The Mailbag: National Treasure, Happ-y Times, Bold Trade Prediction And More!

I promise that I have answered all of these questions sober. I would never answer these questions drunk. I understand that we’re all responsible baseball-thinking adults, so it’s important to take this kind of stuff very serious because baseball is a very serious matter in life. So, let’s get to some of the mail in the bag and cut to the damn baseball chase, seriously!

No…John Gibbons is a national treasure.

This garbage season of shit that keeps piling up every shitty day has nothing to do with John Gibbons. A burning fire in a dumpster in the back alley of Chinatown has nothing to do with John Gibbons. The high bullshit rent in Toronto has nothing to do with John Gibbons. Doug Ford winning the Ontario election has nothing to do with John Gibbons…

… And you getting totally drunk on a Friday night, losing your keys, being locked out of your house, and then having to sleep on a park bench has nothing to do with John Gibbons. And you wasting your Saturday hung-over binge watching Jersey Shore has nothing to do with John Gibbons. GTL has nothing to do with John Gibbons. Nothing to do with John Gibbons.

The truth is, Aaron, that my heart feels for Gibbons after every single loss. I can’t imagine what it must be like right now for him because there isn’t a damn thing that he can do about what has happened to his club and how totally shitty they have been this year.

He can’t magically heal Josh Donaldson and Marcus Stroman with some sort of special Gibby-BBQ-sauce potion. He can’t speak to the Gibby Gods to bring back Steve Pearce and his .818 OPS. He can’t splash around in a puddle wearing Hunter rain boots bellowing out the lyrics to an Alan Jackson song and hope that everything will just go away.

I wrote this a couple weeks ago over at my site, so I will copy and paste what I said here:

What really sucks is that I’m not so sure how much more of this he can take before good ol’ Gibbers has a mental breakdown.

Listen, Aaron, we’ve all had shitty days at work, so we know how it feels. And Gibbons has had close to two months of shitty days of work, which works out to roughly 60 days. Could you imagine having that many shitty days at work? I’d probably quit. I’d be like: “fuck this shit, I’m out”.

It’s hard to act like everything is okay when it’s not. And nothing is okay right now for John Gibbons. He is in the middle of a shit storm, but he will survive. I would be totally bummed out if the front office fired John Gibbons, Aaron. You can’t blame him for what has happened. Any reasonable thinking human knows this. But, I get your question and it’s a fair one. Someone usually has to take the fall. I hope that at the end of the season it isn’t Gibbers. He is my favourite TV Dad and I would be very sad without him.

Well, obviously any of the free-agents-to-be will be moved, but that probably goes without saying. And you probably already know this, Greg. Clearly, all the talk is about JA Happ and it’s really all a bunch of blah blah to the Yankees blahs at this point anyway. The ‘guess who the Jays will trade to who’ season has officially begun.

Here’s the thing: if the Jays trade Happ and you think they can just re-sign him in the offseason, that’s some pretty funny stuff. It’s not really the same thing as the Aroldis Chapman Cubs-Yankees situation at all. Chapman went back to the dumb Yankees, who are, ya know, the dumb Yankees and really good and stuff right now.

If the Jays can swing something like this, that would be pretty damn cool. I guess if Happ really loves Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, the organization, and bags of milk that much, he just might come back to Toronto, Greg. If I were JA Happ, I might want to finish my career closer to home – or playing for a team that might actually compete next year. Anyway…

What the hell is the question again, Gregg? Oh yeah, that’s right: who do I think the Jays will trade at the deadline?

Ryan Tepera.

And I won’t be surprised if Cleveland ask their old friends about Tepera since they need some serious upgrades in their shitty ‘pen. Cleveland will be looking to strengthen that weakness, so they can actually maybe try and win a World Series this year, even though that window probably closed in Chicago.

Cleveland’s bullpen, which was once their strength – as we all know – is not anymore. And with 3 more cheap arbitration years left on the thirty-year-old Tepera’s contract before he becomes a free agent in 2022, maybe Cleveland’s payroll would be into something like that.

So my bold ‘guess who the Jays will trade to who’ prediction is Ryan Tepera to Cleveland for two prospects that Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins like a lot and know a lot about. But, since it’s Cleveland and all, they will probably trade a tier 2 prospect to the Jays for Tyler Clippard. That’s all the bullshit that I have about that, Greg.

Do you still watch every game, Russ? Because it’s okay if you don’t right now. I recommend that you buy the MiLB package and watch the Bisons and Fisher Cats for the rest of the season. This is the best advice I can give to any Jays fan right now.

As for Joe Biagini, are you trying to tell me you haven’t enjoyed watching him out there this year, Russ? Fun high-five times, eh!

The funny thing is, Biagini has to be the most talked about Rule 5 draft pick since Willie Upshaw, George Bell, Kelly Gruber, and Manny Lee despite not being as good as any of them. If it ever works out with Biagini, cool. If it doesn’t, another Rule 5 bites the dust.

A big thanks and thumbs up to all you crazy humans who submitted questions through Twitter @thejaysnation and Cam’s email – cameron@thenationnetwork.com. You can also toss some questions my way @ difrancesco.ryan@gmail.com. So, make sure to send some for next week for some more Friday fun. I will answer as many questions as I can before I start to get bored.