Alek Manoah's Next Steps | Jays Talk Plus

Ben Knuckles and Smith of sports and of sports.ca joins us now apparently the ratings for my show were not great last week everyone just missed Ben that everything you put in your article yesterday you we talked about on the show you you brought to the table here you brought the heat on Jay's Talk Plus with all these Alec Manoa details uh but I guess let's do it again uh man what what what the heck man this is uh your piece was I guess first of all good morning how are you doing uh hey Blake goo

d yeah doing well good to be talking with you how's it going I'm good I'm fired up uh so look we're gonna talk about last night's game it is obviously the more relevant and acute story right now and the Blue Jays are in a playoff race that Alec Manoa is separate from and obviously Alec Manoa being separate from this playoff race is kind of the story of the Blue Jay season um but there was a scenario where a month ago when he got option to AAA initially we thought well hey if the Jays need him if

someone gets hurt if there's a double header day Alec Manoa would be really good Triple A depth I know we talked about it a little bit on the show last week but you had this piece go up yesterday what has the last how has the last month unfolded such that not only is Manoa not depth if they needed them now but we're not going to see him throw a pitch at any competitive level in 2023 anymore yeah it would be a real real shock if he's able to get off a mound pretty much the people I'm talking to

don't expect that to happen so his season effectively is done and uh yeah that's obviously not ideal by any stretch and the Blue Jays it's funny how these things work sometimes because as you know Blake I mean sometimes you'll hear stuff and you have a pretty good sense of it a few weeks ahead before you can you know officially publish something or share something publicly and so you know behind the scenes from what I've been able to gather this has been the case for a while now that it was pret

ty unlikely that Manoa was going to be able to um Pitch again this year and that that was going to happen and so you know yesterday I was able to get to the point that in talking to people who are pretty close to the situation have a good read on it that you know that's it's essentially that that ship is sort of sailed he's not going to pitch again this year barring a big reversal um but yeah there are all kinds of layers to this and we can get into them but it you know it's really essentially h

e wanted to go through some medical testing you know the team was supportive in in those Endeavors to make sure that he was getting tested medically he had a couple follow-ups last week there is nothing structural there is nothing that will require surgery as far as I understand it but Manoa hasn't felt as though he's at a point that he can compete physically and felt that rest and recuperation would be the best path I mean that's what the actions tell us right he hasn't been pitching he's had t

he opportunity to so there are some physical concerns and and look the the consequences of this have a have a chance to reach pretty far um so we'll see where those go and in the meantime the Blue Jays do not have their opening day starter as they proceed here in this pennant race so obviously we have to be aware of what Manoa is reporting about his body physically right like we we can't you know throw that aside we can't be Reckless about a player's Health whether it's physical or mental howeve

r the Blue Jays have operated this last month plus as if they don't think there's maybe they don't not think there's an injury but they haven't placed them on the IL and as you and I discussed last week if he was hurt he would probably he his camp or or the union or someone like that would file some sort of grievance or really push the Jays to put him on the IL because he's not accumulating service time right now and he's not accumulating uh or he's not being paid a Major League salary right now

he's not on the i o which when it comes to this kind of thing means you're probably healthy enough to pitch through it so acknowledging that you know I don't know how Alec Manoa feels right now physically but the fact that he's had about a month of these tests and and follow-up appointments and second and third opinions and they're still not enough to even put them on the IL how do you think that that is being received from the Blue Jays and I don't mean the front office because that's a whole

separate thing that might have a long-term impact but I mean if you're one of those guys that has dealt with being a part of the four-man rotation or his pitched Extra Innings out of the bullpen or you know has been up and down to AAA and asked to be stay ready at times ALC Manoa is a part of this team and has basically by it by doing this the way it seems to me has taken himself out of the mix to potentially help the Blue Jays in a playoff race where every little bit of help could count like we

