonder where steve is i mean it's middle baseball season got to be close to home although he's known for taking some exotic vacations from time of time i'm not sure i'm not sure

but uh yeah it is it is a tough one for the blue jays at the moment again like you're playing against colorado but you desperately needed to shake out of that funk that they were in. And the bats were struggling. Everything was kind of going off the rails. Sometimes a professional team just needs some wins and some very conviction ones to get back going. I want to piggyback, though, on Struddy's question that he was asking, like, when you look at the lineup here, and it's absolutely been shuffled around for the last little bit, as you get it closer to the postseason, like, is there going to be some importance on trying to settle in on a lineup, or do you think that it could remain fluid all throughout? It doesn't matter?

Well, we're just seeing Dalton Varsho return to the lineup. That's a new thing. Anthony Santander maybe he comes back. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe like at the top of the lineup. Like, you got Lucas, right? He's leading up. But we've seen Clement lead off.

We've seen low perfido. We've seen Davis Schneider. Right? Like we've seen a lot of guys lead off. And right now, you got low perfido. Right? Sometimes hitting in the one hole, the two hole, the three hole tonight. He's in the seventh hole.

Well, I do think that's a testament to the quality work that John Schneider has done this season is that he has been moving things around constantly. when it comes to his batting lineup. Because guys have been in and out all year. Think about Springer and Kirk the past couple weeks. They've been out. Of course, Santander has been a complete non-entity. Andreas Jimenez, who was starting second baseman.

You ever had to be early parts of the season, the first three, four games, the guy was raking. And I think we might see him back in the lineup soon, too. I think he's a guy who's part of the post-season lineup. Steve, sticking with the Blue Jays batting lineup, Bo Boshet, two homers, six RBIs. What, if anything, can the Blue Jays, do to try to retain this guy long term, or is it an inevitability that he goes to market

and potentially elsewhere? Well, it's inevitable. I think he goes to market right now. I mean, if I have his agent, I'm going to wait. I'm going to tell him, look, let's not engaged right now. Let's go out there, finish strong, you're tearing it up, keep doing your thing. And if you want to go back to Toronto, then great. You know, keep playing like you are and we'll make a deal with them. But we're going to squeeze every last little bit out of it. In the meantime, though, you know, you want other people in. You want it. You want to be able to able to market yourself. So I think that it's likely that he goes out there and he becomes a

free agent and teams start to, you know, court him a little bit. And the jays are going to have to play that game. Like, you know, he was somebody else's player that they want to bring to Toronto. And I think he's open to it. I know people kept saying, no, he doesn't want to be there. I don't, I don't see that or buy that at all. He really likes Vladimir Grove Jr. Their friends, I think that he's enjoying this season. And when things are going well, he loves Toronto. Like, I mean, you know, the times that he's been down has been more about his own performance than anything else. So I think it's going to, you know, it's probably going to get to $200 million to get him signed. And if it doesn't go too far beyond that, I think the Js have to be playing in that range.

Well, Steve, how different are those conversations today than they would have been in the winter coming off that down year? Yeah, I think that it was a non-starter. I think from Bichette's position, you know, he had lost about two years or parts of two years with injuries and underpriced. perform it, and it made no sense for him to try to negotiate at that point. He wanted to negotiate, like, the guy who in the past led the league and hits. And he's like, I want to be paid like that guy. And they're like, well, we can't, you haven't been that guy for a couple of years. So there really wasn't a starting point to make an agreement.

And so I think it was a wait and see. And for Bichette, he bet on himself, which I would have too. I think that, you know, I wouldn't have settled for a lesser deal based upon, you know, the down couple years in health. And so, you know, he had to go show he could stay healthy. then he had a show he could be Bichette again and then he'd say okay now look at me how you're like for now

and so I just don't think there was any way they had an opening there was no nobody made a mistake nobody you know wasn't aggressive enough there wasn't a starting point that made sense for either side to make a deal last fall last winter Steve there's a recent altercation

our alleged altercation machine Bryce Harper and Manfred the leader of the league about you know the salary cap potential salary cap you know, CBA negotiations. Is this the beginning of something? Do you see this as something that the league and the players are really going to argue over a different type of hard salary cap?

I do. I think that it's interesting. Like, I mean, Bryce Harper was way out of line, completely out of line. There was no business to be disrespectful to the commissioner. And, you know, you can't say get out of here if you're going to talk about something when he didn't talk about something and never mentioned salary cap. And even then, it's disrespectful to do it. If the commissioner had gone to a player and acted that way,

it would be all over the commissioner for doing it. And so I think Bryce Harper was out of line and had no business being that aggressive with the commissioner. And I think the players missed an opportunity in those meetings with the commissioner. They should have been asking all of the pointed questions that the union wanted answers to. Are there two sets of books? how do we look at the fact that values for owners of the teams keep going up, yet you're saying they're not making money? Explain it to us.

