Article: How Does Adding Max Scherzer Change the Blue Jays Rotation?

[Mike LeSage]

Where does Max Scherzer slot into the rotation, and what does his arrival mean for the rest of the staff?

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, and the preliminary thinking is that he’ll slot in as the fourth or fifth starter in the rotation (for as long as he’s able). How does this affect Toronto’s pitching plan? The table below shows how many innings each potential Blue Jays starter threw last season, along with how many they’re projected to throw in 2025 according to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference.

Player	2024	FanGraphs	B-Ref
Kevin Gausman	181	196	169
José Berríos	192.1	194	175
Chris Bassitt	171	179	166
Bowden Francis	103.2	149	92
Max Scherzer	43.1	118	97
Yariel Rodríguez	86.2	106 (58 as SP)	103
Jake Bloss Alek Manoah Adam Macko	36	45	147

Last season, while battling various injuries, Scherzer only managed 43 1/3 innings. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference see him with a healthier total this season. Baseball Reference, interestingly, projects one save for Scherzer, which would be the first of his career. Scherzer averaged 160 innings over the three seasons prior to his injury-plagued 2024, so we’ll stand by for a best-shape-of-his-life spring training updates, but it doesn’t seem at all far-fetched to hope for 100 innings from him this season.

Ten different pitchers started games for the Blue Jays in 2024. If healthy (if this feels like a constant caveat, that’s because it is), Scherzer should be a fairly direct replacement for the workload that Yusei Kikuchi shouldered: 22 games started and 115 2/3 innings pitched. Kikuchi’s time was shortened by a late-July trade to Houston. That trade and opening in the rotation is what paved the way for Bowden Francis’s regular spot in the rotation and subsequent historic run in August. Expect Francis to be given every opportunity to hold on to that rotation spot. Gausman, Berríos and Bassitt are established and locked into the rotation, so there should be no change with them either. That leaves Yariel Rodríguez as the easy bet for odd man out.

Last year, Rodríguez started 21 games, while Francis started 13. I expect those numbers to flip this year, with Rodríguez getting the majority of his early season appearances out of the bullpen. Nick Ashbourne of Sportsnet has an interesting look at how pitchers who split time between starting and relieving have fared. The biggest takeaway for me is that the ‘pen skews towards helping power pitchers more. If you throw hard and know you only have to be out there for an inning or two, there shouldn’t be much holding you back from throwing your hardest. Rodríguez relies more on his breaking stuff, which might limit his bullpen bounce but should still offer him a path toward improvement in the shorter appearances. Improved performance from Rodríguez, combined with the addition of Jeff Hoffman and the expected bounce back from the bullpen as a whole should help lift the team over the course of the season.

We’ve talked about how many innings Scherzer might take on, but less about what he might do with those innings. The projections are generally optimistic, forecasting Scherzer as a solid back-of-the-rotation guy. The Jays will be in great shape if he hits those projections. The flipside is what if he’s healthy, but just isn’t good? Scherzer is a no-doubt Hall of Famer and currently sits eleventh on the all-time strikeout list. Is getting into the top 10 something he might be chasing? Justin Verlander is still active and holds that 10th spot, just seven K’s ahead of Scherzer — that should be an interesting race to track over the season. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think as long as he’s healthy we’re going to see Scherzer every fifth day regardless of the results he generates.

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[Spanky99]

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TIL BRef has projections?! Can someone post a link to this, as working through BR is a headache... or Mike? Good read, the difference in the number of IP is interesting.

[Michael Zivot]

Great article. I think the extended storyline is that Max and Justin Verlander both have a chance to crack top 10 in all-time strikeouts this year. The countdown for Max is 103 to pass Walter Johnson, while Verlander needs 94. 
Would be great to see him do that this year in a Jays uniform. The other milestone is Max needs 122 innings to hit career 3,000 innings pitched .

if he gets to 122 innings, career stats say he should be close to 103 strikeouts. If he hits those, I also think that the Jays are having a great season! 

[Mike LeSage]

2 hours ago, Spanky99 said:

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TIL BRef has projections?! Can someone post a link to this, as working through BR is a headache... or Mike? Good read, the difference in the number of IP is interesting.

Each active players page has a single line for projections (below featured videos and above Standard Pitching), but I'm not sure if they're aggregated anywhere. I just pulled from each players' page.

[Brownie19]

4 hours ago, Spanky99 said:

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TIL BRef has projections?! Can someone post a link to this, as working through BR is a headache... or Mike? Good read, the difference in the number of IP is interesting.

BRef is one of the worst website I've ever seen.  I can't ever find what I'm looking for.  It's a joke.

[Laika]

Harsh. I love b-ref. 

[Laika]

Here is one cool thing B-Ref projections has but I don't think shows up on Fangraphs. 

Have you ever thought that not all 2 WAR projections are created equal? That an MLB player who has been a 2 WAR player for 3 years in a row is much more likely to be something close to that than a breakout player from the prior year who was replacement level or in the minors before? Well, that's true. 

On B-Ref you only see one line of projected stats, which I believe are just basic marcel projections, but they do include a "reliability" percentage (the final column). This is how much of the projection is based on the actual player's stats and how much is based on regression to the mean! 

Bo

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2025	Proj.	27	428	399	49	111	22	1	12	51	7	3	25	86	.278	.322	.429	.751	171	11	2	0	2	1	84%

Vlad

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2025	Proj.	26	617	549	80	160	33	1	26	87	5	2	59	94	.291	.364	.497	.861	273	17	6	0	4	7	87%

Bowden 

Year	Tm	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W	Rel
2025	Proj.	29	6	4	.600	3.42	2	92.0	72	38	35	13	25	0	85	5	1	2	370	1.054	7.0	1.3	2.4	8.3	3.40	56%

Horwitz 

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2025	Proj.	27	395	346	47	89	19	1	12	44	3	1	39	79	.257	.340	.422	.762	146	8	6	0	3	2	63%

 

Gimenez 

Year	Tm	Age	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	Rel
2025	Proj.	26	578	523	66	138	24	3	13	62	25	4	31	102	.264	.323	.396	.719	207	10	17	3	4	2	86%

[Brownie19]

Does BRef even predict the WAR outcome for each player?