Can the Blue Jays Continue to Impress in the AL East?
Many in the industry felt the Blue Jays were going to fall flat to start 2025. Instead, they're right in the thick of things in the AL East. What's working for them?
After laying an egg in 2024, the Toronto Blue Jays lost a whole lot of believers around the industry heading into the new year. The club has always looked so solid on paper, but the follow-through just hasn’t quite been there.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his contract extension drama dominated the headlines, but player and club came together shortly after the season began and he’s now going to be a Blue Jay for life. Now that everyone can put this in the rearview, the Blue Jays are making it clear that they’re intending to capitalize on this contention window now and for the long-term future.
Through 18 games this year, the Blue Jays find themselves just a half-game behind the New York Yankees for the top spot in the AL East. Things have been far from perfect, but the Blue Jays have done a solid job of becoming – and staying – a competitive team to open the new season.
Six players are on the injured list for Toronto right now, with two of them being key pieces of the bullpen, one being Max Scherzer (the club’s top pitching acquisition), and another being Daulton Varsho, the team’s primary center fielder. Opening the year without important contributors like these have not held back the Blue Jays as much as you’d think.
Let’s check out what the team has going right for them, as well as what needs improvement if this run is going to last. We’re still very, very early into the 2025 campaign, so there’s still plenty of time for fortunes to turn.
All stats updated prior to games on Wednesday, April 16th
What’s Going Right for the Blue Jays So Far?
The Hitters Are Making Their Way On Base
In 2024, the Blue Jays finished 13th in the league in OBP and wRC+ and 19th in batting average. Sitting right around the middle of the pack did them no favors in the end-of-year standings, but the current ensemble is doing better – at least so far.
Entering Wednesday’s action, Blue Jays hitters are fifth in hits and seventh in baseball in OBP. The offense has been very singles and doubles heavy, but it’s worked out to this point. George Springer has run into a few health issues early, but he’s still 12th in baseball (min. 30 PA) in wRC+ and has looked like a whole new man.
Guerrero, Bo Bichette, Andres Gimenez, Myles Straw, and Alan Roden are all regular faces in Toronto’s lineup that also have a wRC+ north of 100, which is league-average. Having the vast majority of your everyday players contributing like this is a recipe for success, and the Blue Jays are finding that out early on.
(Most of the) New Faces Are Coming Through
After last year’s disastrous outcome, it was (very…) clear that the Blue Jays needed a facelift during the 2024-25 offseason. Gimenez, Myles Straw, Jeff Hoffman, Anthony Santander, Nick Sandlin, Yimi Garcia, and a handful of others were brought aboard to help tighten things up a bit in the new year.
Nearly every single one of the new guys on campus have been performing well, and those showings have a whole lot to do with why the Blue Jays are so high up in the standings.
Gimenez and Straw, acquired in separate trades with the Cleveland Guardians, both have a wRC+ over 100. Gimenez gives the Blue Jays a slick-fielding second baseman with a surprising amount of pop, while Straw is lightning quick and an elite defender in center field. His offensive output is nothing more than an added bonus, but his .971 OPS is quite a bit higher than anyone could’ve asked for from him.
The trio of new relievers are doing well, too, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Santander was the big-ticket offensive signing from this past winter, but he’s still working on getting going. He hit his second home run of the season on Tuesday night, but his 87 wRC+ and .629 OPS are still works in progress.
The Bullpen Looks Surprisingly Decent
Last year, the Blue Jays had one of the worst bullpens in all of baseball no matter which way you slice it. Toronto’s relievers combined to finish 29th in baseball with a 4.82 ERA and their 4.84 FIP was dead last in the majors. It also doesn’t help that no bullpen surrendered more home runs than theirs did.
Over the offseason, the club moved on from long-time homegrown closer Jordan Romano, as well as Genesis Cabrera, and Trevor Richards. In their place(s), old friends Hoffman Yimi Garcia were brought back to Toronto and Sandlin came over with Gimenez in a mid-winter trade.
Garcia has been as advertised, making eight scoreless appearances with 10 strikeouts and three walks across eight innings. He’s an option to close games and looked great for Toronto before being flipped to the Seattle Mariners at last year’s deadline. Now that he’s back where he belongs, he’s picking up right where he left off.
While Garcia has performed as expected, Hoffman’s been even better. The right-hander is a full-time closer for the first time in his career and has been immaculate through 9.1 innings. Hoffman’s allowed just one earned run (0.96 ERA) and has struck out 13 batters while walking just one. Each of his last two outings have been of the two-inning variety, with one of them coming against the Baltimore Orioles, who he signed with this past winter only to be turned away after the club balked at his physical.
The argument can be made that the Blue Jays’ bullpen is a bit top-heavy, but Hoffman, Garcia, Sandlin, Chad Green and Brendon Little have formed a rock-solid quintet. Every bullpen has its weak links, but the Blue Jays have far less of them than they did at this time last year.
This is all without mentioning that returns from Erik Swanson and Ryan Burr should help weed out some of the non-contributors on this staff. The ‘pen needs to do nothing more than simply tread water until these two return, but they’ve burst out of the gate doing a whole lot more than that.
What Needs Work?
The Blue Jays Aren’t Hitting Home Runs
After stumbling to a 26th-place finish in home runs last year, the Blue Jays needed to add some thump over the winter. Santander just hit 44 of them in 2024, so it makes a ton of sense that he’d be an ideal fit in the lineup.
