Article: Make Or Break Players On The 2025 Blue Jays: Yariel Rodriguez

[Jesse Burrill]

The 2024 season of the Toronto Blue Jays certainly didn't go how many of us expected it to. Finishing with 74 wins and selling off key pieces at the deadline was not the plan going into the season. Much of that was due to the pieces they added the prior offseason. Justin Turner hit just six home runs and was traded at the deadline; Kevin Keirmaier was re-signed and hit below .200 before he was traded at the deadline; the signings of Joey Votto, Daniel Vogelbach, and Paolo Espino didn't work. Even Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was good in his short time here, was also sent packing by the trade deadline.

It wasn't all bad for the players we acquired in 2024; there was one player we signed who actually showed some positive signs and could be a core piece for this team going forward and might also be one of the players who could make an impactful contribution to the team in 2025, and that player is Yariel Rodriguez.

What happened in 2024?
Rodriguez’s rookie season had some ups and downs; after not pitching at all in 2023 and pitching primarily in relief in the two years prior in Japan, The Blue Jays prioritized using him as a starting pitcher and made it a goal for him to increase his innings. He did just that, throwing 86.2 innings in the big leagues and another 20.1 In Buffalo for 107 total innings. And his performance wasn’t that bad either; a 4.47 ERA will play in the big leagues, and an 18.4% soft contact percentage was the best on the Blue Jays among starters who made at least five starts. 

He did show some glimpses of domination; on Canada day, he threw 6.2 innings of two-hit baseball against the Astros and followed that up with 6.0 innings, one hit allowed against the Mariners just five days later. The main problem with Rodriguez was he had an issue with walks; in fact, out of all 21 starts he made in 2024, he issued at least one free pass in all of them, and the 10.9% walk rate would have been behind only Trevor Richards, of players on the Jays who threw at least 50 IP in 2024. 

What Can Go Right in 2025?
2025 will be a big year for Rodriguez; with the Max Scherzer signing, he currently stands as the Blue Jays' sixth starter on the depth chart going into the season. But as we all know, it will take more than just five starters to get through a season. Max Scherzer is over 40 and battled injuries just last season, and Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios, and Kevin Gausman are all on the wrong side of 30, and even Bowden Francis took a big inning jump from 2023 to 2024. So we know that Yariel Rodriguez will get an extended look sometime during the season. That's why it makes sense that the Blue Jays are trying to stretch him out during spring training.

Rodriguez has the skill of inducing soft contact from batters, and it would be wise to try to maximize that skill going into the season. He will have to show an increase in command to take a big step forward, but it looks like Rodriguez might have already started doing that towards the end of the season in 2024.

In this chart, Yariel started throwing his pitches in the zone more and getting better contact quality as the season went on.

This is a good combination: Throw your pitches in the zone more and produce results against those pitches.

It's not easy to teach a player to just command the baseball better, but if Rodriguez can continue on his late-season trend, he could take yet another step forward in 2025.

How Will This Impact The Blue Jays?
If a player performs better, the team will be better, and Rodriguez will be no different. The plus side with Rodriguez is that the Blue Jays have tons of flexibility in using him. As things stand now, the plan is to use him as a starting pitcher, and from a roster management standpoint, that makes a lot of sense. However, he provides some flexibility if the starting rotation stays healthy, if Alek Manoah returns sooner than expected, and if a player like Jake Bloss or Adam Macko shows they are ready and need a spot in the majors. The Blue Jays have the option of moving Rodriguez to the bullpen; he spent a lot of time pitching out of bullpens in Japan, where he had a 1.15 ERA with the Chunuchi Dragons in 2022, a role that help make his stuff play up.

If Rodriguez turns out to be a fourth or fifth starter who can improve his command and maintain his ability to induce soft contact, then we could be looking at a guy who can be a 2-3 win player at the back end of the rotation. Alternatively, if he ends up in the bullpen, he could be a solid 6th or 7th-inning option for manager John Schneider and would help a bullpen that was the worst in franchise history in 2024.

No matter where he ends up, few players on the roster could provide as much of a spark as Yariel Rodriguez in 2025. He might never be the 5 WAR All-Star starter, but every team needs these complementary players to take a step forward to help push the team into the playoffs, and Yariel Rodriguez may be the best bet out of any of them.

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[BB17]

He reminds me of a mid 2010s Jesse Chavez. Guy who throws 80-120 innings and puts up a low 4 ERA. While not amazing numbers it’s a valuable piece to have in that he can throw multiple innings at a time which is big in preserving a bullpen through the course of a year.

[Jim Scott]

I am a big fan of old-school swingmen (like Chavez, or Estrada).  I would hope that the Jays would give Y-Rod 5-10 starts in 2025, though perhaps limiting him to 4-5 innings, Use him on doubleheader days, or when a scheduled starter has minor pains, or when a matchup is unfavourable.  Total of maybe 120 IP.  That way, they will know whether he has rotation potential - and if the Jays *do* want to stretch him to ~150 IP and ~25 starts in 2026, he will be ready.

I agree completely with Jesse that the 6th and 7th starters are important.  I did a mini-study a few years ago and found that the average mlb team got 125 starts from their top 5 starters, and even the top 10 teams (i.e. the ones with the most starts from their top-5 starters) only averaged 135.  So a team needs ~30 starts from the swingmen, bullpen, and MiLB callups.  And those 30 games count just as much as the ones when the team's ace is starting.

[Jimcanuck]

a team typically uses 10-15 different pitchers to start games in a year.  yariel will get his starts