PTI - Should the Blue Jays Sell at the Deadline?

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the Blue Jays, Raiders say Cousins is QB1, Harper feels Phillies need help, Angels pitch to Alvarez + more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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but I'm Mike Wilbon. It is International Tiger Day, Tony. You like tigers? I'm Tony Cornhearser, yes, especially Al-Kaline. Oh, I see what you did there. Al-Kaline, Gates Brown, Willie Horton. Those are the Tiger teams I sort of feared when I was a kid. Have you ever seen a tiger outside captivity?

Only the zoo, or have you been like to Nepal? I have not. Never seen you. I have not. I've not been to Nepal. But I will tell you this about the Detroit, I believe their home uniforms with the Gothic D are the greatest uniforms in baseball. Great logo. Great local.

The greatest in baseball as far as I'm concerned. Welcome to PTI boys and girls in today's episode. The Blue Jays could sell. Bryce Harper wants the Phillies to buy and the Raiders choose Kirk Cousins over Fernando Mendoza for now. But we begin today with the potential intersection of Tarek Schuble and Shoahe Atani. Scouble surrendered three earned over six and two thirds to the Orioles this afternoon, just days ahead of Monday's trade deadline. Out in Los Angeles,

Shohay Atani revealed that he's got a bicep issue in addition to his alien knee and his next start date is a mystery. Wilbon, can the Dodgers count on Otani or do you think they actually need Scoobel to win a third straight World Series? Okay, I'm going to be contrarian to start the show.

I think those things have nothing to do with one another. No, they can't really count on Shohay because biceps, this is not incidental. He's a right-handed pitcher, and we're talking about his right bicep. steps. So no, you can't count on him. You may be able to count him in October. That's a long way off. Today, as we make decisions about who to acquire, perhaps, you can't count on him. But the Dodgers also figure to get back, figure two, not mandatory, Snell, Glassnow, Edwin Diaz. That's an embarrassment

of riches on the mound, starting in relief if the Dodgers get those guys back. So it doesn't mean they need scoble. It doesn't mean they need anybody. The Dodgers, according to you and others, were going to be impossible to catch. You already awarded them the Bud Sealing Trophy or whatever it is. So let the Dodgers get their people back and play baseball. They're supposed to be the best. They don't need to deal for scoobo. Okay. So there are two separate questions here. The first question is can the Dodgers count on Otani? Well, he's not going to be. He's not going to be pitching in the near term and maybe not all year. But he goes out there every day as the DH and he bats. And yesterday, if I have this correct, he went three for four with a double

with a homer and three RBI. So yes, they can count on Shohei. He didn't pitch at all last year, I don't believe, and they won the World Series. And as you say, they're getting people back. Now, he's pitched great this year. I think his record, Mike, is eight and two and fourteen starts with a 179 ERA. But you just need it. to hit. They've got the pitching coming back. And yeah, I think they are by far in a way the favorite to win this. The second question is, do they

need Scoobel to win the World Series? No, they don't need Scoobel because they've got they're tied for the best record in all of baseball right now. Be nice if they had Scoobel. You know, Scoobel is the reigning Cy Young winner in the American League two years in a row. Prior to today's start, when by the way,

he had a 7-0 lead. And they lose that game. He's on the mound at 7-0. Prior to today's start, in his past three starts, he went 19 and third innings, give up only 13 hits, only three earned runs, and struck out 26. He is the best available guy in baseball. He makes everybody better. He's basically LeBron. Now, the question that comes down now is, are they going to trade them? They got to trade them. If they thought they could make the playoffs, well, because now you say, because of this one game, you say they can't jump over the teams and make the third

wild card? Here's why. Because free agency, plus Scott Boris plus your team stinks means bye-bye Detroit. And that's not mince words. Just not try to give some foamy tease. Yep, but the point is, if I'm the Tigers and if the deadline helps me, I know that's an if.

