RealGM

How are you guys. I am 29 and have been a big Blue Jay fan for the last twenty years, and have experienced a lot of frustration ever since 1993 with no meaningful games of baseball when the Calendar says September. Anyways, i used to listen to the games on the radio and the post-game show on the FAN 590, when I am out driving around or too busy to watch a game on certain nights. Anyways, I have stopped doing that for some time now. Is it just me or is Mike Wilner (the host of BlueJays Talk) one of the most annoying Toronto Blue Jay Apologists out there? He make it seems that there is nothing wrong with the team, and that callers are clueless when they point out legitimately that this team's starting pitching is a question mark. I do not mean to disrespect Wilner, because he seems like a great guy, who is an intelligent baseball observer, but technically being a Rogers Employee means you have to bite your lips and make it seem like everything is wonderful in Blue Jays land. However, when this team was healthy, this team was a .500 ball club, and always one or two games above .500

Obviously injuries hurt this team, but guys like Drabek and Hutchinson were not even projected into the starting rotation in the Spring. This team needed to improve the pitching in the Offseason with one or not if two quality starters, and it failed to do so. Supposedly there are a great young talent in the minor leagues, but as we have seen throughout history, not every star minor league prospect will be a star player in the big leagues. I remember when Pat Gillick did not want to trade Steve Karsay to Seattle for Randy Johnson, because Karsay was the next great starting pitcher. I remember when Josh Phelps was going to the be the future power bat for Toronto ten years back, but is now playing for the Telemarket Rimini in the Italian Baseball League. So, you can have all the prospects you want, but unless you can complement them with established MLB talent, Toronto will never contend. Fans point this out to Mike Wilner on the Post-Game Talk, but he always has an excuse for why Toronto should not spend more money. He always has excuses for why the team has struggled to play meaningful baseball the last twenty years. He has excuses for everything but no answers, just like this sorry franchise and ownership, which is one of the richest in MLB. Am I being too harsh on this guy or do others feel the same way? It is nothing personal against Wilner, since he seems like a great family guy. Maybe I am the one who is wrong, since others might love him. If so, I would like to hear your feedback? Thanks.

Great first post.

Wilner blow's Rogers' big red ***k. (But gets paid to, so you can really expect much from him)

Welcome.

i stopped tuning into jays talk months ago. regardless of age, gender, quality of argument, or overall perspective on the team, wilner will find something to condescendingly scoff at. some callers will have really legitimate points but wilner will inevitably shoot them down with his holier-than-thou baseball mind, and when he gets called out on it he's "just being realistic". it's crap.

Wilner is a moron.

As much as I find myself defending the Jays, I myself can't listen to Mike Wilner. It's not so much that he's the Jays post game apologist, it's just that he comes across as "I know my crap, and you guys really have no clue because you're not on radio" attitude that I'm not a fan of.

Baseball central at noon is a much better show right now(wilner used to host it), Hayhurst,Zaun and Consentino have been on there several times saying this team is much farther away then people realize and they're not afraid to tell the truth on matters related to the Jays and MLB baseball.

put yourself in wilner's situation. working for a big company in rogers. you got 2 old radio broadcasters, there's a spot for promotion. you obviously aren't gonna be negative about the team. the only time i seen him negative about the team was with cito gaston. i'm sure he had a personal vendetta against him before he got suspended.

but yeah you can't really do much when rogers owns the team and the tv/radio station that broadcasts them. the same goes for raptors talk with jones and smith.

they are all company men. they can't do much.

i also applaud greg zaun for speaking the truth, even when at times he's wrong. he doesn't jock rogers.

the only reason i see wilner still on the radio after the suspension is his ability to dodge those fans calling in and putting a positive spin on things.

Wilner is a condescending prick. If you have anything negative to say about the Blue Jays he'll make you out to look like an idiot fan. And if you call in and are the most positive fan ever, he'll still make you look like an idiot. Basically, the only thing you can do is get your point across and hang up before he insults your intelligence.

