How the Blue Jays Bullpen Turned Things Around in 2025 – And What It Means for 2026

[Jesse Burrill]

Remember the 2024 Blue Jays season? Most fans would rather forget about it. Toronto finished last in the AL East amid disappointing offensive seasons from George Springer and Bo Bichette, and with a pitching staff that lacked consistency from top to bottom. By Baseball Reference WAR, Bowden Francis was the Blue Jays' second-best pitcher, which is a reflection of how thin the roster became. By the trade deadline, the team was in sell mode, and the season was effectively over.

The real culprit for why that season was so bad was the bullpen. All in all, it was a 4.82 bullpen ERA, and a dreadful -2.1 FanGraphs WAR number. That fWAR was by far the worst in the majors and the worst in franchise history. It’s not hard to see how it happened. Yimi García and Jordan Romano both got hurt, Tim Mayza was DFA’d mid-season, Erik Swanson had been demoted, and the best reliever the Blue Jays had was Ryan Yarbrough, who was brought in from the Dodgers at the trade deadline.

Almost a year to the day, I wrote a piece about what history says about bullpen units coming off historically poor seasons, concluding that a bounce back in 2025 was likely. Long story short, it was.

The Blue Jays' reliever fWAR jumped to 3.2 in 2025 (which is the exact number ZiPS projected coming into the season), a jump of over five wins from the year prior, ranking them 18th in all of baseball.

Of course, the turnaround wasn't simply the result of positive regression; the Blue Jays did a massive overhaul of the bullpen from one season to the next. Jeff Hoffman was brought in to anchor the ninth inning, Yariel Rodríguez shifted to the bullpen full-time, and Louis Varland and Seranthony Domínguez were added at the trade deadline. At the same time, several pitchers already in the organization took meaningful steps forward in 2025. The result was a bullpen that not only looked different on paper but also performed significantly better on the field. The difference is most obvious when comparing individual contributions year over year.

Blue Jays Bullpen bWAR Comparison - 2024 Contributors vs. 2025 Contributors

2024 Reliever	bWAR (2024)	2025 Reliever	bWAR (2025)
Chad Green	0.7	Yariel Rodríguez	1.4
Brendon Little	0.1	Braydon Fisher	1.4
Genesis Cabrera	-0.1	Brendon Little	1.1
Erik Swanson	-0.3	Eric Lauer	0.9*
Trevor Richards	-0.5	Tommy Nance	0.6
Nate Pearson	-0.7	Jeff Hoffman	0.5
Zach Pop	-1.4	Mason Fluharty	0.1

*Numbers as a reliever only, and are an estimate, as Baseball Reference does not differentiate between SP and RP WAR.

In a season that required all 162 games to clinch the AL East, the impact of strong bullpen performances was impossible to ignore. Mason Fluharty’s escape act against the Dodgers and Braydon Fisher's stranding of the zombie runner twice late in the season in Tampa are two instances that directly swung wins in the Blue Jays' favour. Ultimately, those small moments were key in deciding who won the AL East.

Getting better pitchers is half the battle; the Blue Jays' bullpen was also better as a group in several other categories:

Metric	2024	2025
K-BB%	11.3%	15.1%
SwStr%	10.3%	12.8%
Strand Rate	69.0%	71.9%
HR/9	1.46	1.04
FB Velo (mph)	94.0	95.1
Barrel Rate	8.7%	9.1%

As a whole, the unit improved in several areas. Yes, the barrel rate rose by 0.4%, but league-wide the barrel rate rose by 0.7%, so that's still an improvement for the Blue Jays. On top of that, they were able to strike out more batters, throw harder, and leave fewer men on base, while, most importantly, limiting the number of home runs allowed. For as much as the Blue Jays' bullpen had home run issues at times, the total number they gave up dropped from 92 in 2024 to 69 in 2025, an improvement of 23 total home runs.

Looking forward to 2026, all eyes are going to be on the bullpen yet again. The addition of Tyler Rogers is certainly going to help, especially when it comes to home runs. A return to health for Yimi García will also be beneficial, as will a full season of Louis Varland. In addition, the bullpen has more depth than in recent years. Yariel Rodríguez, who was a key part of the bullpen this past season, has been outrighted off the roster and will have to work his way back into the picture. The Blue Jays have two Rule 5-eligible players (Spencer Miles, Angel Bastardo) that may factor into this bullpen. Ricky Tiedemann, Chase Lee, and several other names with or without big league experience may also factor into the bullpen if need be.

For what it's worth, the ZiPS projections for the Blue Jays just released earlier this month, and that system has the Blue Jays bullpen taking yet another leap, to the 3.9 WAR mark. That number would have them in 13th place in MLB based on last season's numbers.

Now, as spring training grows closer, the Blue Jays could benefit from another bullpen arm. Both the starting rotation and the lineup seem to be set in stone, but the bullpen could be the easiest way the Blue Jays could raise their ceiling. Free agent Seranthony Domínguez could be an option to return, and there are always relievers that may be available via trade.

Entering 2026, the Blue Jays have reason to believe their bullpen can once again be a strength. Improved depth, better health, and favourable projections point towards continued progress, but the margin for error in the AL East remains razor-thin. The 2024 season served as a reminder of just how quickly things can unravel when the bullpen becomes a liability. For Toronto, sustaining this progress may be the clearest path to the Fall Classic and avoiding another season where things unravel just as quickly.

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[Leo Morgenstern]

For what it's worth, the Depth Charts projections at FanGraphs are quite high on Toronto's bullpen. They rank seventh right now. Currently those projections are only based on Steamer (with manual playing time and leverage estimates), but soon they'll also include ZiPS. And like Jesse mentions, ZiPS is high on the Jays' bullpen too. 

Here's what Dan Szymborski wrote in his Blue Jays ZiPS article: "Despite the middle-of-the-pack results last year, ZiPS is actually rather enamored with Toronto’s relief corps... their deep store of talent might even justify them trading a reliever or two."