I'm going to get as much as I can for Scoobo. Because he ain't staying here. Those discussions have to be had already. Right? Last, yesterday you said that Warriors couldn't get anything for Curry. You couldn't get a hall. Maybe you can't get a hole for school.

You can't get a haul. You can't get a haul. Go ahead. Scoob was younger than Curry. You said they couldn't. You know, Steph is getting up there. It's almost as old as you and me. He's being rented for two months.

I like half. It's a rental. It's a rental. Maybe. Unless he goes to a team that Boris sets it up with that he wants to sign with. Then it ain't a rental. Let's move from last year's World Series champion Dodgers to the runner-up Toronto Blue Jays. They lost a game.

last night the Blue Jays did, this time to your nationals, Tony. Adding injury to insult Vlad Jr. Left the game early with a tight hammy. The Jays came so close to winning it all last year, but now find themselves in the last place in the ALE East. Should they sell at the trade deadline? Let's emphasize how close they came last year. They went to the 11th inning in game seven.

Before Will Smith, I believe in the top of the inning, hit a home run that ultimately was the margin. I was watching the Nats last night. And by the way, this afternoon already, Toronto beat the Nats. Okay, so they have a win already today. But last night I was watching when Vlad Jr. got hurt running out of ground ball at that point. He's their best player, but he's having a lousy year in terms of power numbers, Mike. I mean, he's got six home runs and 44 RBI in 103 games.

The team is now 50 and 59. They're like something like 14 games. out of Tampa in their division, their last in the division, and 12 and a half something like that away from the Yankees, should they sell? I called Tim Kirchen today. I had him on the podcast. I asked him.

So he knows much more than I do. He said they're probably going to sell. They're not going to sell Vlad Jr. They're not crazy. They're not doing that. But he mentions a couple of guys that he mentioned. Kevin Gossman, a starting pitcher, might end up somewhere else.

Dalton Varshow, a very good defensive outfielder, might end up somewhere else. I don't think anybody wants Shane Bieber today, because last night against the Nats, he had six walks in the first inning. He didn't get out of the inning. Six walks, one hit, four runs. They would have been better served with Justin Bieber. He would have been better with him.

Go ahead. Well, the other thing, Tony, you know, Springer, who you'd want for about 10 years, you might not want now because he's 37, so he's a free agent. So if you add him to Gosman, Bieber, Springer, and Varsho, is there much there? There might be enough there to cobble up, cobble out some picks, some high picks.

I mean, you just had a draft. Maybe you get somebody you can see two years down the road. Vlad Jr. going from great to this. Wow, that's a downer, right? And so they couldn't have seen that coming. I'm not going to blame Toronto for that. But Tony, the pressure that exists in other teams in that division, for the Yankees, for the Red Sox, those pressures don't exist for Toronto.

It's not the same market. Their players aren't going to get booed when they're walking to a restaurant if Toronto has a bad year and tries to rebuild and not reload. So Toronto can take a different look at this than the Yankees and BJ's would or Mike. I give you all that. I really like the trade deadline. I think there's a lot of action.

I think it's better than the NFL trade deadline, better than the NBA trade deadline. I mean, you want to see what happens here. Maybe nothing. It's just more fun. It's more fun. More fun. Sometimes.

Let's move to football. Camps open this week all across the NFL, and football talk dominates the shows on this network, thankfully. The Raiders under their new coach, Clint Kubiak, have said Kirk Cousins will be the starting quarterback over No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza, who last year won the Heisman and National Championship at Indiana. Wilbon, are the Raiders right to name Cousins as her number one quarterback? Hell yeah. Yes. Yes, the Raiders are right to name him as a quarterback.

That's why they got him. You know, everybody doesn't have to start a rookie right away. I understand my franchise put Caleb Williams out there and said, let's go. All right, but we didn't have a guy like cousins, a veteran guy who's even been in playoff games. There's Rush Mendoza, for what? Where the Raiders going? They're going to beat out Kansas City? Unlikely.