don't know that guys are going to make it all the way healthy we don't know that there won't be uh you know a double header day we don't know that game 162 won't be a meaningless one where they could just use someone to sop up some Innings how has this been received from how you can tell in the clubhouse with Manoa but you know more or less taking himself out of the mix to help this team down the stretch yeah this isn't one of the really interesting layers to it right and the players uh you kno

w as far as the the whole conversation around Manoa from the moment he was optioned until now I mean their focus has been on the game in front of them and on and on their own job which is pretty significant um my understanding though is that this has been obviously noticed by the players in that room they are well aware of the fact that Alec Manoa has been optioned to AAA they are well aware of the fact that he has not pitched a triple A they know he opened the season for them he was a Cy Young

finalist last year so even if players aren't talking about it publicly they are well aware of this they're talking about it behind the scenes with each other um with their agents um these are conversations that occur around all major league clubhouses including with the Toronto Blue Jays now I'm not saying it's like some huge distraction they also talk about their fantasy football teams they also talk about their batting stances and all kinds of other things and this is one thing among many I'm

not that this is like front of mind for everyone but yeah I I don't think this is going to improve manoa's standing within that room and in fact I think that there's going to be at a certain point next spring assuming he is back with the Blue Jays which is you know uh you know that's the working assumption at this point um Assuming he's back with the Blue Jays there will probably be some fences to mend I would think because as you said there are players on this team who have absolutely put it al

l on the line and the four-man rotation is a perfect example of that the rotation has held this team together all season long without a lot of contributions from Alec Manoa so as I said the players are well aware of this um and uh they're not I haven't heard anyone really address it publicly um but that doesn't mean that they aren't well aware of exactly what's transpired and I'm sure some of them have their thoughts about it yeah it's probably not the the coolest thing you can do as a teammate

and again there's the element of he feels how he feels so let's take the individual Centric look at this now and think about okay he shut down the team is going to acquiesce and let him focus on getting back to where he needs to be physically and health-wise uh I would imagine a there is an awful lot of pressure on showing up to Spring Training Day One 2024 being ready to go and looking pretty pretty damn good if you've kind of shut yourself down here um but if you're the Blue Jays when it comes

to Alec when I was 2024 role how are you Ben penciling him in this is a team that has he under you who is going to be a free agent the other four starters all under contract but it's also an organization that doesn't have a lot of Major League ready starting pitching depth Bowden Francis could maybe shift back to a starter role he's been valuing the valuable in the bullpen we can see there at the AAA level you know Mitch White's been a tiny bit better lately but Ricky Tiedeman has not pitched a

lot of innings most of their interesting starting pitching prospects are at Double A and below can this team go into the off season thinking Manoa is going to be a part of their five-man rotation or is this situation gotten too muddy where you kind of have to take an even longer look at depth than we would have anticipated well I think there are a couple layers to this one is the performance side and then two is the relationship side and unfortunately for the Blue Jays and Manoa neither one of

those is in a great spot if you look at the performance there's there are legitimate reasons that he was optioned to the minor leagues his performance was not good this year and if you look at the underlying metrics if you look at the era I mean I don't have to tell you Blake I mean I don't have to tell anyone listening we all saw it we all know he did not perform well this year so that's not going to inspire a ton of confidence when it comes to what he might be able to do in 2024 so even if we

only look at performance he is the kind of starter that you would say on a good team he should be competing for a spot in the Major League rotation and if he doesn't make the major league rotation he goes to AAA he steps he comes up at some point so that is from a Pure Performance lens how I would look at it now there is the relationship side too so Pete Walker right we all saw the clip John Schneider Pete Walker Alec Manoa spring training 2023 they are telling him that he has made the team and

it is this really great moment it's on social media everyone's excited about it now I I've asked Pete Walker about it I haven't had a conversation he he declined to speak to me about it which is totally fine um but you know I don't think that Pete Walker is thrilled with the developments here okay like I'm gonna go on a limb there um I don't think that the coaching staff as a whole is thrilled like I said with the clubhouse and in fact like they're not thrilled I think we can say that pretty pre