Instead, the Blue Jays are still in 26th place in longballs. The power just hasn’t shown up yet, which is something that’s going to need to be turned around if there’s going to be any true hope in sniffing contention. A lineup with Guerrero, Springer, Bichette, Santander, and a handful of others capable of hitting 15-20 home runs can’t continue to keep the ball in the ballpark.
Fortunately, there are multiple reasons Blue Jays fans shouldn’t press the panic button yet. First, the cold weather has impacted players on this team for years now (remember how Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion didn’t warm up until May?), so that can’t be written off.
Second, this is a team whose power hitters are notorious for starting the year slowly. Santander himself just finished hitting 44 home runs a year ago, but he only hit four of them in the first month of the season before hitting five in May and then 13 in June. The year prior, he hit just two in the first month of the season, which is where he’s at now.
Guerrero, who has yet to hit a home run, has remained a positive contributor despite the fact that his power numbers are way down. In 2024, he hit just three home runs in April and then two in May before hitting eight in both June and July. It’s not uncommon for sluggers to take a bit to warm up. Helping Guerrero’s case is the fact that he’s still sporting a 107 wRC+ without any pop to show for it.
Bichette also has yet to leave the yard, but his bounce-back is well under way. He’s hitting .295 through 18 games and is a virtual lock to top his home run total from last year (four) before the calendar even hits June. In his walk-year, Bichette quite literally can’t afford to not tap back into that power.
Starting Pitching Has Been Hit-and-Miss
Scherzer was supposed join the Blue Jays’ rotation and help solidify things, but his injury one start into his tenure in Toronto is far less than ideal. With Alek Manoah already out for the vast majority of the season, the club needed all the help they could get.
Jose Berrios and Bowden Francis both sport ERAs north of 4.75 through their first four and three starts, respectively. In Berrios’ case, his full-season numbers have been bogged down a bit by a pair of less-than-ideal starts, but he is just one one start removed from going seven innings of one-run ball against the Orioles.
Francis is a bit of a regression candidate after turning into a borderline Cy Young candidate in the second-half of last season. He gave up five runs in 5.2 innings on Tuesday against those very same Orioles, so there’s a level of uncertainty in regards to what exactly you’re going to get from him each time he takes the mound. The Francis of last year is what the Blue Jays will need him to be over the course of the full season, otherwise his spot in the rotation could quickly turn into a black hole.
Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman have both gotten off to solid starts this year, so there’s no complaints with them. The other problem with Toronto’s starting-five may be Easton Lucas, the man the Blue Jays tabbed to replace Scherzer in the rotation. Lucas, a 28-year-old lefty, threw 10.1 scoreless innings across the first two starts of his big league career before completely imploding on Monday against the Atlanta Braves.
In start No. 3 for Lucas, he still managed to go five innings, but not before surrendering eight runs on six hits, including three home runs. Obviously he was not going to go scoreless for the entire season, but the worry is that Monday’s start is the norm for him. After all, he entered the season with a career ERA of 9.82.
Depth Is Lacking
The fact that Lucas was the first man up to slot into the starting rotation says a lot about the Blue Jays’ current depth issue. Frankly, they’ve had problems in this department for multiple years now.
Outside of power-hitting prospect Orelvis Martinez and middle infielder Leo Jimenez, the organization has very little quality depth available on the position player side of things in the high-minors. The depth behind the plate is practically non-existent, and there’s simply not enough players currently available that could slot in at the big league level and be a positive contributor.
Unfortunately, this problem is not only on the hitting side. Jake Bloss is the only starting pitcher on the 40-man roster, but he’s battled through inconsistencies throughout most of his time in the Blue Jays ‘organization. He’s a lock to see a big-league mound at some point this season, but the drop-off behind him is pretty dramatic.
The Blue Jays have a ton of plug-and-play relief pitchers who can come up to eat some low-leverage innings in the big leagues, but there’s not much there in terms of quality depth. There’s a significant difference between depth and quality depth, and there’s currently very little in the way of the latter.
This is all to say that the Blue Jays aren’t well-equipped to absorb an injury to one of their top players in the big leagues. This is an issue that’s presented itself to the club’s decision-makers time and time again, but very little has been done to address that. Fingers crossed that this issue isn’t highlighted once one of the team’s stars hits the shelf.
Closing Thoughts
The 2025 Blue Jays are a competitive team out of the gate, but that doesn’t mean that they’re without their fair share of warts. A 10-8 start through 18 games is better than most in the industry expected out of them, so it’s simply Toronto’s turn to play spoiler in this divison.
The Yankees, Orioles, and Boston Red Sox are widely expected to be the “big-three” in the AL East this season, but the Blue Jays are doing a great job of disrupting things when it comes to the division’s projections.
Now that Guerrero’s locked up for the long run, it’s been made clear that the Blue Jays consider themselves here to stay in the division. It’s just going to be a matter of getting all of their pieces clicking and firing on all cylinders at the same time. Many of the current players that are off to cold starts will need to turn it around and start carrying their weight or this surprise run will end up being for naught.
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Eric Treuden (troy-din) has covered baseball for years for multiple different outlets including FanSided, Yardbarker, and Wisconsin Sports Heroics. He recently was the editor for Jays…