OverDrive - Phillips on Guerrero Jr.'s contract negotiations, the Blue Jays' season outlook and the management perspective of the lineup

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around MLB, the Blue Jays' season outlook and the lineup for the roster, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s contract negotiations and his next steps from a management perspective for the franchise and more.

Wow, you've got the latest model! Nice! Ah, you should see it run! Bell PureFiber? Yep. Sheesh, that's got power! It's Canada's fastest and most trusted internet service. Cool if I give it a test drive? Promise you won't share the password?

Switch to Bell PureFiber, Canada's fastest internet, awarded by UCCLA. Starting from $60 a month. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Here's our TSM baseball insider, Steve Phillips. How are you doing, Steve? I'm doing great, guys. Good to be with you. Good to be with you, Steve. This is your time of year.

Last year, you were underwhelmed. You warned us that it was going to be a gong show. What are you setting us up for from what you've seen in the spring training and everything that's led up to this season about the Jays? Tell us what we're in store for. I think they have a chance to compete. For what? Yeah, for a wild card spot.

I think they have a chance to compete for a wild card spot. I mean, I think, I think they have a chance to compete for a wild card spot. I, you know, there's no dominant team in the American league this year. Um, you know, I think that, that right now, I think the red Sox has the best team in the American league East. Um, and, but I think that the Yankees and the blue Jays and the Orioles and the Rays could all compete for wild card spots, you know, I think Texas is pretty good in the West, Houston's pretty good in the West. I don't love Seattle, I just don't think they're gonna hit. You know I think in the central, you know I think last year was a bit fluky, you know, and

but the problem is that the White Sox, you know, 141 games lost, you know, 121, and they're worse this year. And so, I mean, they're literally worse this year. And so, I mean, it's, you know, it's gonna be, you know, they were, you know, you think about Kansas City and Detroit, they were 12 and one against the White Sox, and that's why they made the playoffs.

And so, you know, and the White Sox are going to be worse. So, I mean, it's going to give them an advantage, you know, playing the White Sox as much as they do. But, you know, the Blue Jays are, I think are going to be competitive. You know, the question is, you know, how competitive will they be and where are they at the deadline? And do they make a push or do they sell? And if they're three or four out in the race, do they go for it or do they punch? And I think that's gonna be a tough decision they're gonna have to make when they're there. Steve, you gotta explain one thing to me,

and I found it frustrating over the years, like just as a casual Jays fan and watching them on the daily, how come the Red Sox can have a down year and it seems like they'll turn it around in the off season and you just mentioned them as the favorite to be the best team in the AL East. How come the Jays never do that? What is it about the two organizations where Boston does rebound and do that and the Jays do not? Part of it is, you think about the Red Sox right now, they've

got the best farm system in baseball. And you know, they've got three prospects that are absolutely elite, you know, in the top 10 in the game. And so, you know, they've got that and they traded away three prospects that were others in the top 100 to get Garrett Crochet. So they were able to land Crochet. They still have three of the top prospects in the game. They have financial flexibility to sign Bregman.

And, you know, they were able to close the deal on Bregman where the Jays were in on a bunch of guys. And look, here's the difficulty, and it's real, is getting players to say yes to go to Toronto. I mean, it's a real thing. It's ridiculous, because Toronto, once players are there, they love Toronto. And players who get drafted and play there love Toronto.

It's guys who just don't know any better, because they make up, well, it's cumbersome because of immigration and customs and my family and this and that. And then once they realize that they decide to go there, that it actually isn't bad at all for their family and that they love planet, it's a great city and it's diverse, it's cultural, it's got, you know,

it's beautiful, the summers are amazing, the people are great. But I think that it's, they've gotten more to overcome than some of the other cities do. And think that that's in part so the challenge with steve phillips rts and baseball insider in order for them to compete the blue jays there they're obviously going to need to be able to produce runs which has been an issue for the last couple years and

i can tell you uh... basically a daily topic of discussion up here is who is going to clean up for this team? How are they going to get offense? You know further down the lineup because if it's going to go be shut into Vladdy into Santander Okay, you've got three guys that you feel if they're performing at their best can be elite hitters And can bring you a variety of different ways of getting on base and hitting with power etc. I Don't know who their fourth best hitter is I don't know who should hit cleanup that cleanup position last year was dreadful it was just a black hole offensively for them

where do you stand on that Steve like if if you're filling out this lineup who's hitting fourth who's hitting fifth who can you rely on to provide offense throughout the year that is not named Bichette Guerrero Santander. Yeah, so they're going to need, you're right, I mean, you know, the dreaded, I won't say run prevention, the dreaded internal improvement is the other dirty word. We don't like that term. Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know, but Bichette needs to

give you that too. And, you know, you're going to need Varsho to be a little better. You're going to need Kirk to be better. You're going to need Springer to be better. You're going to need the combination of Arger and Clement to give you something. Jimenez is, Andres Jimenez is going to have to, you know, give you something as well. And he's a better offensive player than what he's delivered over the last couple of years in Cleveland. And you know, Lopofito is going to have to give you some production and some thunder with the bat.

