Article: What Will the Blue Jays Do About George Springer?

[Davy Andrews]

The time when it just no longer makes sense to let George Springer play the outfield every day is coming faster than you might realize.

We need to talk about George Springer.

I want to make it clear right up front that I love Springer. He seems like a genuinely good guy, and he’s had an excellent career. I will absolutely be rooting for him this season. However, we need to prepare ourselves to have a difficult conversation about him, because I’m genuinely worried about his performance. It’s not because Springer is so far batting just .136 during spring training, though obviously I don’t love that. We need to look at the bigger picture.

In 2024, Springer ran a 95 wRC+, mostly because of some bad luck at the plate. He deserved to be right around 104, where he was in 2023, 4% better than the league-average hitter. Unfortunately, that’s still a huge drop-off from who Springer was as a hitter of the first nine years of his career. From 2014 to 2022, Springer ran a 134 wRC+, making him 34% better than the average hitter. Over the past two seasons he’s been at an even 100, completely average. Moreover, as he’s got gotten older, his defensive value has eroded to the point that it's now underwater. He’s no longer a bat-first center fielder, he’s a corner outfielder who doesn’t hit or field. It’s been two years now since Springer could muster even league-average performance. That’s just plain not tenable for a team with playoff ambitions, especially when things don’t have to play out that way.

I went over to FanGraphs and pulled the ZiPS projections for every Blue Jays outfielder. This season, ZiPS sees Springer bouncing back somewhat – after all, he really did get unlucky in 2024 – to run a 105 wRC+, to hit 17 home runs, and to put up 2.0 WAR over 128 games. But here’s the thing: Even the bounce-back season that ZiPS is projecting wouldn’t make him one of the team’s best outfielders. In fact, it wouldn’t even be close. The table below shows projected WAR, prorated for 600 PAs, for all of the team’s contenders in the outfield. Essentially, it shows what ZiPS thinks every player would do if they got to play a full season in the outfield.

Name	wRC+	WAR/600
Daulton Varsho	103	3.5
Anthony Santander	130	3.2
Davis Schneider	109	3.1
Nathan Lukes	107	2.9
Addison Barger	107	2.8
Alan Roden	109	2.4
George Springer	105	2.2
Joey Loperfido	98	2.2
Jonatan Clase	88	2.1
Steward Berroa	90	2.0
RJ Schreck	101	1.7
Myles Straw	74	1.6

I don’t know how much clearer things could be here. It’s not just that the projections don’t think Springer is one of the team’s three best outfielders; they don’t even think he’s in the top five. Over a full season – and once again, this would constitute a bounce-back season – ZiPS sees Springer putting up 2.2 WAR. That’s a hair better than a league-average player and it’s tied with Joey Loperfido for seventh-best among Toronto outfielders. Davis Schneider, Nathan Lukes, Addison Barger, even Alan Roden, who has only played 71 games above Double-A: all of them are projected to perform better than Springer this season. Steamer, another projection system run by FanGraphs sees Springer as the team’s fourth-best option, behind Roden and a hair ahead of Lukes and Barger.

Maybe Springer will bounce back this season, not just in a league-average way but in a big way. He’s 35, and it wouldn’t be crazy to see him put up one more three-win campaign. But if he doesn’t, if he gets off to a scary, slow start, the Blue Jays will have to act. They’ll have to act because the season hangs in the balance and a win here or there could make all the difference. They’ll have to act because they will have several materially better options waiting on the bench and in the minors. As always, some players will outperform their projections and some players will underperform. If Springer can’t turn into one of the pleasant surprises, the Blue Jays will have to make room for whichever one of those players can.

Here's a possible scenario: Daulton Varsho’s shoulder ends up not quite being ready for Opening Day, so for the first week or two, he sits or needs to DH. During that time, Lukes or Roden fill in and plays great while Springer scuffles. Are the Blue Jays really just going to sit the player who’s performing well down in order to spare the feelings of the player who is now, for the third year in a row, performing badly?

