Article: Blue Jays Bullpen Trust Rankings

[Owen Hill]

Despite a few blips on the radar and injuries to some key guys, the Blue Jays' bullpen has been a bright spot for the team early in the season. Jays relievers have paired their league-best K% of 28.4% with a 9.0% BB% to get the best K-BB% in baseball (entering games on Wednesday). 

Despite flashes of dominance, Toronto’s is just the ninth best bullpen in baseball according to fWAR (1.5), mainly because of the pure number of home runs they’ve given up as a group. They’re tied with the Athletics and Rays for the ninth most homers allowed in baseball, which has led to a slightly inflated 3.80 ERA, putting them in the middle of the pack at 14th in baseball.

All things considered, a bullpen with elite strikeout numbers but league-average results is something most Jays fans would have signed up for in a heartbeat after the absolute tire-fire we were subjected to watching in 2024.

The back end of the bullpen was bolstered this offseason with the addition of Jeff Hoffman and the return of Yimi García, while returning guys like Chad Green and Yariel Rodríguez have gotten big outs in high-leverage spots as well, especially when the former two have been unavailable. The two lefties, Brendon Little and Mason Fluharty, have been a revelation, as both have worked their way into John Schneider’s circle of trust. They have pitched high-intensity innings, getting both left-handed and right-handed hitters out. The final two bullpen spots have been a bit of a revolving door as the rotation has needed help and guys have struggled, but Braydon Fisher and José Ureña have successfully filled those spots in recent days.

With that being said, let’s get into my personal Blue Jays bullpen trust hierarchy!

Low Leverage Only, Please!
As much as we want to avoid seeing these guys in the game whenever possible, their ability to eat multiple innings in blowouts, either wins or losses, and pitch early in games on bullpen days is vital to every major league team. In the Blue Jays' case, in which the starting rotation has faced some injury issues, forcing the front office to reach into their depth options, these guys have become even more important, as they can open games before a guy like Eric Lauer pitches bulk innings. We probably won’t see the guys in this tier closing games any time soon, but it doesn’t mean they’re not important!

José Ureña
José Ureña is a recent addition to this Blue Jays bullpen, as he signed as a free agent earlier this month after he was DFA'd by the New York Mets. We haven’t seen a whole lot of Ureña in his brief time as a Blue Jay, and digging into his stats from this year, we can see why.

In 7 1/3 innings across three appearances as a Blue Jay, Ureña has given up more home runs (three) than batters he’s struck out (two). The standard small sample size caveat applies here, but when we dig into his peripherals, we can see an expected ERA over 13, an expected batting average close to .400, and the fact that he’s at the bottom of the barrel when it comes not only to missing bats, but missing barrels. 

It’s not hard to see why Ureña’s made just three appearances in nearly three weeks on the Blue Jays roster, and I’d expect his roster spot to be the first available when one of Erik Swanson, Ryan Burr, or Nick Sandlin is healthy enough to rejoin the big league team.

Braydon Fisher
Fisher is another new face to the Blue Jays bullpen, called up from Triple A on May 7 and making his major league debut just a few days later. Another small sample size caveat is required here, but in four appearances, Fisher has looked effective coming out of the bullpen. 

Unlike Ureña, there’s a little bit to dream on when it comes to Fisher’s stuff. He relies heavily on his breaking balls, a hard slider in the upper 80s and a slower curveball in the low 80s, but so far his approach has been effective. Fisher’s done a good job of getting swings outside of the zone and has yet to walk a hitter in five innings while striking out six.

He’s only thrown his mid-90s four-seamer 12 percent of the time, so I have some concerns that word will get out on what Fisher is trying to do to hitters soon, but so far, it’s hard not to be happy with what we’ve seen from him.

He’s got a lot of work to do to build up enough trust to move into the next tier of bullpen arm, but he’s on the right track early in his career.

Chad Green
This one might be a surprise for a lot of readers!

Chad Green has been effective this season, pitching to a 3.48 ERA and giving up just 17 hits (.227 BA).

Yet, gone are the days of Green being one of the most feared relievers in the New York Yankees' bullpen. At 33 years old and with a couple of major arm injuries behind him, Green has lost a tick on his high-spin four-seam fastball, which has also hurt his already mediocre slider.

Not only does Green not miss bats like he used to, but he is currently giving up hard contact and barrels at a first percentile rate. He’s managed to survive so far this year without giving up too much catastrophic damage, but he’s already given up seven homers in just 20 1/3 innings pitched, the most among any reliever in baseball.

To be frank, it’s really hard to use a reliever that’s liable to give up a homer at any time in close games!

His expected ERA sits at 5.73, and while flyball pitchers with his profile tend to outperform their expected stats, I have a hard time trusting Green will be able to outrun them if he continues to rack up high-leverage innings.

Trusted in Close Games, but Not Against the Top of the Order
This category is for the guys I trust to get big outs late in games but feel a lot more comfortable watching against the bottom of the lineup or with more than a one-run cushion.