tty definitively and so what does that mean how does that get repaired and this is where like for as much as we love the stats and the numbers and the you know seam shifted wake and everything like that what does it look like for this relationship to get repaired and that is a question there have been a ton of conversations that like this hasn't been a month of Silence right in the in this whole process there have been a ton of conversation it's between the player and the team and who knows wher

e this goes right like there's there's still more conversations to go and there are a lot of reasons for everyone involved to get on the same page and somehow to get aligned to make sure that they're pushing in the same direction again but I don't I think that that will require some work and some finesse and some real relationship skills from One Direction or another and I don't know what form that takes it's a it's a tough one to figure so Ben something you mentioned a little earlier is sometim

es we hear stuff like this and it takes us a little bit to put enough reporting together where it's solid enough to to go with it and then someone in our role also has to especially on the writing side where you have a little bit more time to build it out we have to be cognizant of well one side is going to have incentive to tell a story one way the other side is going to have incentive to tell a story another way and look I'm I'm more than happy when the situation calls for it the starting pitc

hing depth entering the season the lack of acquiring an extra bat at the trade deadline some of the you know lineup or pitching change decisions stuff like that I am it's like a huge chunk of this job is nitpicking what a GM or a manager or front office do but in this case I'm a little at a loss for what the Blue Jays could have done better with this Manoa situation where they let him go down to the complex league and work his way back up and it was pretty quick enough that you know he hadn't th

ere was a small window there where if he had been good the rest of the way he might have even still kept super to eligibility it wasn't entirely likely but there was a small possibility there they give them another crack at the rotation he doesn't succeed they try to send him down I don't obviously we're not behind the closed doors but from what we can see was there a way that they could have handled Manoa from a performance and what to do with that performance perspective better let's leave asi

de the pr and Optics handling of it because that's a separate thing but how they've actually handled Manoa do like where do you land on that one because I'm I'm happy to to nitpick where it's there but I don't know what you could have done differently when the guy just hasn't performed and you're trying to make the postseason yeah and I think you know ultimately the player is going to be the driving force in their career more so than the support staff more so than the team more so than an agent

or a teammate or anyone around them um it's going to be player driven so yeah I think could the Blue Jays have done something better yeah I mean I'm sure they could have um I think this this is not a good result like whatever whatever you think about how it unfolded you don't want to have your opening day started not Pitch after August the 10th or August the 11th not a good result so I'm sure there are things they could have done better I'm not sure exactly what those things are so I'm not going

to sit here you know behind the microphone and say I know exactly what those things are um I think it would be it would be pretty close-minded to say that they couldn't have done anything better um because you know you always want to get the most out of your players and that's clearly not happening right here but I do think ultimately when it comes to a player um I I think Alec Manoa yeah he might say he and I don't know this um for a fact but he might say that he wished the Blue Jays would hav

e handled things differently but ultimately it's on Manoa to be the driving force behind his own career and so the results those are he's the one who's throwing those pitches he's the one who is making some of these decisions and there are definitely physical issues that are involved here um not injuries like I said but there are physical issues but at the same time one way or another a player is responsible for the numbers and for the production that they end up with so um I think that anyone i

n this situation and certainly Alec Manoa there has to be accountability here and maybe there hasn't been enough of that in the eyes of some in fact you know I've heard from people on the J side that think there's not enough accountability from Alec Manoa in this situation and so we'll see where that goes but there is you know there's room for repair here um but that'll require some real skill because I don't think it's automatic as to what that looks like it's a it's a tough one uh so Ben if we

re-contextualize what Manoa season has meant look compared to last year that is a 4.5 swing in wins above replacement now this isn't that you know this isn't how the the wins and losses actually work but let's play out the the example here that's a 4.5 swing in wins the Vladimir Guerrero's drop-off has been about a two-win drop off as well so we're talking six and a half wins if the Jays were six and a half games better in the standings it would be weird because it would mean they won half a ga

