Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2026)

[Spanky__99]

News on Barreira, please stay healthy man...

 

Latest News

Mar 22, 2026 12:54 PM EDT

Barriera has been touching 98 mph this spring, Mitch Bannon of The Athletic reports.

Analysis

The 22-year-old southpaw has had an injury-ravaged start to his career after being selected 23rd overall in the 2022 MLB Draft, pitching just five combined innings in 2024 and 2025 due to hybrid Tommy John/internal brace surgery in April 2024 and then a fractured forearm last August. Barriera still has plenty of time to get back on track and re-establish himself as a prospect, but his goal in 2026 will be proving he can stay on the mound and build up reps and innings.

[Spanky__99]

48 minutes ago, The_DH said:

Where did you see about Bastardo/Miles?

I'm also not yet convinced about Davis Schneider over Leo.

 

[Spanky__99]

Rotation is set...
 

 

[jaysblue]

1 hour ago, Spanky__99 said:

 

Hopefully they take Fisher for the pen. But he has options.

[glory]

[Brownie19]

5 more years of Boss Atkins?  

How soon before fans are upset over this?  End of April is my guess.

[The_DH]

12 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

 

Thanks Spanky, when I was watching the Schneider interview at the game, Schneider kind of left it open and I don't remember them saying Bastardo had been told.  Might have happened after the game.  

[The_DH]

I've also got this weird feeling about a trade happening this week: Lukes for a pitcher.  I have no source or anything, just see him as an extra.

[Laika]

 

 

 

[sliderguy35]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

 

i kinda don't know what to make of the changeup. high vert changeups like that used to be much more common but stuff models hate them because of a lack of separation from the fastball so they're slowly being phased out. 4% of changeups had 15+ inches of IVB in 2021, that was down to 1% in 2025.

but, when i pulled the performance of these high vert changeups (also with the caveat of filtering for 75+ mph to filter out any position players pitching) over the last 5 years, their effectiveness has skyrocketed over the last 2 years. run value & whiff rate are up, barrels are down. (see below)

this could just be survivorship bias as the ineffective vert-y changeups get filtered out of the game & only the guys who succeeded with it in the minors are left. or the jays think that there's something to this pitch shape that stuff models aren't capturing? i'm not sure, but it'll be interesting to follow moving forward

[Orgfiller]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

 

 

 

The Blue Jays offspeed (splitter/changeups) factory going to work again. Let's hope this brings good results to Cease throughout the season and in the postseason.

I don't know about "added a sweeper" though, pretty sure Cease has been throwing a sweeper somewhat infrequently for a few seasons now. "Sweepers" are just modified sliders with more horizontal movement anyway, so he could've just adjusted his original slider along with the rest of the league to get more H-break/less V-break.

[John_Havok]

38 minutes ago, sliderguy35 said:

i kinda don't know what to make of the changeup. high vert changeups like that used to be much more common but stuff models hate them because of a lack of separation from the fastball so they're slowly being phased out. 4% of changeups had 15+ inches of IVB in 2021, that was down to 1% in 2025.

but, when i pulled the performance of these high vert changeups (also with the caveat of filtering for 75+ mph to filter out any position players pitching) over the last 5 years, their effectiveness has skyrocketed over the last 2 years. run value & whiff rate are up, barrels are down. (see below)

this could just be survivorship bias as the ineffective vert-y changeups get filtered out of the game & only the guys who succeeded with it in the minors are left. or the jays think that there's something to this pitch shape that stuff models aren't capturing? i'm not sure, but it'll be interesting to follow moving forward

So basically, the changeup  drops waaaay more than others?

[Orgfiller]

5 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

So basically, the changeup  drops waaaay more than others?

I think the opposite? The changeup "drops" (vertically) very little, looks identical to the fastball but is 10 mph slower and with some arm-side run. It's like a sinker/2-seam variation to the 4-seam except he somehow gets 10 mph of separation between them.

Seems almost like a reverse sweeper.

[mphenhef]

I don't remember what podcast it was I was listening to but they mentioned Cease struck out 4 off that new changeup in his last spring start.

