How the Blue Jays Rebuilt Their Bullpen
Toronto's bullpen saw very little success last year, but several good offseason additions should bring plenty of improvement in 2025.
Coming off a season in which the Toronto Blue Jays sported one of the league’s worst bullpens, they used this offseason to their advantage and shored up their relief depth. They may have ranked 29th in bullpen ERA in 2024 and lost their hometown closer, but recent additions have made the back end of their pitching staff much more competitive heading into 2025.
Toronto was expected to be one of the most active teams headed into this offseason, and while some expected moves weren’t necessarily made they made strides to improve their pen. Returning faces were a commonality between most of their ‘pen moves, as the Jays brought home some familiar names.
Moving on From Struggling Arms
The first part of completing a bullpen re-tooling is to dismantle parts that were harmful to the team’s performance in 2024. The Blue Jays moved on from Nate Pearson, Tim Mayza, Mitch White, Trevor Richards, and longtime closer Jordan Romano over the course of the regular season and ensuing offseason.
All of these relievers notched an ERA of over 4.50 in their 2024 stints in Toronto, so shedding their ineffectiveness was a first step in the right direction for Ross Atkins and the Blue Jays. While the consistently relied-upon relievers mentioned above were not putting up good numbers, the biggest problem Toronto’s bullpen faced was having to eat innings.
If José Berríos or Chris Bassitt were able to pitch 7 strong innings in a given start, Toronto’s bullpen could easily manage the remaining two innings regardless of bullpen tiredness or availability. However, a poor outing from a starter meant that an amalgamation of subpar relievers had to fill in the majority of the game, and this was unfortunately a somewhat common occurrence.
Eleven relievers pitched 5 or fewer games for the Blue Jays in 2024, compiling 52.2 innings of 9.23 ERA baseball. Names like José Cuas, Luis Frías, and Wes Parsons contributed to a completely unwatchable bullpen performance that played out over the latter half of the 2024 season.
Simply put, the Toronto Blue Jays needed to improve their bullpen tenfold from its 2024 state, or else they’d risk watching the rest of the AL East steamroll them time and time again.
Jeff Hoffman
2024 All-Star reliever Jeff Hoffman agreed to a three-year, $33M deal with the Jays that would see Toronto’s 2014 first-round selection return back north of the border. Hoffman was one of the most prominent names among relievers in free agency following the 2024 season, and he was arguably the most important name for Toronto to target aside from fellow All-Star Tanner Scott.
Sporting an ERA of just 2.17 across 66.1 innings of work last season, it seems as though Toronto has found its closer for the next few seasons – a title that was held by a revolving door of players in 2024. Hoffman played more of a set-up role in Philadelphia as he only notched 10 saves in his All-Star campaign, but nonetheless could certainly be the anchor in Toronto.
Hoffman has above-average break on all four of his pitches (sinker, splitter, slider, four-seam fastball) and is coming off an elite season, so the AL East needs to be on watch whenever John Schneider and the Jays turn the ball over to him.
Yimi García
The Jays also (re)signed right-hander Yimi García to a two-year, $15M contract, bringing back a reliable arm from Toronto’s first half of last season. Traded to the Seattle Mariners in July of 2024 for outfielder Jonatan Clase and catcher Jacob Sharp, García pitched to the tune of a 2.70 ERA with 11.3 K/9 in 30 innings for the Jays.
In the two and a half seasons that García pitched out of the Blue Jays’ bullpen, he racked up 179 strikeouts in 157 innings of work with a strong 3.44 ERA. In 2024, hitters mustered a mere .148 batting average on his four-seam fastball, his primary pitch. Boasting a positive Run Value according to his Baseball Savant page on every single one of his pitches, García’s repertoire is one that Toronto will be happy to bring back.
He has never held a solid closing job outside of a 2021 stint with the Miami Marlins, but he will likely slot in as a set-up arm in front of Hoffman. If García can resume the consistent dominance with which he pitched throughout his previous Blue Jays’ tenure, many of the Jays’ bullpen woes can be put to rest.
Nick Sandlin
Nick Sandlin was brought over to Toronto from the Cleveland Guardians in the Jays’ trade for second baseman Andrés Giménez earlier in the offseason. While at first glance the righty reliever seems like a throw-in to make the deal for Giménez go through, Sandlin brings more to the table than he gets credit for.
Firstly, Sandlin brings a different arm angle to Toronto’s bullpen that sits lower than any other Blue Jays pitcher heading into 2025. His 12º arm slot gives hitters a much different look as opposed to the rest of their pitching staff, and his 33.7% whiff rate in 2024 reflects this difference as Baseball Savant ranked him in the 95th percentile.
Sandlin is an important piece that Toronto has added this offseason and given a sizeable sample size out of the pen in 2025, fans will be quick to notice. The only concern in his game is an elevated 2024 walk rate of 11.0%, something that Blue Jays’ pitching coach Pete Walker will be sure to work on with Sandlin.
How Does Toronto Stack Up?
With their new additions, Toronto’s bullpen should find itself at least in the upper half of the league if all their pieces are firing on all cylinders. They’ve shaken up the worst parts of their pitching staff and all signs seem to be pointing to a resurgent 2025.
The AL East looks to be very competitive, as always, in 2025 as the Red Sox and Yankees made plenty of large offseason moves. Toronto only won 73 games last season, but with a revamped bullpen that number will go up higher than some might think.
Their pitching depth might not rank among the upper echelons of MLB, but solid additions like Hoffman, García, and Sandlin take this team from uncompetitive to a dark horse candidate in their division.
Last year, Jays fans shuddered every time John Schneider made a move to the ‘pen, but in 2025 this should be less of a concern. At the very least, they can be comforted by the fact that they certainly won’t have the worst bullpen in baseball this season.
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Ethan has been writing for Jays Journal, a site on the Fansided network, since 2023 and is fascinated by how sabermetric statistics can assist our understanding…