I recognize that this would be an extremely difficult conversation. Springer is a leader: a respected veteran, an All-Star, a World Series champion, even a World Series MVP. Putting him on the bench (or worse) would probably be really ugly. Moreover, Springer will make $22.5 million this season and next. But that’s a sunk cost. The Blue Jays can’t let it deter them from putting their best team on the field. And they can't deny their best prospects at-bats, hurting their development. Too much depends on it. The team’s outfield depth is a real strength, but only if they actually use it.

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[Marcus Graham]

Time to Tulo him. He's a major liability right now.

[Laika]

That's actually a very interesting and relevant comparison. 

TULO

2014	COL	MLB	29	91	375	21	71	52	1	13.3%	15.2%	.263	.355	.340	.432	.603	.444		170	0.2	29.8	5.6	5.1
2015	2 Tms	MLB	30	128	534	17	77	70	1	7.1%	21.3%	.160	.331	.280	.337	.440	.335	.320	101	-3.2	-2.4	8.5	2.4
2016	TOR	MLB	31	131	544	24	54	79	1	7.9%	18.6%	.189	.272	.254	.318	.443	.327	.351	104	-3.0	-0.3	4.7	2.3
2017	TOR	MLB	32	66	260	7	16	26	0	6.5%	15.4%	.129	.272	.249	.300	.378	.292	.289	79	-2.2	-8.8	2.5	0.2
2019	NYY	MLB	34	5	13	1	1	1	0	15.4%	30.8%	.364	.167	.182	.308	.545	.349	.292	119	0.0	0.3	-0.3	0.0

GEORGE 

 

 

2021	TOR	MLB	31	78	342	22	59	50	4	10.8%	23.1%	.291	.286	.264	.352	.555	.381	.361	140	0.5	17.3	-2.8	2.6
2022	TOR	MLB	32	133	583	25	89	76	14	9.3%	17.2%	.205	.285	.267	.342	.472	.352	.342	133	4.5	25.9	-5.1	4.1
2023	TOR	MLB	33	154	683	21	87	72	20	8.8%	18.3%	.147	.291	.258	.327	.405	.320	.332	104	-0.4	2.6	-8.0	1.8
2024	TOR	MLB	34	145	614	19	74	56	16	9.8%	18.7%	.150	.245	.220	.303	.371	.298	.322	95	3.5	-0.1	-8.9	1.2

Tulo had a big offensive decline at age 30. The indicators were down. He struggled with health. He had a replacement level and injury riddled 2017 and Toronto released him with 2/$38M remaining on his contract after a 2018 that was lost to injury. 

Tulo's xStats in 2017 were actually worse than his real stats. High chance of getting hurt again + decent chance of being cooked. 

George Springer isn't there yet though. He had an okay .322 xwOBA in 2024. He does not have the injury risks. He still projects for above replacement level production. HOWEVER if he has a 2025, or half of a 2025, that resembles Tulowitzki's 2017, things could change. 

But in 2024 the team clearly needs to be aggressive with role changes for him. He might reasonably end the season hitting in the bottom third of the order, or perhaps even as a bench or platoon player. 

If you re-frame your thoughts of him and pretend he's a prospect, it's easy to see how he can still help most MLB teams. He's a good baserunner, he can cover an outfield corner, he has a bit of pop and speed is a 15/15 talent over a full season. Quality bench/platoon guy and maybe a second division starter on a bad team. 45 FV.

[BB17]

Feels like he needs to hit the ball in the air again and sell out for more power. Last year he ran a 50% GB rate and his pulled ball% was down in 23 and 24.

Exit velo numbers seem to be down as well so yeah not a lot of encouraging numbers especially since he's 35.

[Laika]

15 minutes ago, BB17 said:

Feels like he needs to hit the ball in the air again and sell out for more power. Last year he ran a 50% GB rate and his pulled ball% was down in 23 and 24.