[Laika]

20 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

So basically, the changeup  drops waaaay more than others?

Yeah the opposite 

Think of it as a "straight change" 

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Yeah the opposite 

Think of it as a "straight change" 

That's a good way of putting it.  Are there any pitchers who throw a similar changeup?  That might help people picture it.  

[Laika]

42 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

That's a good way of putting it.  Are there any pitchers who throw a similar changeup?  That might help people picture it.  

Not really!

If we are looking for something like 17 IVB and 9 inches of horizontal break...

Rico Garcia is like 14 and 14 so more run
Tyler Wells is similar to Garcia 
Giolito is like 12 and 12 

John Means and some other lefties had/have high IVB changeups in recent years but I would be more hesitant to comp a LHP. Cantillo has a high IVB changeup. 

 

Honestly the best comps I can find seem to be John Means (but he is LHP), Kodi Whitley, and Dylan Cease himself but his old version that was in the 70s for mph. lol

So maybe Kodi Whitley is the only comp?

 

WAIT. MARCO ESTRADA. MARCO ESTRADA ALERT. 18 IVB CHANGEUP WITHOUT HUGE ARMSIDE RUN. 12 MPH SEPARATION.  

Josh Collmenter and Tyler Clippard also enter the conversation 

This could get weird.

[Brownie19]

OK - that makes sense to me.  I was going to ask about Estrada/Clippard.  For whatever reason - Jason Bere came to mind - the fosh!

[mphenhef]

2 hours ago, Laika said:

Not really!

If we are looking for something like 17 IVB and 9 inches of horizontal break...

Rico Garcia is like 14 and 14 so more run
Tyler Wells is similar to Garcia 
Giolito is like 12 and 12 

John Means and some other lefties had/have high IVB changeups in recent years but I would be more hesitant to comp a LHP. Cantillo has a high IVB changeup. 

 

Honestly the best comps I can find seem to be John Means (but he is LHP), Kodi Whitley, and Dylan Cease himself but his old version that was in the 70s for mph. lol

So maybe Kodi Whitley is the only comp?

 

WAIT. MARCO ESTRADA. MARCO ESTRADA ALERT. 18 IVB CHANGEUP WITHOUT HUGE ARMSIDE RUN. 12 MPH SEPARATION.  

Josh Collmenter and Tyler Clippard also enter the conversation 

This could get weird.

Something that imitates Estrada’s change up would be very exciting.  At any rate, there could be some benefit to a pitch that’s different than normal too.

[Laika]

Here is the full list of potentially comparable changeups to the 11 Cease threw on the weekend. As you can see, nobody is really comparable. Most of these are much lower velo. Like, Clippard and Estrada had 88 mph fastballs at this time. If you try to find a velo comparable you can see 2017 Blake Snell, but he changed the pitch a lot since then. 

I find it interesting that Cease did not throw this in his other starts, he just busted it out now. Is this a random game where it worked or is this a new toy? Very fun. 

Here is Cease on Mar 22:::

Mar 22

11 changeups
17 IVB
9 IHB
1808 rpm
86.8 mph
vs FB, -10.5 mph
7 swings, 4 whiffs, 57% per swing

And the list since 2017 with 50 minimum pitches thrown. 

BTW Estrada had like 2000 rpm on his changeup. Logan Webb is like 1450. 1808 rpm is not that unusual or abnormally high for a changeup, but they are weird pitches man. Whole spectrum from dead fish droppers to high spin Devin Williams types. I'm not sure where the IVB comes from. Release angle? 

