Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2026)

[Spanky__99]

I woke up drunk and decided to not fight it, shots of rum and a few beers later, I'm dumn.

[Spanky__99]

I believe we're going to see a 5 WAR season out of Varsho man, he's figured s*** out.

 

[Jays24]

We got our high leverage lefty shutdown reliever lol

[G-Snarls]

Realistic for Macko to be a late season pen addition if things work out?

[Stangstag]

24 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

Realistic for Macko to be a late season pen addition if things work out?

Could definitely see it, he had a good showing vs the Americans yesterday 

[Stangstag]

18 hours ago, Jays24 said:

We got our high leverage lefty shutdown reliever lol

Why not 2??

[Joltin Joe]

Skubal be a Blue Jay next year. Gausman and Bieber contracts be done

[hanton]

On 3/13/2026 at 5:01 PM, Jays24 said:

We got our high leverage lefty shutdown reliever lol

someone needs to do some digging and find out how, this doesn't just happen

[Brownie19]

Pitching lab + different pitch

[Eat My Shatkins]

I do wonder how serious these injury concerns with the SPs are. Hopefully it's mostly just load management with Berrios, Bieber and even Yesavage who still hasn't pitched in ST yet. 

They have 8 quality MLB starters who don't belong in AAA, so they have to keep some of them out one way or another, Hopefully that's mostly what this is.

[Laika]

45 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

I do wonder how serious these injury concerns with the SPs are. Hopefully it's mostly just load management with Berrios, Bieber and even Yesavage who still hasn't pitched in ST yet. 

They have 8 quality MLB starters who don't belong in AAA, so they have to keep some of them out one way or another, Hopefully that's mostly what this is.

Seems like it for Yesavage and Bieber

Not so much Berrios 

[Spanky__99]

4 hours ago, Laika said:

Seems like it for Yesavage and Bieber

Not so much Berrios 

100%

[jaysblue]

20 hours ago, Joltin Joe said:

Skubal be a Blue Jay next year. Gausman and Bieber contracts be done

The only teams that likely could give Skubal a $400-500M contract if they want to are the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays and Dodgers. 

Yankees/Mets have the money to spend big and likely will be wanting to add an elite arm. Blue Jays have shown they're willing to fork out monster deals for the right players in previous offseason's - Ohtani, Soto, Tucker - and Skubal definitely is in that group. Dodgers rotation is already crowded and likely would have to trade some arms, but never count them out. 

I don't see any other teams getting involved with Skubal at those years and dollar figures. Phillies resigned Luzardo, so don't seem them at all being a dark horse anymore.

Also, will be interesting if the Pirates entertain trading Skenes next offseason. 

[John_Havok]

20 hours ago, hanton said:

someone needs to do some digging and find out how, this doesn't just happen

4seam fastballs are already a tick or two faster than sinkers usually. There's probably some exceptions for certain pitchers, but.. in general the average is like 1.5mph slower. 

Touching 94.6 with a sinker and touching 98 with a 4 seamer probably isnt THAT weird. I'd be more interested in the avg velo comparisons. 

[abola2121]

1 hour ago, jaysblue said:

The only teams that likely could give Skubal a $400-500M contract if they want to are the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays and Dodgers. 

Yankees/Mets have the money to spend big and likely will be wanting to add an elite arm. Blue Jays have shown they're willing to fork out monster deals for the right players in previous offseason's - Ohtani, Soto, Tucker - and Skubal definitely is in that group. Dodgers rotation is already crowded and likely would have to trade some arms, but never count them out. 

I don't see any other teams getting involved with Skubal at those years and dollar figures. Phillies resigned Luzardo, so don't seem them at all being a dark horse anymore.

Also, will be interesting if the Pirates entertain trading Skenes next offseason. 

I think the Jays would be more inclined to go after Peralta or Imai instead.

[hanton]

39 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

4seam fastballs are already a tick or two faster than sinkers usually. There's probably some exceptions for certain pitchers, but.. in general the average is like 1.5mph slower. 

Touching 94.6 with a sinker and touching 98 with a 4 seamer probably isnt THAT weird. I'd be more interested in the avg velo comparisons. 

he's definitely messing around with a 4 seamer

[Spanky__99]

9 minutes ago, hanton said:

he's definitely messing around with a 4 seamer

It mentions it right in the tweet you're talking about, Brownie gave you the answer.

[hanton]

2 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

It mentions it right in the tweet you're talking about, Brownie gave you the answer.

what?

[jaysblue]

33 minutes ago, abola2121 said:

I think the Jays would be more inclined to go after Peralta or Imai instead.

Luzardo would have been nice, but Phillies locked him up already. 

Otherwise, there is Peralta, Alcantara, Woodruff, Rogers, Ray, Mize, Bubic, Rasmussen, or Pivetta (could opt out). 