And you're going to have to mix and match a little bit with this, but it starts with Bichette. You know, if he can give you and get things going again, then you know, it starts to, you know, he's then glad you start to get other guys getting better because nobody feels like they have to do something, you know, but when it was only glad and nobody else is doing anything, then everybody feels like they have to do it. They all expand the strike zone. They all try to do too much and nobody, it goes out there

just performs like themselves. They're all trying to do more than they're capable of doing. So, I mean, you're not wrong. They're gonna need guys to step up and deliver. I still felt like they were another bat short. Third base was, I thought they needed to add Bregman in addition to Sean Tandair, in addition to Bichette stepping up and coming back, in addition to the Jimenez deal and what they were able to do.

So, you know, they're gonna need somebody else, you know, from among that group of guys who need internal improvement to step up and deliver, or they're gonna need monster performances from Bichette and Guerrero and Santander. Now it doesn't mean they can't get it. I mean Kirk is a better hearer than what he showed. He is. I mean we've seen it from him in the past,

but you know the way you prove it is going out and doing it. And he didn't do it last year. And so you know there's some work to do for these guys to prove that they can be better. And you know what? None of us are gonna believe it until they do go get it done. Well, we still got the elephant in the room, Steve, and you've been in the seat of Major League General Manager, I'm sure, with tough negotiations. And if you had to make a guess here, you know, between now and opening day, is it what's the percentage chance of Vladdy and the Blue Jays actually coming to terms of having a big celebration of a massive signing that's long awaited between now

and the beginning of play? Yeah I mean I would say I mean I'll never say zero but I would say maybe 0.1% 99.9% yeah, they're not gonna get a deal done. I mean, they're $50 million apart. And everybody, you know, I keep reading, like, well, just give them the 50 million. It's $50 million, where are we with this? We're just missing what $50 million is. It's $50 million apart, that's not insignificant.

I don't care how many years it is. It's not an insignificant amount of money. I mean, that is a grand canyon gulf between the two parties with where they are. I don't care how many years of difference it is, and you're going to try to spread it out. It is a pretty significant difference. And from the team perspective, that's after you know that it's a 50 million dollar difference after coming up a hundred million from where they were originally and so you know their mind is it's not just a 50 million dollar difference we just jumped a hundred

million and it's still a 50 million dollar difference and and why is it that it's their responsibility to come up the rest of the way without Vlad coming down a little bit out of the way and so, you know and look I understand both parties have a Justifiable stance to dig in on their position And you know if your deal is going to get done, they're both going to have to budge off of that position To be able to do it. It's not going to be just one party Making a move and therefore I don't see it getting done because I don't get any sense that Vlad has any thought

of moving off of the 500 million. Steve, how much is the general manager's position in a negotiation like this direction from ownership because as much as you might wanna tell the player to go jump in a lake, it's too much money, if the owner's saying get this done, I guess then you don't have the right to say that or will say that. Like how much contact are you in with ownership as far as these numbers and what's going to fly

and what's not? Yeah, these deals are ownership deals. These are not gentleman managers deal. I mean, think about this. People kept saying, well, it's only $50 million you know, people kept saying, you know, well it's only a $50 million difference and I kept saying no. The value of the franchise, I read, Forbes said it's 2.1 billion and you're suggesting giving a player $500 million or half a billion.

So it's not a $50 million difference, it's giving a player half a billion dollars for a team that's valued at two point one billion that's the value that's that that's what you're talking about doing it's not a fifty million dollar deal that they have a billion dollar deal in that that ideal like that is

in organizational decision that is all about ownership deciding that i thought job manager but it's a nice day they were comfortable offering it to two other players that have never played for the organization well well but here's the thing the the offer to a tiny was four hundred sixty million present value right now present value it sounded like seven hundred million but the offer the reality is the net present value of that deal because of the deferrals was $460 million.

Their view is we're offering Vlad $450 million, which is just $10 million short of the net present value of what we offer to Ohtani. We think that that's very reasonable and very fair considering we think Ohtani is a better player than Vlad is, and we still went to that number on it. Now, I don't know, my understanding was that whatever they offered Soto had deferrals in it. That's my understanding. I don't know that for a fact. My understanding through sources on it was that whatever they offered Soto had deferrals in it and then it wasn't a straight like close to 700 million dollars, but it had deferrals in it. So then it wasn't a straight, like close to $700 million, but it had deferrals in it.