They're going to beat out the charges? No. They're going to beat out Denver. No. They're going nowhere. So let the kid learn. Don't rush him out there. You've got like 30 rookies on this team and second year players.

You don't need to do anything, but let him watch. Yeah, I'm in complete agreement about that. Kirk Cousins is a professional quarterback. This is his 15th year in the league. He has won 88 starts in the NFL, lost 77 times. I mean, you could do a lot worse than Kirk Cucson. Cousins, who's a four-time pro-baller. Atlanta found out they could do a lot worse.

They benched them, and then they needed them for the last four starts of the year, and he won all four. Mendoza has never taken an NFL snap. He's learning an entirely new system with an entirely new coach. To me, you would start anybody over Mendoza, but if you have cousins, it makes it better. I actually see Tom Brady's hand behind this. I do. I would not put him out there, Mendoza, in game one, or game.

game two or game two. The Raiders stink. They were three and fourteen last year. They were four and 13 a year before. You make the right point. They got no squad. They're in a terrible division. So I'm looking at cousins for at least five or six games. And if they win a couple, maybe more. Because the best they can do is hope to be at 500 if you're the Raiders. I mean, why are you throwing this kid to the wolves? He's your long-term guy. You don't do it. Not only that. He used to snap. He's not even using direct snaps. He's taking a shotgun or the trigger, the gun, whatever they call it in whatever system. He's not used to playing the way he's going to need to play in the NFL.

So you don't need to rush it. And so you and all the other talking head people obsessed with football on this network, they can give you all the analytics they want. No, the Raiders don't need to do anything there under no pressures, and they should be under no illusions about how to bring along slowly, they're rookie quarterback. So you're yelling at me as if I'm the enemy and you're saying

exactly what I said. Well, you know. Think about that. Let's take a break still to come. Bryce Harper says his Phillies must add players at the trade deadline. What is the word for that? And how best to describe the Angels pitching to MVP frontrunner and your Don Alvarez with the

game on the line? What a pound toy. I love the trade deadline. I do not want the Nats trading C.J. Abrams or James I do not. They better not do it. One day you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room.

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With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. It is time to overwhelm Wilbon with wonderful words. What's first? It's blank for Bryce Harper to say the Phillies need some help at the trade deadline. I think it's completely reasonable.

I like the Phillies a lot. Mike, you've heard me say many times. I think they have the best everyday one through nine lineup in baseball and it's led by Harper and your boy, Kyle Schwabber. I think the top of their pitching rotation. with Zach Wheeler and Christopher Sanchez is very good. But you know what? They're 10 and a half games behind the Dodgers at the moment.

So they need something. They have to be able to get back into this race. I mean, and we've already discussed the fact that the Dodgers are getting their pitchers back. They're getting Diaz back. They're getting Glasnow back, right? I mean, they're getting Snell back. So the Phillies have to do something.

And the Phillies worse now. They're in a slump. I believe they're three and nine at the moment since the All-Star break. And I think in six of those games, they've only scored one run or less. And Harper's having a terrible July. Harper, last time I look,

was batting like 165 in July, and his OPS was somewhere around 610. And that, as we know from Dave Dombrowski, the GM, we know that's not elite. That's very good, but it's not elite anymore. So is Dave Dombrowski still an elite general manager? Or is he just a good general manager now? Because if he's an elite general manager,

he's going to get the Phillies the help that they need. and I would think it would be maybe some bullpen help or another bad. I don't know. But I think Harper's reasonable. Tony, I think he's honest and frank. Those aren't my words. My word hyphenated is music to my ears.

Because as much as you like Philly, I hate Philly. I don't mean everybody in Philly because I love Kyle Schwerber, which you know. I hate the Phillies. And it's music to my ears because that's chasing my team. I don't give a damn about the Dodgers.

