General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[mphenhef]

48 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

One point I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is whether it makes sense to move Scherzer to the bullpen while Lucas is dealing.  This is more than an overreaction to 2 good starts, it's reacting to Scherzer's inability to exceed 40 pitches before his thumb issue flares up.

The way Schneider likes to use the bullpen, giving him another high leverage option there could help the team more than letting him breakdown at his current age.  Question is, can Scherzer's ego handle the move to become the next John Smoltz?

I can't see this happening at this point.  Scherzer also probably needs the time between starts to recover at this point.

[R.O.]

If I were to guess, I think Batters are sitting on Gausman's splitter.

Last night, there were some weird hacks on his low 90s fastball.   Sitting Splitter makes his fastball look amazing.

[Orgfiller]

Just now, R.O. said:

If I were to guess, I think Batters are sitting on Gausman's splitter.

Last night, there were some weird hacks on his low 90s fastball.   Sitting Splitter makes his fastball look amazing.

Welcome to the board! I tend to agree with this, it seemed like yesterday he was playing off the fact that hitters were sitting splitter every time and just blowing them away with fastballs repeatedly. Notably, he was featuring the low fastball often, which basically makes it impossible for hitters to swing at it or make good contact if they're expecting splitter.

The splitter wasn't exactly a show me pitch, but because he tends to throw it low and out of the zone there were lots of foul balls and weak contact induced from it whenever they would go after it.

[max silver]

48 minutes ago, L54 said:

I haven’t watched a Gausman start but have been hearing lots about him without the split. Meaning I guess no whiffs 

He literally built himself on it and now it’s gone. Weird

Gausman's splitter was a bit better last night with 4 whiffs/21% whiff percentage. The dominant fastball was a big surprise last light as he racked up 13 whiffs.

[BB17]

The splitter just doesn't look like it has that same down tumbling action, more of a changeup that kind of just floats. At least watching last night that's what I seemed to notice. For Gauseman to get close to the 22/23 level he's going to need the splitter no matter how good the fastball is. 

[BB17]

1 hour ago, Jays24 said:

One point I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is whether it makes sense to move Scherzer to the bullpen while Lucas is dealing.  This is more than an overreaction to 2 good starts, it's reacting to Scherzer's inability to exceed 40 pitches before his thumb issue flares up.

The way Schneider likes to use the bullpen, giving him another high leverage option there could help the team more than letting him breakdown at his current age.  Question is, can Scherzer's ego handle the move to become the next John Smoltz?

I think you still give him some time to try to see if he can start. Lucas probably reverts back to being bad so you need a starter especially with Bloss stinking it up in AAA.

If it comes to mid May though and Scherzer still isn't recovering and he can pitch 30-40 pitches effectively then yeah I'm all for moving him to the pen and having him pitch 2 innings every 3 days or whatever. Better than the alternative of him not pitching at all I guess.

[Brownie19]

16 minutes ago, BB17 said:

The splitter just doesn't look like it has that same down tumbling action, more of a changeup that kind of just floats. At least watching last night that's what I seemed to notice. For Gauseman to get close to the 22/23 level he's going to need the splitter no matter how good the fastball is. 

Whatever adjustments he's made to improve the fastball may have negative effects on the splitter.  Or maybe he's just struggling to find the release right now.  It was better last night and he's a vet, so I'm not overly concerned right now.

[BB17]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

Whatever adjustments he's made to improve the fastball may have negative effects on the splitter.  Or maybe he's just struggling to find the release right now.  It was better last night and he's a vet, so I'm not overly concerned right now.

Yeah still tons of season left. Reality is its April 10th and there going to be lots of up and down from here till September. 

[Grant77]

4 hours ago, R.O. said:

If I were to guess, I think Batters are sitting on Gausman's splitter.

Last night, there were some weird hacks on his low 90s fastball.   Sitting Splitter makes his fastball look amazing.

There were several instances last season in which it was obvious that Gausman was tipping his pitches, particularly the splitter. I would hope that the tip was discovered and addressed during the off-season.

[G-Snarls]

Blue Jays starters #2 in all of baseball in ERA, 6th in WAR

-

[Grant77]

On 4/9/2025 at 6:28 PM, G-Snarls said:

The starting pitching has been outstanding 

 

On 4/9/2025 at 7:30 PM, jaysblue said:

What? You can't be serious. 

Outside of Bassitt and Lucas thus far, the rest of the rotation has been meh. 

Blue Jays 2.48 starting rotation ERA is the lowest in franchise history through 14 games.

🤣🤣🤣

[keggy]

On 4/10/2025 at 10:58 AM, Jays24 said:

One point I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is whether it makes sense to move Scherzer to the bullpen while Lucas is dealing.  This is more than an overreaction to 2 good starts, it's reacting to Scherzer's inability to exceed 40 pitches before his thumb issue flares up.

The way Schneider likes to use the bullpen, giving him another high leverage option there could help the team more than letting him breakdown at his current age.  Question is, can Scherzer's ego handle the move to become the next John Smoltz?

Scherzer is injured, old, and has exclusively been a starter for the better part of 2 decades. There is basically zero chance they ask him to transform his routine in the middle of a season like that.

This is even without considering him pulling the veteran respect card.

[Spanky99]

Boss!

[jaysblue]

Jeff Hoffman has been rock solid! Hope he keeps this up!

[43211234]

Is Yariel Rodriguez the reincarnation of Jo Jo Reyes? Stuff+ and Pitching+ really don't like him.