What is included in the calculation for revenues? Because teams must be making money elsewhere that's not included in the books and everything. Like, I know there's not two sets of books, because I was a jam. I would have known if there was the second set. I would be happy to share it if I knew there was the second set of books. But I'd want answers to those questions as opposed to being attacking and disregarding the commissioner. That being said, the owners have to negotiate among themselves to even get to the point of willing to do a full-blown salary cap. If I'm a large market owner like Steve Cohen who bought the Mets and paid $2.6 billion, I pay $2.6 billion.

And if you paid $1.8 billion for your team, why do I now want to share all of the revenues that, come with me owning a large market team with you with a smaller middle market team like why do I want to be socialized into a way that I'm balancing and leveling the playing field I just spent the most money for the biggest team because it had value to me so the idea that we're going to take from the rich and give to the poor to level the playing field doesn't seem like something large market owners would want to do and I'm not sure they can agree to do it and even if they got to that point the players are going to say no it's they are not going to agree to a salary cap so if the owner decide that they want to level the playing field, they have to do it by revenue sharing on

their own and keep the players out of it. If the owners want to share revenue, go for it. However you want to do it. But from the players' perspective, they want to know that there's an open market and a free market, and they can sign wherever they are for whatever the teams believe their value is. And I don't blame the players for not wanting a salary cap. I understand why small market owners want one. I understand what large market owners don't want one. But I think in the end, there's a really big piece of pie, and it's a huge pie that there's enough for everybody to make money and be happy. And I don't think that the competitive imbalance issue is worth a work stoppage that could take multiple years to get to

giving somebody to blink on a salary cap. TSN MLB analyst, Steve Phillips, our guest here, an hour three of overdrive. So Aaron Judge, on the verge of a return, he'll be back tonight for the Yankees. The Red Sox have won six games in a row between. Between those two, Steve, who poses a bigger threat to the Jays in the ALE East? Yeah, I think it's the Red Sox right now. I do. I think the Red Sox have something going, and Brian Bale's emergence of the front of that rotation with Garrett Crochet, Crochet on the Mount tonight for the Red Sox.

I think that Gialito, thrown as well as he has recently, I think that I do think the Red Sox are a scarier team right now for me than the Yankees. a lot of stuff they're dealing with. In fact, they're tied with the White Sox since July 1st with the same record. And they've won as many games the White Sox have since July 1st. So they've not played very good baseball. They're 5 and 18 on the road since June 13th. They've made 21 errors in that period of time on the road.

And so they're just, they're really crumbling right now. They're a good team, but they're playing like they're a last place team. And New York Yankee fans are acting like, you know, that they're, They're the Colorado Rockies, and everybody's got to go. And, I mean, it's just crazy the panic that is set in in New York right now around the Yankees. And I think all that does compound the losing on their part. Steve, I want to go back to Shane Bieber really quickly. Made another rehab start over the weekend in Buffalo and five innings.

We have a couple runs, struck out six. But, like, what are you looking for? The stats and the soft numbers, you know, they're nice to look at. But what exactly, like, are the Js? looking for, and how will you know if Bieber is kind of back to being his ace self? Yeah, I think right now, I think, you know, you'll only really figure that out at the major league level, but, you know, I think the thing about Shane Bieber is that he throws strikes, he rarely walks people. I mean, he pounds the strike zone with his stuff, and he gets swings

and misses, and he's done that throughout his rehab assignment. So I think it's really just about recovery between starts. How does he feel? And, you know, I think at some point, I mean, you go five innings at the AAA level. For me, you're ready to be a big league pitcher. And so, you know, from my perspective, whether he needs another rehab start or not remains to be seen. But I think is that the point of being ready enough to bring him in and take your chances with him. And I like, I like him a lot. And I'm hoping that he pitches well enough that he pitches well for them. but that he doesn't want to opt out of the deal for next year, and they can get him at next year for $16 million,

because he's a really good pitcher when he's fully healthy. Steve, thank you for the time. You were just as pleasant to speak to at 6 p.m. as you are at 6 a.m. It's great to have you with us, and we appreciate you doing this. No, my pleasure, guys. Sorry for the phone, sort of crapping out a couple times, but always happy to be out with you. All right, we love it.

That is Steve Phillips, our MLB analyst. I think you know what this is. Tate McRae hit Scotiabank Arena August 19th, and IHart Radio could take you there. With $500 spending cash and more, just stream IHart new music for 10 minutes a day on the free IHR Radio app. See the prompt?

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