They're chasing the. the Cubs who are in the wild card catbird seat right now. So when that thing was a half game here and a half game there, I was nervous as hell. But I'm not right now because the Phillies are going slowly down the tubes with all that talent. And you and Buster only keep telling me how they're going to challenge the Dodgers. Let them challenge some time at the crib. Let them go fishing. Music to my ears.

Because you hate Philadelphia and everything about it, even though they signed the Declaration of Independence. What's next? We could have signed that. The Angels decision to pitch to Jordan Alvarez in the ninth inning last night was blank. It was dopey. In hindsight, it was really dopey.

They pitched to him in the first inning, and he hit it about 500 feet. Why would you pitch to him again in the top of the ninth inning in a two-two game with two-on? That means there's an open base. You walk him. You have to be crazy to pitch to him.

him at that particular time. He's batting. Let me get these numbers right. 325. He's got 35 home runs. He's got 80 RBI. Leads a league. Okay? That leads the league in all those categories. Not all the baseball. No, leads the American League. He's on the way. It's on the way to Triple Crown. The other game had the same situation, a previous game, in the night that they walked him. Now the Angels didn't win that game, but it wasn't because Alvarez beat him. Now they go, they pitch to Alvarez. First pitch of the at basketball. gets a single, drives in a run, it's three, two. Afterwards, the manager says, I sent the pitching coach out there to say,

don't give him anything good to hit. Really? Well, he did. And that's why the angels are at the moment 42 and 66. God, the angels as a side comment are just stupid. Now, my word is actually, again, sort of hyphenate it, say what? You're in Alvarez.

What, the news didn't get to you? What is it ship in a bottle across seven seas that you don't know that Alvarez is having the best year in the American League since in a triple crown since 2012 with Cabrera what are you thinking? Say what is my word. It's unbelievable. In Little League, you don't need to be having somebody come out. The people in your Little League team, the infielders, somebody the toughest kid says, let's go talk to the pitcher. And you say, you know what? Yeah. Four wide.

Put this kid on. Put the big kid on base. We're not pitching to him, or we will take you out if you throw him a pitch. Say what? It's just dumb. It is remarkable how the angels have just laid down for years and years. They've ruined the... Just awful.

They've ruined his career. They've ruined the best player's career. That's it. I went. Let's take one last break still to come. Luca Donchage. I don't think you even like him either. I do.

He springs for a Lakers minicamp in Slovenia. I don't like his defense because he's not played you. And the NHL has a new highest paid player. He's a wizard. If I take you to Philadelphia, if I take you to the University of Pennsylvania and to Polesster, if I walk you around, do you think you might change your mind? I love going there. I do.

It's fun. I'm a cheese steak, dude. They got great hotels, the best hotel in America. The four seasons in downtown Philly. I love going to see basketball games. I might get to hug Alan Iverson, but I hate doing. In a sunny Californian suburb, one family's home is unusually quiet. When detectives walked into that house, they said that it was like time just stood still.

It's 2010, and the McStay family is nowhere to be found. Inside the home, no clear answer where the family could have gone. Husband, wife, and two children are gone, like, poof, disappeared. The search for the mixed days quickly captures the nation. But for years, the search for answers only brings more questions. Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing? A family of four doesn't just drop off the face of the earth with no contact. Is this a family on the run?

Or is the truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio in 2020, this is what happened to the mixed days. Coming August 11th, wherever you get your podcast. Or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts for Adidas. free episodes, early access to new episodes, and so much more. Happy time, people. Happy 33rd birthday, Dach Prescott. The Cowboys quarterback has his money. Now he needs to win some playoff games. The Cowboys didn't make the playoffs last season, but it was hardly Prescott's fault. It was fourth in the league in passing touchdowns

with 30. Third in the league in passing yards with 4,552, led the league in past completions with 404. It was Dallas's defense that didn't show up, not DAC. The defense was dead last in points allowed, 30th in yards allowed, so the Cowboys fired defensive coordinator and your boy, Matt Iberfluse. In a recent ESPN survey of quarterbacks, Prescott was ranked sixth overall. But he hasn't been to the playoffs since 2023, and he's two and five overall in the playoffs.

