It has never been harder to win in the MLB’s American League East.
The Yankees paired the best power hitter in decades with the most patient hitter in decades, creating a juggernaut offensive outfield. The Orioles’ young core is lighting up the scoreboard nightly, now with the help of a stacked rotation. While the Rays and Red Sox have been far from perfect, they’ve been relatively resilient and able to keep afloat amid a sea of injuries.
Their difficult division has put the Blue Jays in an inopportune spot. They currently sit in last place, with each loss moving them further out of the playoff picture. While they weren’t divisional favourites this year, few could have predicted they’d fall this far.
There have still been a few positive takeaways for Toronto, namely their strong defensive showing.
The Jays won last year’s Team Gold Glove award for being the best fielding unit in the MLB. They have followed up that performance with another outstanding year in the field.
Many view Outs Above Average (OAA) as the most comprehensive and accurate statistic to measure defensive performance as it is constantly being improved with new data. It uses Statcast (a highly advanced system that tracks the data of batted balls and the positioning of players) to determine how many outs are saved based on computer-estimated probabilities.
According to OAA, the Jays are the second-best team in all of baseball at fielding, behind only the Diamondbacks. This is largely off the backs of the team’s defensive specialists like Daulton Varsho, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Kevin Kiermaier.
But while the defence has been stellar, the Jays’ offensive production and pitching haven’t been there at all. So why is that? Let’s break it down.
Offence
In 2021, the Jays may have missed the postseason, but they had an exciting year as one of the best power-hitting teams in the game and a lineup filled with potential.
Chief among the Blue Jays’ sluggers in 2021 was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with his monstrous 48-home-run campaign.
This season, Guerrero has been solid, all things considered. He sits at a 123 wRC+ — a metric that determines how valuable a player is offensively — compared to the league average of 100, but he still isn’t quite at the level of his 2021 run. Why is this?
Guerrero hits the ball harder than pretty much anybody. He has the third-highest average exit velocity of any player, and he hits the ball hard — classified as 95 mph or harder — and swings the bat with pretty wicked speed. It’s not that he isn’t making good contact, it’s that he isn’t making the most of his contact.
If you look at players like the Rays’ Isaac Paredes or Guerrero’s teammate, Varsho, they don’t hit the ball with a lot of power. Yet both have track records of being consistent home-run hitters. They get the most out of the balls they do hit hard.
Guerrero is hitting the ball hard, but his ground-ball rate is one of the highest marks of his career, while his rate of hitting the ball to his side of the field is one of the lowest marks. There is a lot of power to sacrifice here, so if Vladdy changes his approach to pull the ball in the air more, good things could happen.
The rest of the Blue Jays’ offence hasn’t been great either.
George Springer has probably been the main target of criticism from fans this year, largely because he has one of the worst offensive slash lines in all of baseball.
Bo Bichette has struggled this year too, being on pace for career lows in offensive categories. It’s hard to determine if this is actual cause for concern or just injury-related.
However, there are definite bright spots in the lineup. Davis Schneider is the next in the mold of players with extreme power and solid on-base percentages, despite swinging and missing a bit more than average. Varsho finally looks to be worth the trade and Isiah Kiner-Falefa is also having a career year, making him an appropriate replacement for Matt Chapman.
The Blue Jays have some pieces, but being a top-10 offence like last year feels like a pipe dream.
Pitching
The Blue Jays’ pitching this year has been a massive disappointment.
Last year, the Jays had a pitching staff near the top of every category. This year, they’ve found themselves a bit below average in the same statistics.
The pitching recently took a major blow with Alek Manoah needing elbow surgery that will sideline him for more than a year. While Manoah was massively inconsistent and struggled to locate his once-lethal slider, no team can ever have too much pitching.
Kevin Gausman, a 2023 Cy Young candidate, has fallen off dramatically. Gausman became a top pitcher by relying heavily on a two-pitch mix of a mid-90s fastball and an excellent diving splitter. This year, his swing and miss rate dipped more than four per cent resulting in low strikeout numbers which have correlated with a lot more runs against than in previous years.
The rest of the rotation is fine, but not spectacular. Yusei Kikuchi is a bit volatile, but he’s made definite strides in improving his command.
Chris Bassitt’s eight-pitch arsenal has allowed him to prevent hard contact like usual, but his lack of strikeouts and below-average walk rate have limited his ceiling.
Lastly, José Berríos started the season elite, but his career-low strikeout and swing-and-miss rates have led to him become one of the year’s least consistent big-name starters.
The bullpen had previously been one of the best units over the past couple of years, but long-term injuries to Jordan Romano and regression from Erik Swanson and Tim Mayza have led to the Jays’ reliever group being the sixth-worst in terms of run prevention.
What’s next?
Selling at the trade deadline may feel like waving the white flag, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
The Jays’ future will be shaped by their actions in the next month. Can the comeback happen? Can they sneak into wild-card contention again? Their performance in the short-term will determine whether they go for it and place their confidence in the current core, or if they sell off key players to contending teams.
Featured photo by Donna Lay via Unsplash