 

year	last_name, first_name	team_name_abbrev	pitch_hand	avg_speed	pitches_thrown	total_pitches	pitch_per	pitcher_break_z	league_break_z	diff_z	rise	pitcher_break_z_induced	pitcher_break_x
2017	McGrath, Kyle	SD	L	78	119	291	0.408934708	23.4	-30.7	-7.3	-24	21.8	5.3
2017	Estrada, Marco	TOR	R	77.5	1033	3242	0.318630475	27.4	-31.3	-3.9	-12	20.4	11.8
2018	Estrada, Marco	TOR	R	76.8	923	2497	0.369643572	29.6	-32	-2.4	-7	18.6	10
2019	Means, John	BAL	L	80.9	775	2680	0.289179104	24.6	-31.1	-6.5	-21	18.4	12.3
2017	Montgomery, Jordan	NYY	L	84.3	477	2525	0.188910891	20.9	-26.9	-6	-22	18.2	9.5
2019	Estrada, Marco	ATH	R	75.7	105	333	0.315315315	31.5	-34.2	-2.7	-8	18.2	12.3
2017	Collmenter, Josh	ATL	R	76.9	104	306	0.339869281	29.9	-28.7	1.2	4	18.1	6.8
2017	Abad, Fernando	BOS	L	77.8	173	769	0.22496749	30.1	-34.3	-4.2	-12	17.8	8.1
2021	Webb, Tyler	STL	L	79.6	73	392	0.18622449	25.6	-29.4	-3.8	-13	17.6	5.3
2017	Moore, Andrew	SEA	R	81.5	171	917	0.186477644	23.4	-30.4	-7	-23	17.4	10.2
2020	Means, John	BAL	L	84.9	184	745	0.246979866	20.9	-28.7	-7.8	-27	17.3	13.4
2021	Whitley, Kodi	STL	R	84.7	112	401	0.279301746	21.1	-29.2	-8.1	-28	17.1	9.1
2021	Means, John	BAL	L	83.4	634	2328	0.27233677	22.7	-29.6	-6.9	-23	17	12.8
2017	Santiago, Héctor	MIN	L	82.9	245	1233	0.198702352	24.6	-31.6	-7.1	-22	16.9	15.4
2018	Montgomery, Jordan	NYY	L	83	100	453	0.220750552	23.6	-31.1	-7.5	-24	16.8	9.4
2017	Urías, Julio	LAD	L	81.3	104	412	0.252427184	25.7	-32	-6.3	-20	16.8	16.6
2018	Webb, Tyler	STL	L	78.4	56	354	0.15819209	27.4	-32.2	-4.8	-15	16.7	6.8
2019	Webb, Tyler	STL	L	79.7	171	881	0.194097616	26.3	-29.6	-3.3	-11	16.6	6.6
2018	Clippard, Tyler	TOR	R	78.5	361	1147	0.314734089	28.8	-33.9	-5	-15	16.6	11.8
2024	Means, John	BAL	L	82	91	320	0.284375	24.2	-32.3	-8.1	-25	16.5	12.5
2023	Means, John	BAL	L	80.9	113	339	0.333333333	25.4	-32.8	-7.4	-22	16.5	11.6
2017	Clippard, Tyler	HOU	R	79.1	399	1113	0.358490566	28	-31.6	-3.6	-11	16.4	14.5
2020	Webb, Tyler	STL	L	78.6	82	346	0.23699422	27.7	-30.5	-2.8	-9	16.4	5.4
2017	Osich, Josh	SF	L	84.3	67	759	0.088274045	23	-28.6	-5.6	-20	16.3	12.3
2017	Santana, Ervin	MIN	R	85.8	329	3231	0.10182606	21.4	-27.5	-6.1	-22	16.2	11.1
2017	Garrett, Amir	CIN	L	80.8	182	1235	0.147368421	25.5	-31	-5.6	-18	16.1	8.7
2017	Wimmers, Alex	MIN	R	85.1	57	155	0.367741935	21.7	-29.1	-7.4	-25	15.9	12.2
2017	Snell, Blake	TB	L	86.3	481	2275	0.211428571	20.7	-25.4	-4.7	-19	15.8	9.4
2019	Clippard, Tyler	CLE	R	78.4	283	929	0.304628633	29.1	-34.9	-5.9	-17	15.8	12.5
2023	Cease, Dylan	CWS	R	74.6	99	3262	0.030349479	33.3	-37.9	-4.5	-12	15.8	7
2020	Garcia, Rico	SF	R	85.7	56	177	0.316384181	21.5	-30.5	-9	-30	15.7	11.9
2023	Falter, Bailey	PIT	L	84.6	59	1296	0.045524691	22.6	-32.4	-9.8	-30	15.7	7.6
2019	Petit, Yusmeiro	ATH	R	81.5	219	1137	0.192612137	24.2	-31.9	-7.7	-24	15.7	10.2
2017	Weaver, Jered	SD	R	77.1	118	664	0.177710843	31.3	-33.7	-2.4	-7	15.6	13.6
2018	Petit, Yusmeiro	ATH	R	81.9	245	1307	0.187452181	24	-31.1	-7.1	-23	15.5	9.5
2021	Cease, Dylan	CWS	R	78	213	2957	0.072032465	29.3	-35.4	-6.1	-17	15.5	7.3
2022	Smith, Caleb	AZ	L	83.6	274	1234	0.222042139	24.2	-30.9	-6.7	-22	15.3	13.7
2017	Breslow, Craig	CLE	L	78.9	109	593	0.18381113	30.7	-36.7	-6	-16	15.3	14.5
2021	Clippard, Tyler	AZ	R	78.3	140	410	0.341463415	29.8	-35.6	-5.8	-16	15.2	13
2020	Clippard, Tyler	MIN	R	78	144	416	0.346153846	29.8	-34.9	-5	-14	15.2	13.6
2022	Cease, Dylan	CWS	R	77.9	76	3120	0.024358974	29.9	-36.2	-6.2	-17	15.2	8.3
2020	Holland, Derek	PIT	L	84.3	115	719	0.159944367	23.4	-30.5	-7.1	-23	15.1	12.1
2017	Anderson, Chase	MIL	R	83.6	362	2251	0.160817414	25.7	-30.9	-5.2	-17	15.1	18.3
2022	Whitley, Kodi	STL	R	83.5	93	272	0.341911765	24.2	-30.8	-6.6	-22	15.1	12.1
2019	Báez, Pedro	LAD	R	86.2	348	1090	0.319266055	21.7	-28.9	-7.2	-25	15	10.2
2019	Smyly, Drew	PHI	L	82.4	103	2130	0.048356808	27.1	-31.1	-4	-13	15	3.5
2020	Petit, Yusmeiro	ATH	R	81.2	57	315	0.180952381	26.3	-34.2	-7.9	-23	15	10.1