Yariel Rodríguez
The lone name in this category is Yariel Rodríguez, and based on how he’s been used recently, I think John Schneider agrees with my evaluation.

The Blue Jays pushed Rodríguez to be a starter in his first season as a big leaguer, but those days look to be done based on how effective he’s looked as a reliever so far in 2025. Instead of having to leave some gas in the tank and maintain his composure for five or six innings, Rodríguez is now freed up to come out of the 'pen throwing max effort four-seamers and rip off hard sliders for an inning or two, and he looks really comfortable doing it. 

After a few blips early in the season, eight of Rodríguez’s last nine appearances have been scoreless, with five of them being more than one inning of work.

On Tuesday night, in a game the Blue Jays were winning 3-0, Schneider opted to use Rodríguez in the eighth inning against the nine through two hitters in the Padres lineup, rather than sending out Yimi García to set up for Jeff Hoffman as we’ve seen so often in 2025. Rodríguez rewarded Schneider with a 1-2-3 inning, including groundouts from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arráez.

Am I still a little bit skeptical of Yariel Rodríguez? Absolutely. But based on what he’s done lately, I think trying him out in some higher-leverage situations is absolutely warranted, especially considering the benefits García and Hoffman will see from not being forced to pitch in every close game.

The Lefties
I’m sure I could have fit the lefties into one of my other three categories, but considering how strategically the Jays deploy their left-handed relievers, and how effective the southpaws have been at getting the job done so far, I figured they deserved their own group.

Mason Fluharty
Mason Fluharty is another Blue Jays reliever who made his major league debut this year, and in 19 appearances, his success has been one of the best developments for this team early in the year.

He doesn’t light up the radar gun, with his cutter averaging just under 90 mph and sweeper sitting in the low 80s, but his nearly sidearm delivery and impressive movement profiles on both pitches have helped him not only to induce weak contact but miss a lot of bats entirely. Fluharty has a very good 31.9% whiff rate and an elite 29.5% hard-hit rate.

We expected Fluharty to be tough on lefties, but the true revelation has been what he’s done to righties. They’re hitting just .091 off of him, with just three hits in 37 trips to the plate. 

Fluharty has been more than reliable in middle relief, against both righties and lefties, and I’d love to see him continue to get opportunities against tough left-handed hitters in big spots.

Brendon Little
If I were perfectly honest, Fluharty probably belongs in the same category as Rodríguez, and Brendon Little would slide into the next category with the back-end guys. 

After getting some solid run in 2024 where he was good but not great, working a 3.74 ERA in 45 2/3 innings, Little was expected to play a big role in 2025’s new-look bullpen. Early on, he’s delivered. 

He has a 1.61 ERA in 22 1/3 innings pitched and has held opponents to a .173 batting average. He tunnels a curveball and sinker very effectively, with one breaking towards right-handed hitters and the other away, which has led to his ridiculous 52.7% whiff rate and 37% strikeout rate. Little is somewhat prone to hard contact, but it feels like it’s almost impossible for hitters to raise the ball against him, as he’s racked up a 61.7% groundball rate.

Little has pitched some huge innings for the Blue Jays, and I feel more than comfortable every time I see him warming up in the bullpen, preparing to face the other team’s best left-handed hitters.

Slam the Door
This category is simple. Game on the line, a one-run lead to protect, who do I want coming in to pitch?

Yimi García
Ironically, the two guys I trust most with the game on the line have some inflated numbers early in the season.

Yimi García has shown flashes of being as dominant as any pitcher in baseball, with a four-seamer that gets up to 99 mph and a pair of breaking balls that seem to never miss the bottom left quadrant of the strike zone. He is the guy I want coming in to clean up someone else’s mess late in the game, or against the other team’s best hitters because he’s so effective at inducing strikeouts. He has a 30.4% strikeout rate this year, coming almost entirely in high-leverage situations. 

The 3.32 ERA isn’t as impressive as that of many of the other elite relievers in the game, but García has thrown just 19 innings so far this season, and it’s really only a couple of tough outings that have brought that number up.

Jeff Hoffman
Finally, my most trusted reliever in the Blue Jays bullpen is the closer, Jeff Hoffman.

Similar to García, Hoffman’s numbers are inflated due to a few poor outings in which he got hit around. His 5.48 ERA is quite cringeworthy, but his leash is still pretty long before I worry about the team demoting him from his role as the closer. 

Hoffman differs from many relievers because he offers a legitimate four-pitch mix, which can feel like an embarrassment of riches when he blows a high-90s four-seamer by a hitter and follows it up with an elite slider and hard splitter. 

The Jays have felt his slip-ups harder than anyone else’s this year, as they typically result in being the difference between a win and a loss, but there’s not a pitcher on the staff that offers Hoffman’s combination of pure stuff and command, and not a pitcher on the staff I want in the biggest spot of a game more than him.

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