Exit velo numbers seem to be down as well so yeah not a lot of encouraging numbers especially since he's 35.

I kind of feel like he just can't get it up anymore 

Sometimes players lose bat speed and not being able to get it up is the dominant symptom. Hypothesis. But maybe aging isn't always higher K rates. Bat slows down, you can still make contact but you can't get out front and pull/lift the ball very much. 

[John_Havok]

25 minutes ago, Laika said:

I kind of feel like he just can't get it up anymore 

Sometimes players lose bat speed and not being able to get it up is the dominant symptom. Hypothesis. But maybe aging isn't always higher K rates. Bat slows down, you can still make contact but you can't get out front and pull/lift the ball very much. 

Bat speed still 52nd percentile, 71.9 mph avg, down from 62nd percentile and 72.7 mph avg in 2023. Though there's nothing to compare with from previous seasons to see how far that may have declined from where it was in 2022 or 2021...the inference is fairly obvious. 

[Terminator]

That's a great article. I've been higher on Springer than most due to the bad luck he's suffered but that's only part of the problem as he's getting passed up by younger players now.

Ultimately I would love to see a trade. Springer for Montgomery or something would have been a good one but we could also just trade a Buffalo Boy or two and try to get more pitching depth. 

 

[Laika]

48 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

Bat speed still 52nd percentile, 71.9 mph avg, down from 62nd percentile and 72.7 mph avg in 2023. Though there's nothing to compare with from previous seasons to see how far that may have declined from where it was in 2022 or 2021...the inference is fairly obvious. 

yeah it will nice when we get a baseline and trendline for bat speed.

now we can compare 2025 to 2024, which will be nice to see trends. but it will still take a few more years to learn what the typical oscillation is in mean bat speed, maybe players lose and gain a tick or two every year kind of randomly or due to injuries or amphetamines 

[glory]

A Springer trade for an equally bad contract is the way to go. They have internal replacements for him, and there's a good chance he's cooked, but finding another contract to match up with that makes sense for both sides will be the issue. Montgomery would make a lot of sense for the Jays even though it would clog up the rotation. A real s***** contract is Taijuan Walker, and the Phillies probably could use a 4th OF, but I'm not sure what the Jays could realistically do with Walker except put him in long relief and hope his stuff plays up. He's likely just as cooked as Springer is. 

At this point give GS a month or two and see if there's a dead cat bounce in him, but they better be prepared to pivot very quickly if he looks washed. The Jays schedule early on is brutal so they can't really afford to have an automatic out batting high in the lineup because of vetrin presents. 

[John_Havok]

39 minutes ago, Laika said:

yeah it will nice when we get a baseline and trendline for bat speed.

now we can compare 2025 to 2024, which will be nice to see trends. but it will still take a few more years to learn what the typical oscillation is in mean bat speed, maybe players lose and gain a tick or two every year kind of randomly or due to injuries or amphetamines 

I'm sure internally they have these numbers already, because if they don't they'd be morons, but yeah. Seeing trends of certain age groups of players will be great. Like does mean bat speed increase from say 20-24? then level out for a few years through age 30? when does it start to decline? By how much per season? And once there are enough baselines established and general decline trends found... are there different swing patterns or stances that maybe have a better natural resistance to those declines? Maybe not that you would change people's swings but you could identify players that have them naturally and target them preferentially or something. I dunno, the possibilities with these kinds of things are nearly endless. 

[Brownie19]

I thought Springer was just getting bad coaching the past few years.  I thought he was being told to be more of a contact hitter, instead of letting it loose.

He started swinging much harder half way through the season last year and went on an extended tear (followed a couple of s***** months).  Our new hitting guru is going to tell George to let it eat this year and he'll be fine.  

[GNick92]

Springer in right, Rodin everyday left fielder. Santander the DH. Santander makes George Bell look like Willie Mays defensively.