Santoki wrote:Wilner is a condescending prick. If you have anything negative to say about the Blue Jays he'll make you out to look like an idiot fan. And if you call in and are the most positive fan ever, he'll still make you look like an idiot. Basically, the only thing you can do is get your point across and hang up before he insults your intelligence.

yup. he called out cito on a bullpen move. what kind of idiot does that? his whole personality is like that.

This is why companies are buying up the media, then at least they have some control over the information that goes out on the airways. Even if they don't have a policy for Wilner to not say anything negative about the Jays, who really expects fair and balanced reporting when the person that pays you to sit in that chair to really call them out?

Mike knows a great deal about baseball, this much I know. He makes some excellent points and in MANY instances he corrects or belittles people who do say truly stupid stuff on the air. Now with that out of the way, I must agree that he also comes off as an apologist. I consider myself to be a wealth of knowledge and constantly trapped in the middle of mindless morons talking about sports when they are so far off, however I have found an acceptable way to remain neutral instead of arrogant when dealing with this.

We all realize Mike is just playing the cards to end up with a job with Rogers. Nobody is fooled but yea, sorry Mike, as much knowledge as I will give you credit for having, you come off as a pompous douche more frequently than you probably should.... regardless of it being justified more often than not.

diddykong wrote:

Santoki wrote:Wilner is a condescending prick. If you have anything negative to say about the Blue Jays he'll make you out to look like an idiot fan. And if you call in and are the most positive fan ever, he'll still make you look like an idiot. Basically, the only thing you can do is get your point across and hang up before he insults your intelligence.

yup. he called out cito on a bullpen move. what kind of idiot does that? his whole personality is like that.

At least be consistent - I haven't heard him once criticize Farrell's bullpen management. He's even gone as far as defending Cordero (all the while insisting he wasn't defending Cordero...).

Oh, and just in case anyone here ever calls in, don't say hello to Wilner and don't ask him how he's doing. Also, don't try to be playful, and don't make any jokes. As soon as you do that, you're finished. Call in, state your point, and get the hell of the phone. It's the only way to survive. The guy makes the post-game show unbearable to listen to and his play-by-play/colour is awful. He knows his stuff, but he makes the game-day experience awful for fans...I'm not sure why they can't find someone better than him who will still be a company man.

wilner is a douchebag period.

when that fan was getting cpr during the game which he had died. wilner tweeted "i wish i could do play-by-play on that cpr"

would take too long to trace back the tweet since he tweets so much, but you guys can find it. thats pretty disgusting.

diddykong wrote:wilner is a douchebag period.

when that fan was getting cpr during the game which he had died. wilner tweeted "i wish i could do play-by-play on that cpr"

would take too long to trace back the tweet since he tweets so much, but you guys can find it. thats pretty disgusting.

Even for Wilner, that seems a bit morbid. The only thing I could find (unless he deleted it) was this tweet - https://twitter.com/Wilnerness590/statu ... 6355941376

yeah thats the one

Oh man.. I was a huge fan of the "Jays talk" last year, but I really just soured on him.. I totally echo the condescending he shows to his callers!

And not sure if this was mentioned already, but he really likes to generalize all Jays fans (in a negative way). That's not very good.. for a recent example, when Rasmus (or EE) is brought up, he would go on about how "all" fans were down on them last year, wanted to cut them, etc.. but he totally would not acknowledge the fans who are not part of that group.

So it's unanimous. He's a douche.

Nothing else in Jays' land achieves anything remotely like consensus. Wilner does.

"If you remove all the games where Cordero gave up an earned run, his ERA would be 0.00."

Some times I miss reading Wilner's Twitter feed.

Michael Bradley wrote:"If you remove all the games where Cordero gave up an earned run, his ERA would be 0.00."

Some times I miss reading Wilner's Twitter feed.

lol.. and when a caller does the samething, he completely laws the smackdown on them..