OverDrive - Phillips on Scherzer landing on the IL, Yesavage's return and the Red Sox' massive changes

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

TSN MLB Insider Steve Phillips joined OverDrive to dive into the Blue Jays and Red Sox series, experiences with players on a team bus in his career, Max Scherzer being on the IL, Trey Yesavage making his season debut and more.

Here's Steve Phillips, our TSM Baseball Insider. What's that like? Baseball is a different game and a different world. We're just talking about getting on a team bus after a bad loss. How does that work for a GM or a manager in baseball in terms of just staring at players as they get on the bus? Yeah, I think that, you know, 162 games and 187 days that they try to keep an even keel with it, right? Not too high, not too low. But there is an etiquette, right, when you lose.

and it's no music on in the clubhouse, it's quiet voices, no real chatter, guys quietly get on the bus, and, you know, I know what they do once they get back to the hotel, you know. I mean, generally my sense was that, you know, the season's such a grind that, you know, guys, if they went out, they went out as a team, and, but they, it was more team building than I think, you know, not caring. And so, you know, I never really experienced both from a player's perspective and being in the front office teams that didn't care that, you know, that would goof around and have fun after losses and act inappropriately. And so I have to say that I've been pretty well respected in what baseball players have done after losses. Steve, wasn't it tough, though, like this, there's a fine line and the competitor and you and,

and the competitor and all of us where say you've had a tough loss and I get it you got 162 games so you know I knew a lot of baseball players where the minute the game was over regardless win or lose it was they were fine their their attitude was fine but just didn't you feel like in a in a tough loss you didn't want to see a guy who had a tough game laughing it up or yucking it up like you know I get with your family oh yeah you know there's that that line of like professionalism was like just don't let anybody see see you do that. Jamie, I have the worst one ever for you. In Vancouver, we got pumped. And I know I've told you guys this story before. We got pumped, 8-0, and the bus was like a little bit, like we were just waiting around for everybody. We were waiting for somebody in the locker room,

and I usually gave the locker room, intended $100 to put a case of beer in the back of the bus, and it wasn't back there. Just as the bus turns away, we're pulling out, he hammers on the front of the door, he comes on the bus after an 8-0-grubbing, and he goes, goes, oh, dog, I got the beers. And I'm like, oh my God, dude. Like in front of Jimmy Rutherford and Paul Maurice, and I wanted to kill myself and then him. Yeah. Dude, you got to, you get a, you let us go.

You don't have to put the beer on the bus. Keep the hundred. That's it. That's it. Have the beers and the hundred and go away. I was so mortified. Right. So I will say it reminds me.

The one time that it was a big issue was we were in the playoffs playing the Atlanta Braves in the league championship series. And we ended up losing Kenny Rogers walked in the game winning run that night. And we lost the series. And in the clubhouse, Bobby Bonilla and Ricky Henderson were playing cards. They had both been in the game and out of the game. They were in the clubhouse playing cards when the game ended. you know, and the season ended, and they weren't any part of the team or anything else, and guys were ticked.

They were ticked. And so somebody actually leaked it to the media, it became a story. So that winter, whenever I was going to the banquets and everything else, and I got up to speak, I always got up and said, listen, I said, I've got a lot to say, but I'll keep it brief tonight because it's card night. Bobby Bow and Ricky are waiting for me. And so I've got to get there in time to play cards with them that night. But it was a big deal.

And Ricky didn't even know the next year he shows up to spring training. And so our media relations guy and I pull him in a minute. So the writers all winter have been wanting to get you to talk about you guys playing cards in the clubbuffs. But don't worry about it. I'll handle it. So the writers come up to him and start to talk to him for the first time that spring. And they go, well, you know, Ricky, where are you coming from? He goes, oh, I'm coming from Vegas.

I was playing cards. I'm like, what? I mean, like, seriously. read the room. And so it was just, it didn't matter. Ricky could get away with whatever. And people would just write it off as just Ricky being Ricky. Steve, we toss around a lot of stupid ideas on this show.

And earlier in the first hour, I asked Brian if he was running the Blue Jays, and the Mets picked up the phone and called him and said, if there's any way we could make the money work, would you be interested in taking Bo Bichet back? If you were on the Jays receiving end of that phone, And I'm talking about cutting the money. I'm not talking about taking the full money on, Steve. Would you pick up the phone?

Yeah, I'd always listen. I never say no to anything. And I think you can't, right? You've got to keep an open mind about every possibility. You can always say no at the end. But, yeah, I'd listen to see what they might be willing to talk about and how it could piece together. I mean, I don't want to pay them $42 million a year for this year

in the next two years after it. But I would listen if they wanted to whittle that down in a way. and it made sense. And, you know, the shorter-term deal makes all the sense in the world from a GM's perspective that if you can whittle it down to a two-year, you know, two-and-a-half years left in the deal, and it's at the price point where it would have made sense for me. Then I think I go to ownership and say, hey, listen, we've got a chance to try to do this. What do you think?