[sliderguy35]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

BTW Estrada had like 2000 rpm on his changeup. Logan Webb is like 1450. 1808 rpm is not that unusual or abnormally high for a changeup, but they are weird pitches man. Whole spectrum from dead fish droppers to high spin Devin Williams types. I'm not sure where the IVB comes from. Release angle? 

the IVB comes from the axis the ball is spinning on. All these guys are carry fastball types who are used to keeping their hand behind the ball and spinning it efficiently on an axis between 12:00 and 1:00 on a clock face, so they end up doing the same thing with their changeups. in order to create depth on a changeup, you need to have the ball spinning somewhat sideways at an axis of 2:00 or below on a clock face.

there are 3 ways to achieve this:

1. the old fashioned way of pronating through it. if you take your right hand, face your palm down, and then try turning your hand to point your thumb down, that's pronating through the baseball. by getting to the "inside" of it, you're brute forcing the side-spin (see: devin williams, logan henderson or ryan pepiot). it used to be the only way the changeup was taught, but now it's a lot more rare since we know that some guys just cant get their hand into that position and also throw hard. based on cease's high arm slot and spin efficiencies, he's not really a candidate for this.
    
2. use seam shifted wake to get the air pressure around the ball to shift the axis of the ball down mid-flight. by positioning the seams of the ball correctly when you release, the ball's axis naturally gets pushed down past that 2:00 range, giving it late movement (this is what skubal's changeup does). caveat here being that you need to spin the ball with a certain level of efficiency (usually 70-85%) or else the air pressure won't catch properly and you'll have a floating duck of a changeup. cease and skubal are actually nearly identical in terms of release height / arm angle / spin efficiencies, so I was hoping this was the route they would try to implement.
    
