Tyler Rogers’ Rubber Arm Has Been Great for the Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays currently sit three games below .500 with a record of 29-32 through their first 61 games, and a big reason why they’re not sitting lower than (a tie for) third in the AL East is because of the workload their bullpen has put together. After suffering many injuries to crucial pitchers, the stability that Toronto has found within their relief options has been inspiring in an otherwise difficult 2026 season thus far.

The Blue Jays have received the fourth-most innings from relievers this season through the end of May (253.2 IP) and the sixth-highest fWAR (2.6), and one of the most important relief pitchers they’ve got is the submarine-throwing right-hander Tyler Rogers. Acquired this past offseason thanks to a three-year, $37 million free agent contract, Rogers has been the epitome of consistency in his MLB career, capable of pitching more consistently than other pitchers and throwing up some of the most impressive numbers across all of MLB.

In 2026, he’s been one of the most stable and effective relievers in baseball and has filled many different roles to help the Blue Jays stay in the hunt in spite of the myriad of injuries they’ve dealt with this season. Excluding position players, the Jays have used 25 different pitchers this season (14 with 17+ IP) and they used 34 throughout the entire 2025 regular season, so this season has brought about some difficulties on the pitching side.

Thankfully for Toronto, they now employ the rubber arm of Tyler Rogers.

Rogers’ Legacy

Rogers has built himself quite a resume at the MLB level, and one that’s been very successful ever since he stepped foot on a big-league mound. In his seven seasons before signing with the Blue Jays, Rogers had notched 424 innings to the tune of a 2.76 ERA and 3.31 FIP while posting a 5.4 fWAR, the 16th-highest among relievers in this span.

Rogers led the National League in games pitched in four separate seasons (2020, 2021, 2024, 2025) and his 420 appearances prior to the 2026 season were the highest among all relievers since he got the call to MLB (08/27/2019). With give straight seasons of 68+ games pitched and 70+ innings under his belt to go alongside a 1.98 ERA in 2025 and no seasons with an ERA above 3.60 aside from 2020, Rogers has been one of the league’s most consistent arms.

Part of the reason why Rogers can throw much more frequently than other pitchers is his lack of velocity, with his fastball sitting around or below 83 MPH for the entirety of his career. It goes without saying that his main tool to get hitters out isn’t his velocity, but rather his deceptive arm slot that attacks hitters at an angle of -61º. For context, the next-closest arm angle (and the only other negative-angle arm slot) is Hoby Milner of the Chicago Cubs who throws from a -4º angle.

Rogers induces weak and/or ineffective contact very well, boasting a groundball rate above 60% in 2025 and MLB’s seventh-lowest rate of balls hit into the air (38.4%). In 2026, he’s done nothing short of exactly what he’s done for the last several seasons and he looks to be one of the most versatile pitchers in all of baseball for yet another season.

In 2026, he’s been a standout arm for the Blue Jays, with a 2.36 ERA and 2.30 xERA over 26.2 appearances as well as an average opponents’ exit velocity of just 83.1 MPH which is the fifth-best mark in MLB this season. Overall, the Jays are 18-10 when Rogers pitches and that’s indicative of his ability to hold leads among the best reliever in baseball.

Unique in Every Way

Rogers isn’t just unique in his unorthodox delivery or his ability to induce groundballs, but his velocity is by far the lowest in all of MLB. His sinker comes in at 83.0 MPH this season and the next-closest is the aforementioned Milner at 86.9 MPH while his slider comes in at just 73.5 MPH, nearly 4 MPH slower than the runner-up.

Rogers’ sinker drops nearly ten inches more than any other with the least horizontal movement in the league and his slider manages to have the tenth-most glove-side break of any slider in MLB. In fact, his sinker was tied for the 13th-most valuable pitch in baseball in 2025 with a Run Value of +18 and it was the second-best sinker in that area. In 2026, it’s tied for the silver medal yet again while generating a .203 batting average and a minuscule .228 slugging percentage with the second-best hard-hit rate among all sinkers (23.2%).

Rogers is also one of just two relievers to not allow a single barrel this season, joining Mason Miller, MLB’s fastest-throwing reliever (101.2 MPH avg. fastball) at the top of the list. Only one part of his game that typically makes him one of the most unique pitchers in baseball hasn’t translated to his 2026 performance, and that is his walk rate.

Whereas Rogers’ walk rate had sat at or below 2.3% for each of the last two seasons, it currently sits at 8.3% which is the highest mark it’s ever been at the MLB level. He has walked nine batters so far in 2026 and has already surpassed his walk totals from 2024 and 2025. One couldn’t have expected him to walk single-digit batters over the course of an entire season, but it’s still somewhat surprising to see his walk rate jump as high as it has.

Regardless of this one area of regression, Rogers is one of the most reliable relievers in Toronto’s bullpen, which has been one of the most highly-taxed pens in the league this season.

Versatility on Full Display

Rogers has already taken on several different roles for the 2026 Blue Jays, ranging from a middle-relief option to notching his first saves since 2024. Of his 420 career appearances prior to the 2026 season, Rogers had finished 70 games and earned 19 career saves. This season, he’s been predominantly used in the eighth inning as a set-up man before closer Louis Varland, but he’s already matched his five ninth-inning appearances from last year.

When neither Varland nor now-former closer Jeff Hoffman were available for a save situation on May 17 against the Tigers, Rogers tossed one of his 24 scoreless outings of the season, a stat in which he’s tied with Mason Fluharty for the team lead. He’s proved this season that his skillset can be utilized in more than just a standard seventh or eighth-inning role.

Rogers is often a strict three-out pitcher, which might also be something to credit his consistently-high inning load and appearance numbers. In 2025, he only recorded more than three outs in just one outing, and in 2026 he’s already recorded an appearance of 1.2 innings for the first time since 2023, showing his versatility.

Toronto’s needed a pitcher like Rogers desperately this season considering that they have two bullpen games in their rotation at the moment. Dealing with injuries to Dylan Cease, Max Scherzer, José Berríos, Shane Bieber, and Cody Ponce, the Jays have had a heavily taxed bullpen and Rogers’ innate ability to enter a game and efficiently navigate his way through any given inning has been an absolute godsend for Toronto. If he can continue to pitch this well with this consistency, the Jays signed him to absolute steal of a contract – and that looks to be the case so far in 2026.