So I don't know what the net present value was there, but my sense, my guess is that it makes sense that it had deferrals in it, and it probably had a net present value under Otani as well. And again, if it was over the Otani net present value, then I can, look, I don't think Vlad's as good as Soto. So whatever it is, it should come in under the Soto offer that they made.

And now look, he may want more than that. He may want closer to what Soto got. And the team may say, we weren't willing to give it to Soto. This is what we were willing to give him. We see you less than that. And this is why we're staying where we are. You might not get Vlad if you'd stick by that decision, but at least you can justify it. You know, it's interesting, my sense of it is that initially most people sided with the team on this and not with Vlad, that they looked at it and said, well, 500 million net

present value beyond Otani just doesn't make a lot of sense. And so I don't know like they didn't offer Otani 700 million they offered him 700 million with deferrals that was only worth 460 million. And so they offered Vlad 450 million net present, which is in line with what they offered O'Tonny. Yeah. And listen, it's a lot of money. And as of now, it doesn't get the job done. And that's the amazing thing that,

that kind of cash on the table, Ladi still turned them down, which probably has their backup against the wall that much more, because they're really challenging whether or not this guy actually wants to be here and that I think speaks to what you're saying where a lot of the fans maybe were siding with the Jays here because Vlad he keeps telling everyone I love Toronto I want to stay in Toronto I never want to leave and I think he loves Hayes I think he likes I

think he loves the idea of being that one spotlight player next offseason he wants to be the Soto, the Otani, where he's wined and dined and he's the focal point and he's moving the needle and people are gushing over him. I truly think he wants to. I could see that being the case and listen it's also yeah I don't know how much value is actually in it on a tangible step from a tangible stance but it's it's a great marketing tool for an individual player to take over an offseason. Yeah, but it's a great marketing tool for an individual player to take over an off season.

Like everyone knew Soto anyways, but Soto this year, like it's skyrocketed with everything he just went through. And Vlad is a name because it's a legacy name, he's a Guerrero and people know him. And if you're a baseball fan, you really know him. But I don't know, like does the average sports fan in Arizona really know all about Vladie't know like this it does the average sports fan in Arizona

really know all about Vladimir Grillo jr. they may not they will if this guy gets to the winter meetings and every team in the league is begging him for a contract I mean that that could be a part of it as well for sure only if he has a monster he's got to have a great year he does monster he's got to have a great year yeah you know he's had a lot of peaks and valleys along the way and he had a great year last year, but he's going to have to do it again to get the $500 million. Here's the thing, all it takes is one team, and if there's one team, then there's likely going to be two.

If there's two, the price is going to go to $550 million. That takes the Jays out of it. I don't see how the Jays get a deal done in the off season. If they can't get it done now, it won't get done in the off season because the price won't come off of 500 million because the likelihood is somebody will give it to them. And if the Jays aren't gonna give it to them now,

then I can't imagine they're gonna give it to them then because if they are, somebody else will. And if somebody else will, then it's gonna take it to 525 and it's going to take it to 550 and how many times can the owner say you told me it was going to cost 350 then you told me it's going to cost 450 now you're telling me it was going to cost five now you're telling me it's going to cost 550 and at some point you know ownership is like well like you guys keep telling me this is what his value is and it's a moving target. I'm fed up with this. I'm out

Yeah We'll see we're getting closer and closer to opening day for the Jays I mean baseball is already underway. We've got the Dodgers 1-0. What a shock Dodgers off to a good start Steve I'm not sure you predicted that but yeah, how about the Dodgers? They decided that you you know what, like we all did when we were kids, you were playing and the teams are lopsided. So we said, you know, how about this?

That we'll play and we'll hit right-handed if we're left-handed hitters, just to even up the playing field. The Dodgers said, we're gonna tie our hands behind our back. We won't play Wookie Betts or Freddie Freeman against you to start the season. And just to make it a little more even and they still beat them 4-1. Yeah and they still roll the

Cubs who are a pretty good team. Anyway great stuff Steve as always appreciate you doing this. You got it guys have a good day. Steve Phillips our TSN MLB insider. 0.1% chance that Jays and Vladdy reach a deal between now and opening day. Ah, that's the true north all the way. Loud and proud. An all new digital radio station from coast to coast. Made in Canada, played in Canada. On the free iHeartRadio app and at iHeartRadio.ca. It's gonna get loud.