I would keep an open mind about that. I mean, the Mets have so many issues right now going on. And it may be that they're soon looking for a manager as well. is the pressure on Carlos Mendoza there. They're 9 and 19. They got swept in a double header by the Rockies. The Rocky swept the series. You know, when Dord got hurt on the day that Soto came back, it can't get worse.

It doesn't feel like right now. And, you know, actually the Red Sox are in a better place with the Mets are at this stage. Right, and they're in town tonight. And Cora's out and Chad Tracy's in on the interim in terms of management or managing the socks tonight. And, you know, if you're the GM of the Jays, you've been put to work here, and Ross Atkins is making moves. Trey is Savage coming up tomorrow. He's going to make his season debut tomorrow against the socks.

And Scherzer placed on the 15-day IL with right forearm tendonitis and left ankle inflammation. Call me a conspiracy theorist. But if he had a three-ERA, I would suggest that tendonitis and inflammation would be fine, and he'd still be pitching. He really has struggled here. What do you see the first thing? future of Scherzer being with this team, Steve, and on top of that, how do you expect you Savage to work his way in starting tomorrow night?

Yeah, so I think that was Scherzer. I kind of thought the same thing, like, how hurt is he? And then I thought, well, I'm sure things hurt on him right now, and so I'm not surprised by it. And I really wasn't surprised by the I-L stint. You can't option it to the miners. You aren't going to release them, because you might as well just, you know, if there's something that is nagging, then you do put them on the injured list.

And then what you do is you rehab them, send them on a rehab start or two or three or four, and then read what your need is because it's what you may need that picture again. Now, you know, they're going to start getting healthier. And, you know, hopefully Burrios will be back in at some point soon that Beaver's progressing and they'll have too much pitching to where they've, you know, they've got issues there. But for the time being, if Scherzer is aching, it makes all the sense of the world to put them on the injured list, protect your depth right now. And for you a savage,

mostly I want him to throw strikes. I think that if he throws strikes and works ahead in the count, he'll get by. You know, even if he's not perfect with his command, if you work ahead in the count, you keep the hitters on the defense, then you can induce soft contact,

let alone spring and miss. So, you know, he can't be tentative. He's got to come in being aggressive. That would be the message that I would make sure come in there, do your thing, and, I mean, they'll probably let them only go about 75-80 pitches first time back, and maybe they'll piggyback, you know, lower on the back end, or they'll, you know, protect them some with some length there.

But it's good to get them back in the mix. And again, a guy's first start coming back from injury, I never put a whole lot of stock in what is a fair expectation on it. But it'd be nice to get them back out there and having some success because it would make the Jay start to feel like, oh, yeah, this is who we thought we were going to be it's starting to come around now. Steve, they blew out Hoffman as the closer.

Like, why did Schneides waste so many of his breath saying, I have so much faith in this guy, and if there was ever a chance to close a game, I'm going on. Like, what is the psychology of him doing that and saying that? When a game later, they're just like, we can't have this guy as the closer. Why do they, and it bothers me in management in pro sports where people, keep falling and like they're so in love with their own ideas that they're oblivious to the outcomes in making change that they can never do it like why did it take so long for this

yeah i think that you know they do it because they want to try to convince the player while they're probably trying to convince themselves uh and you know i think that they just want to keep pumping confidence uh and uh uh you know trying to get him to believe in himself and and look there's no way once he started blowing saves that they had that much confidence in him, but you say it because you want him to believe it to try to get back on track. It's the best way to support a player to get him on track.

Problem is that how many times do you do it before you lose credibility with doing it, both to him and to others. And so look, Ross Atkins right from the beginning of the off season, Tep's saying, no, Huffman's going to be our closure next year. Huffin's going to

be our closure next year. And he said, we got all the confidence in the world, and I kept thinking, but why? You know, like, it just is, as a baseball fan, when your closure has 16 decisions, he was 9 and 7, that's not a great thing for a closure. Crazy Scott. Nice, but it means you get, right.

You can't have 16 decisions as a closer. And then we had some, you know, some blown saves this year. I think, you know, there's a way to say we want to rebuild him. He's important to our team. He's still going to get some big out for it. we're going to use them in leverage situations again, but right now for the ninth inning, we're going to go to somebody else.

And I think that that's what, you know, the, they finally got to that point. And not a surprise for Barlin, then it took him a couple times. You know, like it wasn't easy the first two times for him to work through it. At base runners, and it got a little dicey, but he got through it,

and he'll find a rhythm that he can get into to be able to be successful. Great catching up with you, Steve. Enjoy the games tonight. We'll do it again later in the week. Okay, guys. My pleasure. Anytime.

Steve Phillips, our TSM Baseball Insider, joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline. Hello, Canada. This is Brian Adams Radio. Hosted by Brian Adams himself. We'll play a few of mine, a ton of my favorites,

and some must-hear behind-the-scenes stories from the world of rock and roll. One thing about doing rock and roll so long is you end up meeting a lot of the people that you admire. Sometimes you even get to work with him. Brian Adams Radio. Now available. on the free IHard Radio app.

Hey, everybody. How are you tonight? Sounds great.