[Spanky__99]

On 3/13/2026 at 5:01 PM, Jays24 said:

We got our high leverage lefty shutdown reliever lol

 

21 hours ago, hanton said:

someone needs to do some digging and find out how, this doesn't just happen

 

21 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

Pitching lab + different pitch

 

18 minutes ago, hanton said:

he's definitely messing around with a 4 seamer

...

[hanton]

12 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

 

 

 

...

:thumbs up

[Spanky__99]

13 minutes ago, hanton said:

:thumbs up

🤔🙄

[abola2121]

34 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

Luzardo would have been nice, but Phillies locked him up already. 

Otherwise, there is Peralta, Alcantara, Woodruff, Rogers, Ray, Mize, Bubic, Rasmussen, or Pivetta (could opt out). 

Preferably guys who'll still be in their prime after 5 years.

[Spanky__99]

This is damm good...
 

 

[Brownie19]

One challenge is Little never really threw a 4 seamer in game, so we don't really even have a base to compare a velo gain against.

4 seamers are "typically" 1-2 MPH harder than a sinker.  If Little threw a 4 seamer, it might have already been 95+ last year.  It's averaging 96.7 this spring, so that wouldn't be an usual velo gain IMO.  That said - hitting 98.4 MPH certain grabs your attention!

I always found his pitch mix a little odd.  Typically guys with hammer curveballs utilize a 4 seam fastball and then you have sinker/slider guys (although this might be a bit outdated now).  I wonder if they want Little throwing at 4 seamer at the top of the zone so he can tunnel that curve better - start it out at the belt so he can land it for more called strikes.  That would make a lot of sense from a guy who clearly needs to throw more strikes.

When you're trying to tunnel a sinker and a curve that starts at the knees and dives out of the zone - it's easy to see why he walked to many.

I'm sure sliderguy can educate us all in what Little should be doing.

[Spanky__99]

13 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

One challenge is Little never really threw a 4 seamer in game, so we don't really even have a base to compare a velo gain against.

4 seamers are "typically" 1-2 MPH harder than a sinker.  If Little threw a 4 seamer, it might have already been 95+ last year.  It's averaging 96.7 this spring, so that wouldn't be an usual velo gain IMO.  That said - hitting 98.4 MPH certain grabs your attention!

I always found his pitch mix a little odd.  Typically guys with hammer curveballs utilize a 4 seam fastball and then you have sinker/slider guys (although this might be a bit outdated now).  I wonder if they want Little throwing at 4 seamer at the top of the zone so he can tunnel that curve better - start it out at the belt so he can land it for more called strikes.  That would make a lot of sense from a guy who clearly needs to throw more strikes.

When you're trying to tunnel a sinker and a curve that starts at the knees and dives out of the zone - it's easy to see why he walked to many.

I'm sure sliderguy can educate us all in what Little should be doing.

There was an article written about the 4S and slider he's to implement this spring by Keegan I believe, was a good read.

[hanton]

36 minutes ago, Spanky__99 said:

🤔🙄

You answered my question I gave you a thumbs up

[John_Havok]

I know people are upset at Little's playoff performances and rightly so, but when you have a a guy with 100th percentile whiff rate and 97th percentile ground ball rate, you definitely want to keep him around and do whatever it takes to make it work.

His 7% throw rate cutter sucks. If he can dial in a 4 seam at 96 even just to keep it in the heads of the hitter(especially RHB) that something other than a sinker or curve is coming 93% of the time.... it might be what the doctor ordered even if the pitch itself isn't that impressive from a pure "stuff" standpoint. As with anything though, gotta be able to land it for strikes. 

[sliderguy35]

fun brendon little stat: last year he had a walk rate of 12.9% after starting the count 0-1. Out of the 1424 pitchers with at least 30 IP over the last 5 seasons, that is the highest walk rate on record, and what's crazier is that none of the other 1423 is even above 12%

last year, 87% of ALL SWINGS against Little ended in a whiff, a foul ball, or an in-play ground ball. hitters realized by mid-season that swinging was just a -EV option against him so they adapted and basically gave up on swinging altogether. from july 1 onwards, he had the lowest swing rate in MLB by more than 2% and he just couldn't adapt. he also had the lowest zone rate in baseball by almost 5%(!)

it didn't really matter what pitch he came to camp with this year, he just needed something he could zone consistently enough to punish hitters from being /too/ passive. when he was awesome in the 1st half last year, he was still in the bottom 10 in swing rate, it's always going to be a part of his profile. he just needs to be able to entice hitters enough to up their swing rate to reasonable levels again. 

the 4 seam makes the most sense to accomplish that goal, even if it's below average shape wise b/c it's usually the easiest pitch for guys to zone consistently. the added velocity is nice since gives him a bit of margin for error in the zone, but ultimately it doesn't really change anything if he can't prove that he can zone it half the time. 

[Spanky__99]

Varsho cleared the bags today with another gapper, and Springer hit his first dinger... bring on March 27th. 

Varsho has 10 xbase hits in 37 AB's lol... 👀