me they would also still be in basically the same spot they'd be in Wild Card two but they would be competing with the Rays and the Orioles still for the division when you look at the entire season look they've had great health until very very recently every member of the starting rotation except for Manoa has been as good as they could have hoped or better they have a top five bullpen in baseball last night's blips uh aside when you look at where they're at and how we're talking about this team

and their inability to you know sustain a big run or really look like one of the best teams in baseball for any stretch of time is it as simple as hey you got six and a half fewer wins from your best young pitcher and your best young hitter yeah I think that's a pretty fair way to look at it um you know I think that to me I look at a collective lack of power um as the big difference on this team especially just considering how good their pitching staff is as you've said um so I you know we've s

een flashes from George Springer and and from Vlad Jr in the last few days that are encouraging but I still look at a team where the team leader has 21 homers and probably is trending toward 23 24 on the season that's pretty that's pretty low like that's really low 18th in total home runs yeah I mean that's and and I think you know it's it's even more striking when you just look at the like who's your big threat who's the threat that's gonna that's going to really strike fear into opposing manag

ers and relievers and starters and I I don't see that on this team so um I I think that Manoa I think they've actually bounced back from that pretty well because they've had probably more than you would have expected from where you I think flat Junior has had a better season than War would suggest I mean I think he's actually like chronically undersold by War because he posts so much and I think I think the defensive metrics are way too hard on him um to be honest but um but yeah I think that it

's a fair read at the same time to say that both Junior and Alec Manoa fell well short of probably where we would have expected them there's no question about that yeah I think uh I think you and I disagree on the the Vlad season there a little bit maybe and then that's probably a conversation for end of season when we're you know doing the either the postmortem or the celebration either way maybe we won't nitpick with Vlad if they win the World Series because I'd imagine that would mean he he t

urned a corner at some point uh but yeah that's a convo for another day but I think you're right that the lack of power there is pretty noticeable and you play a Rangers team yesterday that yeah they only did it with two home runs but you've got pitchers having to nibble a little bit because Simeon and Seeger and low are such big home run threads I mean Mitch garver's turned into a home run threat now lately and then it's like oh yeah you get to the bottom third of the order and there's Jonah He

im who uh who is also pretty good uh with the long ball as far as catchers go so that game yesterday Ben there's a lot we can we can do with it we've used most of our time on the Manoa thing here which I think is fair but wanted your take on the decision to let Chris Bassett go back out uh given the way things had gone for him in the the couple of innings prior and this is again a nitpicky thing where if Bassett executes better or Genesis Cabrera is a little bit better or the bats come around ma

ybe it's not that big a deal um but to me and I know this is something you and I have talked about when we're at games together before it's the I I can't I can't predict game to game if a pitcher is going to be allowed to go back out for say the sixth inning and I think when we look at things hey how the first five innings gone where are you in the lineup what is that part of the lineup look like how many pitches have you thrown is there hard contact things like that we should be able to predict

pretty well if a guy's going back out there what did you think of Bassett being left out there especially coming on the heels of in a very similar situation and a situation where I'd argue Kikuchi had an even better case to go back out he did not go back out in a game last weekend and that one kind of backfired as well yeah it's an interesting call I I'm fine with it um it obviously backfired and if you could go back in time you'd you undo that of course um I'm okay with it just given that it w

as middle to back of the order um you know you're facing Garver Grossman and leody Tavares presumably you're going to trust Chris Bassett against those guys certainly if you're going to make a run to the ALCS or the World Series Chris bassett's gonna have to get out hitters who are better than Robbie Grossman and leody Tavares and you know it just didn't happen this time so I'm okay with it um I think progressively as we get closer to the end of the season um and or anytime you're approaching an

off day for example um which the Blue Jays don't have until Monday it you know like on Saturday and Sunday you've got to be more aggressive with your Bullpen knowing that you have that off day coming up and on a day like this where you're in the middle of you know 10 games in 10 days maybe you have to lean on your starter just a little bit more as much as these games are huge um you're also balancing the long term in the short term so I get it when I was watching it unfold in real time I wasn't