3. use your fingers to manually kick the axis down past 2:00. this is the "kick-change" that everyone is picking up recently. by spiking the middle finger, it forces the axis of the ball down at release to the correct range to get depth. it's an awkward grip to hold but it doesn't really require any additional finger / wrist dexterity at release to do and can be used at basically any arm slot, which is why it's caught on like wildfire. ultimately i figured this would be where the jays landed since it's the new / trendy way to go about teaching a changeup.

instead it doesn't look like cease's changeup is trying to do any of the 3 things above, he's pretty clearly holding some kind of stock changeup grip & spinning it on the same axis as his fastball, which is why it's carrying so much. maybe he couldn't really get the feel of seam shifting it & the kick grip was really uncomfortable in his hand? or maybe the jays really do like this carry changeup shape for some reason & think it's good enough as a 5-10% usage pitch as is. 

[Laika]

Yeah that all makes sense

If he can repeat that pitch and command it at all, it really should be okay as a 10% pitch 

It just needs to be better than his 8% curveball which gets hammered for some reason. Probably just hangs it too much. 

A high vert CH is so weird though. Like, where do you try and throw it? Above the zone? Low in the zone and people pop it up a lot? 

[Omar]

Seems like Petey is putting in a lot of work with him pre season.  An effective straight change would be a good complement to his four seamer.  Let's hope he keeps the ball in the yard this season.  This rotation will be fun to watch.

[Eat My Shatkins]

Let's hope when September rolls around he have peak Gausman, peak Cease, peak Bieber and peak Yesavage all healthy and just mowing teams down.

[John_Havok]

22 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

Let's hope when September rolls around he have peak Gausman, peak Cease, peak Bieber and peak Yesavage all healthy and just mowing teams down.

How dare you besmirch the possibility having a peak Ponce.

Even if he shifts to the pen in a playoff scenario, Ponce might be the real dark horse MVP of the staff this season.

[Eat My Shatkins]

15 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

How dare you besmirch the possibility having a peak Ponce.

Even if he shifts to the pen in a playoff scenario, Ponce might be the real dark horse MVP of the staff this season.

Well to be fair we don't know what peak Ponce is yet, but yeah I hope he lights it up this year. I would have included peak Sherzer too but the guy is north of 40 so we won't ever see him at his peak again, although I hope he has a strong year too.

 

To me though, the 4 I included are the real meat of the rotation and if healthy should make up what will be the post season rotation when/if we get there. That's why I singled them out and didn't include Ponce, Sherzer, Lauer and Berrios.

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

Well to be fair we don't know what peak Ponce is yet, but yeah I hope he lights it up this year. I would have included peak Sherzer too but the guy is north of 40 so we won't ever see him at his peak again, although I hope he has a strong year too.

 

To me though, the 4 I included are the real meat of the rotation and if healthy should make up what will be the post season rotation when/if we get there. That's why I singled them out and didn't include Ponce, Sherzer, Lauer and Berrios.

If Berrios has put the elbow issue behind him he could end up being an important rotation arm as well. Who knows how the stress fracture is going to affect him though. 

[John_Havok]

17 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

Well to be fair we don't know what peak Ponce is yet, but yeah I hope he lights it up this year. I would have included peak Sherzer too but the guy is north of 40 so we won't ever see him at his peak again, although I hope he has a strong year too.

 

To me though, the 4 I included are the real meat of the rotation and if healthy should make up what will be the post season rotation when/if we get there. That's why I singled them out and didn't include Ponce, Sherzer, Lauer and Berrios.

Ponce is an 80 grade name - the real star of the offseason. 

[John_Havok]

16 hours ago, max silver said:

If Berrios has put the elbow issue behind him he could end up being an important rotation arm as well. Who knows how the stress fracture is going to affect him though. 

Given my limited knowledge of stress fractures, I can't help but feel his recovery would be on the quicker side given that he didn't even know he had one, and was pain free and throwing well at the time of the accidental diagnosis. 

It's interesting to think where he'd be right now had he not been evaluated for insurance for the WBC. Would he still be throwing and nobody having a clue it was there?

[Orgfiller]

33 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

Ponce is an 80 grade name - the real star of the offseason. 

The boring Cody name brings it down to about a 55 if we're being honest. It's no Vladimir Guerrero.