Yeah, there's way too much talk about Cowboys quarterbacks. And look, none of these guys are Akeman. and Romo was terrific at times. Prescott has been great at times. It doesn't matter. You got to have a whole team and people can obsess over the cowboys and their quarterback.

It doesn't mean Jack. They're not going to win the division again. Even though DAC, as you say, I'd like to have them if I didn't have my guy. I'd have DAC, but it doesn't matter. Happy anniversary, Sparky Anderson. This is posthumous. But on this day, 40 years ago,

Anderson, who was already the first manager to win championships in both leagues with the Reds and the Tigers, then became the first manager to win 600 games in both the National and American League, when his Tigers beat Milwaukee 9-5 when the Brewer, Milwaukee was then in the American League. Since then, Tony Larusa has won at least 600 games

with the Cardinals' athletics and the White Sox. Bruce Boshi had over 900 wins with both the Padres and Giants, and he won a recent World Series with Texas, and Terry Francona won over 700 games with Boston and Cleveland. At Anderson's induction speech at Cooperstown, he said, and I'm quoting here, I got good players, stayed out of the way, let them win a lot, and hung around 26 years. You saw all the Sparky's teams. You covered some of the great ones.

Would you take the big red machine of Rose, Morgan, Foster, Bench, and Griffey ahead of even those Dodgers and Yankees teams that you think were so great? Just about the best team I'd ever seen. Didn't have pitching, didn't need pitching. It seemed like they scored 80 runs a game, remember? Happy trails to Live Golf's season-ending event. Reports say the Saudi tour is on the verge of canceling its $40 million season-ending team championship. The tournament had been scheduled for the end of August in Michigan.

This surprises no one. After the sortie PIF announced it would stop funding, Liv, it was only a matter of time before the league crumbled. This will be the second Live event canceled this season and leaves just two more remaining on this year's schedule. As they say, Tony, as long as the payroll check cashes. I mean, what are you going to do if you're John Rom and some of the others, and you've already accepted so between tens of millions and hundreds of millions, what are you going to do? Yeah, you're going to come back to the PGA tour and work it out.

One correction. Shohei did pitch last season, 14 appearances in the regular season, and four in the postseason, including game four of the NLCS, where he pitched six scoreless innings and hit three home runs. My bad. That about that? Totally mine. Yeah.

Let's go to the big finish. Let's do it. Could Luca Donchitz, who you don't like, will host his own Lakers' minicamp in Slovenia this summer. Are you impressed? I like this move. It's going to be nearly 20 dudes. That's a big tab he's picking up.

Good for Luca. Curtis Mead suffered a broken wrist after getting plunked during just his second at bat with a socks. Is that a big deal? Terrible bad luck. Came over from the Nats. Like you said, second at bat. Maybe season ending.

The sharks are making Macklin's celebrini. the highest paid player in the NHL. Does that make sense to you? Kind of for the moment, but Connor, the real Connor, he better be the highest paid in a year or so. Sounded a short-term deal. The Indiana Fever scored 100-plus four straight games is that significant.

Well, it's only a 40-minute game, and they won all four, so it's a good trend to be on. Last one, the MLS All-Star game is tonight. Really? You intrigued by that? Yeah, Mexican All-Stars versus the MLL All-Stars. You're going to watch it? I'm not going to watch that.

Matt. I'll go from Cubs' Cards to that. Not the Natch. You don't have to watch the Nats. Good. They played already. Good. You pay attention to this show.

Good. We talked about this. We're out of time. Trying to do better the next time. I'm Sony Kornhine. Could have been a day night double heaven? I'm Mike Wilbonne's same time tomorrow, knuckleheads.