questioning it so I'm not inclined to say that that was a huge error um by the Blue Jays I think if you're looking at errors Chris Bassett made one running over to Third Base Rivera made one waving home Kevin Kiermaier like there were definitely mistakes made in the game by the Blue Jays but I'm okay with that call okay and I just wanted your take on it and you know I I go back and forth on it a little bit as well I tend to be more of a let your guys go out and pitch through it um kind of guy i

n general despite what the the numbers might say um but yeah the just coming on the heels of when they made the opposite decision in a similar spot um consistency is what I'm looking for uh there a little bit but like you said there there was a reasonable case to be made a couple quick ones for you Ben before we let you go uh Brandon Bell comes out of that game last night with back spasms he had missed a handful of games with a back issue a handful of games with an illness a hand full of games w

ith a back issue I believe he would have been basically done an IL stint almost like as of today if they had just sat him down uh do you think that that's I know we're expecting to get an update pregame today but given how that's all gone and that it's a back for a guy in his mid to late 30s um do you do you is it kind of on your radar that he might need an IL stint here yeah I think it's on the radar um because it could allow you to bring somebody else up I mean maybe it's as simple as a Mason

McCoy you know who knows uh what that corresponding move would be but if belt isn't going to be able to go in the next few days then I think there is a pretty strong case just to Il him and then ideally he's able to recover fully and then he's back for the Wild Card round he's back for the final weekend of the series um and you can use him in those situations but you know in the meantime they're probably going to have to rely and continue relying on a guy like Spencer Horowitz who came in and go

t a big pinch hit just yesterday or Kevin bisio will keep playing a lot and I thought Kevin Vizio quietly probably had his best game of the season um I know he hit a walk-off home run so we'll say it's among his best games he also had a game-winning hit by pitch that's yeah true he said some big ones yeah he's had some clutch moments but I I do I did want to talk about Kevin bisio uh front pivoting from the belt thing because look if belt let's say Belt doesn't need the the IL it's just somethin

g that he'll he'll feel better about today Matt Chapman could be back this weekend you look at this team and if you draw the cutoff around the the All-Star break and yeah arbitrary endpoints but that's a good little like almost two month stretch of play here and you filter this team by who's been getting on base the most who's been doing the most damage at the plate it is the guys who two months ago we would have thought were the obvious guys getting squeezed for playing time here capabizio has

the fourth best on base percentage in the American League in the second half of the Season among qualified hitters like that's that's the level Kevin Visio has been on and I know there's not it hasn't been crazy uh amounts of power and the ops isn't like a thousand or anything like that but he has been pretty steady and he's filled in a couple spots David Schneider would be first in OBP in the second half of the season if he had an enough played appearances to qualify they're going to get Matt C

hapman back at some point Brandon Belt is around here man how how tough is the job John Schneider has here to manage this as a meritocracy because every game matters so much while also hey whit Merrifield and Matt Chapman who maybe haven't made the best cases for everyday plate appearances are also your kind of vets and leader guys how do you manage that this next little bit or does everyone have to kind of put ego aside and the hot guys are going to play I think you just go with the best option

s on any given day and we saw Whitman field not in the starting lineup yesterday I think that's fine I think when Matt Chapman comes back and you know he's he's recovered from his finger to the point that he can play great but you're still going to want some rest days I think for Matt Chapman um so he can play he can be on the bench here and there um I think Boba shett is going to DH occasionally we're going to see Vlad Jr in there every single day um we're going to see I mean David Schneider is

going to be in there most days but I think you can mix and match I really think it's fine and with a guy like Biggio or Santiago espinal they've really used them in such a way that they kind of split up games and espanol faces a lot of the lefties Biggio faces a lot of the righties it's worked out pretty nicely for them in that way so I don't really see a crunch coming necessarily especially because with Jansen hurt you're not using the DH spot for Kirk ever and then if belt is also sidelined t

he DH spot is going to be open basically every single day allowing you to use different guys in that role