OverDrive - Phillips on Hoffman's glaring problems, his closer role and Varland as an option

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips joined OverDrive to discuss the Blue Jays and Brewers' series, Jeff Hoffman's problems as closer with the team, Louis Varland's potential move to the role and more.

Baseball Insider, Steve Phillips, this Wednesday evening. Hello, Steve. Hey, guys, good to be with you. How's everything? Happy Jackie Robinson Day. All right. Look at that hoodie. You got any extra of those?

Steve, you could send our way? I could call my people to talk to your people and see what we might be able to work out. A.K., this is a professional show. We don't ask for stuff. That's embarrassing. My bad. My bad. I've never seen anyone do that before.

I don't know what I was doing. Shame on me. Shame on me. So this Hoffman question, and the Jay's win. I want to make that clear. I'm not trying to be overly negative, but that was a tough one last night. It's been tough for a long time dating back to game seven for Hoffman.

What do you think is the solution here? Do they make a change or they continue to ride with them? Yeah, I think that for the time being, I mean, considering where they are, I think you continue to ride with him. But I think you have to keep an open mind about it. And, you know, it's the one area where I think they made a mistake this offseason. I thought they had a great offseason. But, you know, they were in on Kyle Tucker.

And if that money was available, I would have left Barger in right field and spent that money on Edwin Diaz and brought him in to be the closer. And you still would have had money left over from what you were offering Tucker. I just think that, you know, after last year bringing Jeff Hoffman back to be the closer and expecting him to get the job done this year, I think there's a spot for him at a bullpen and in a good bullpen. It's just not the ninth inning. You can't have a closer who has 16 decisions in a season.

He was 9 and 7 last year. And so, you know, your closer should be 1 in 2 or, you know, 3 in 1 on the season where, you know, he came into a tie game and he ended up getting a win. Or maybe he blew a save, but he stayed in and you came back and scored a rally, and you won the game. But I just think that there's way too much contact, way too much risk, too much of the heart of the plate. And I would hate for that to be the thing. You've got a championship caliber team when it was all put together in the beginning, except for the closure's role.

And when that's the case, I just think it's short-sighted not to spend the extra dollars to get the closure you want. Steve, didn't you find in your time as an executive that you just have to get ahead of this, that you can't have Schneid's wheeling out there saying, we totally love this guy and we totally believe in him. We just saw it with little. Like it's not working out and you can't keep lying to everybody. You've got to get ahead of it and make a play because you can't keep watching it. Because the position they're in right now,

they can't afford to keep throwing them out on the mound. Yeah, I think that where they are, where they're short-handed right now, they've got to steal wins when they got them. Right. when they have it, they've got to get the win because they're undermanned. And so, you know, they can't afford to have a close or blow a game in a game they should have won. They've got to steal them when they can get them. And, you know, they are in a position where at the trade deadline,

they will likely be able to find somebody, but you've got to be in it by the trade deadline. And, you know, they can't afford to dig too deep of a hole now while they're waiting to get healthy. That's going to be hard to dig out of later. And, you know, you can make that run. It's like college basketball, right? who's going to make the run of the third quarter to come back in a game? And you don't want to be in that spot where you're trying to make that comeback, but you don't have a closer and you give back one of those games.

So for now, I am wide open to Varland being the closer, wide open to it. Now, I think you give Hoppin another shot at it or two, but I think you have a quick hook with him, but he's in trouble. And at some point you transition, and it's not you give up on Hoffman. There's a spot for him. It's just that when it's the ninth end, if he gives up a run, then it's over. If it's the seventh inning and he keeps it close and he gives up,

he's still got a couple innings to make up some of that ground because he's not locked down right now with the inning that you send him out there for. Or I think Varland's much more predictably a lockdown reliever for his inning. So, Steve, it's not like the Jays are that far out of it. You're 7 and 9 and really Tampa Bay, the Yankees, Baltimore. They're not world beaters right now as far as the standing. So do you think if they hold serve, like you say, they kind of trudge along here, they can get healthy and then climb their way in the standings? Do you see a pathway there for this group if they do get healthy?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, listen, the reality is that they weren't playing great baseball when they were healthier. And so now, now that you're undermanned even more, you've got to play an even cleaner brand of baseball to try to hold on and get wins. and so that's the important part of it now. They need to not beat themselves, make other teams beat you in this moment and take advantage of their mistakes when they make them. I just looked at the standings.

I'm writing a column for tomorrow, talking about the injuries. On May 27th last year, the Jays were 26 and 28, two games under 500. That's where they are right now. Right now, they're just two games behind the raise at the top of it.

So, you know, they've got to keep it close, keep the top of the division within his arm's length, because from that point where they were 26 to 28, you know, they went, what, 68 and 40 the rest of the year last year after that. And so they've got better baseball in front of them. They will get healthier by the end of May. They're going to have Springer back. They'll have barger back. They have a shot of getting Bieber. They'll definitely have you Savage back.

Maybe they'll have Brillo's back. And so they will get healthier. So in the meantime, steal wins when you can, keep it close, and get ready to make a run when you get healthy. So, Steve, you just talked about laying out the game plan of kind of stealing wins when you can and just kind of grinding and keeping it together. And it kind of brings, I think, anyway, back to Hoffman again. I was going to ask you, what's the most important element of the game in doing so to kind of keep it alive here? But it's probably Hoffman, isn't it?

Well, I think that's... Or is it starting pitching? Is it offense? where would you go? Yeah, yeah. I won't put it on, I won't put it on one inning out of my closer because what I'm hoping is that if you get the offense going, then maybe you give him some margin for error,

then it's not a one-run lead that he's holding in the ninth inning. And so if I had to pick, I want both, I want everything, I want to be greedy, but I think the offense needs to get going. And if they do, then I think that, you know, right now, because they're not scoring, they're over-trying on the best, bases. They're trying to make plays they shouldn't be making. And I think if they build in some offense, some margin for error, they build that confidence level. They won't be caught up and over trying. And so I believe in pitching in defense. I think starting pitching is important.

But I think for this team, the confidence feeds off of the offense more than anything else. And so I would say, give me some more offense. And then I think you're going to see the rest of the game come around. Steve, how are you so tanned? Don't you live in Detroit? I know. I live in Connecticut, but I just got back. Right from Detroit. You look like you're cooking in the Florida sun every day. It's unbelievable. So here's the thing. I was just back from Florida. I was down for the Artemis Space Launch as my fiancé is in charge of the life systems for the space shuttle.

And so I was down there after the launch. We hung out in Florida for a few days. So, yeah, that makes sense. It was great. You look incredible, man. Keep up the good work. Thank you very much for doing this. Great to have you on the show.

Okay, guys, thanks. All right, that's Steve Phillip. Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Brian Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the glorious sons.

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