[Spanky99]

 

[Terminator]

Jays are dead last in home runs in MLB

1st in the AL East

This team is going to slap hit its way to the playoffs and we are going to learn to love it

[Terminator]

 

[L54]

8 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Jays are dead last in home runs in MLB

1st in the AL East

This team is going to slap hit its way to the playoffs and we are going to learn to love it

Nice we are the KC Royals

[Spanky99]

9 minutes ago, Terminator said:

 

I was looking at the stats this morning taking away the opener and the Jays are T-1 with the Stros out of the pen, Jays have been excellent. 5th in SP and 1st overall as a staff.

[Laika]

Presently: 

• 20th in MLB in runs per game
• 8th best in MLB in runs against per game 

Projected: 

• #12 in runs per game
• #22 in runs against per game 

Expect the offense and pitching to regress in opposite directions! 

[max silver]

16 minutes ago, L54 said:

Nice we are the KC Royals

That team slapped it's way to a world series championship.

[Jays24]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Presently: 

• 20th in MLB in runs per game
• 8th best in MLB in runs against per game 

Projected: 

• #12 in runs per game
• #22 in runs against per game 

Expect the offense and pitching to regress in opposite directions! 

I actually expect the pitching to remain good unless we get killed with injuries.   It's the offense that I would expect to get slightly better once Vladdy/Santandar get this power going but still mediocre overall. 

[Jays24]

So like I and many others were saying, the entire AL isn't that good.  The difference between the best AL team and the 8th best AL team isn't all that much.  

All the best teams are in the NL so this year is truly "just get in and anything can happen." 

[mphenhef]

1 hour ago, Terminator said:

Jays are dead last in home runs in MLB

1st in the AL East

This team is going to slap hit its way to the playoffs and we are going to learn to love it

It worked for the Royals in 2015

[Orgfiller]

Silver linings for Vlad:

•  Despite the power outage, he's still putting up a passable 118 wRC+, with a pretty decent .366 OBP which is mostly carried by a high batting average (which xBA actually thinks undersells him). 
• His xSLG is .478, which is over 100 points higher than his actual
• The major change here has been that he's not really putting the ball in the air all that much, except for a brutal IFFB rate of his few flyballs
• He's making up for it with a big jump in line drive rate, and he's not actually hitting ground balls at a higher rate than normal. So the getting on base ability hasn't been fluky thus far, he just hasn't been a HR threat at all, barrel rate is down and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone
• His oppo % is huge, kind of in a gross way. He's going to the opposite field more often than he's pulling the ball. This could be fine, because he has the raw power to cause damage to the opposite field, but the eye test tells me most of those oppo batted balls are well placed line drives for singles. He either needs to start pulling the ball more, or start launching bombs to the opposite field

Given that we've now paid him and he's not going away any time soon, might as well start sniffing the copium, look under the hood and hope that he is that hitting powerhouse capable of carrying our offense. This start for him was essentially the recipe for 2024 Vlad, lots of singles and a decent OBP, xWOBA looking like a real threat waiting to break out with some regression.

[Jimcanuck]

BA has Jays taking HS shortstop Willits, in its latest mock.

 

8. Blue Jays — Eli Willits, SS, Fort Cobb-Broxton (Okla.) HS

As noted above, Willits has a significant opportunity to make noise later this week in a matchup with Ethan Holliday and Stillwater High. He’s a model darling already given his age, performance history and defensive profile. Toronto clearly values the age component and, given their pick of Arjun Nimmala at 20th overall in 2023, this selection would make a lot of sense for them. Willits has a legitimate chance to be the first shortstop off the board, and I could see him in play as high as first overall. At this point, it feels to me that he’s more likely to go first overall than to slide out of the first 10 picks.

[Terminator]

6 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Silver linings for Vlad:

•  Despite the power outage, he's still putting up a passable 118 wRC+, with a pretty decent .366 OBP which is mostly carried by a high batting average (which xBA actually thinks undersells him). 
• His xSLG is .478, which is over 100 points higher than his actual
• The major change here has been that he's not really putting the ball in the air all that much, except for a brutal IFFB rate of his few flyballs
• He's making up for it with a big jump in line drive rate, and he's not actually hitting ground balls at a higher rate than normal. So the getting on base ability hasn't been fluky thus far, he just hasn't been a HR threat at all, barrel rate is down and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone
• His oppo % is huge, kind of in a gross way. He's going to the opposite field more often than he's pulling the ball. This could be fine, because he has the raw power to cause damage to the opposite field, but the eye test tells me most of those oppo batted balls are well placed line drives for singles. He either needs to start pulling the ball more, or start launching bombs to the opposite field

Given that we've now paid him and he's not going away any time soon, might as well start sniffing the copium, look under the hood and hope that he is that hitting powerhouse capable of carrying our offense. This start for him was essentially the recipe for 2024 Vlad, lots of singles and a decent OBP, xWOBA looking like a real threat waiting to break out with some regression.

Hopefully this is the 2025 version of the "slow start" that he had last year

[Stangstag]

1 minute ago, Terminator said:

Hopefully this is the 2025 version of the "slow start" that he had last year

Dude still needs to hit more homers though. A 1B getting paid 35 mil per year needs to be hitting closer to 40 homeruns.

[Orgfiller]

5 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

Dude still needs to hit more homers though. A 1B getting paid 35 mil per year needs to be hitting closer to 40 homeruns.

For sure, my post was essentially indicating that in spite of his power outage to begin the season, he's generally been hitting well and looks like a bit of a copy of his 2024 start. If Vlad is treading water in April with a ~120-130 wRC+ where his expected xWOBA sees him as more of a 150+ wRC+ guy, then we can live with that as long as the power output eventually emerges as the weather warms up.