Shape of the Blue Jays: Shane Bieber, Alejandro Kirk, Trey Yesavage

[Matthew Creally]

Welcome to Shape of the Blue Jays, my column where I dig into Statcast numbers to analyze recent pitch shape and swing shape trends for Toronto Blue Jays players and discuss how they have impacted their performance. Click here to read the last edition.

Quick Hits: ABS Mishaps

• A lot of things went wrong in the Houston series, and one of them is flying under the radar due to the broader fundamental mistakes that cost the Jays in the rubber match: They got absolutely schooled by the Astros when it came to ABS challenges. Houston was a perfect 5-for-5 through 4 innings of Monday's opener, including 3-for-3 in the first inning. The Blue Jays went 0-for-2 and were out of challenges in the bottom of the 2nd.
• It's true that home plate umpire Bill Miller had a brutal start to the game, but the Blue Jays learned that just because the umpire isn't at his best doesn't mean it's okay to start blindly challenging every close pitch. If the top of the order is going to be lifeless and the margins are going to be thin, wasting challenges is something that will haunt them eventually.
• On Tuesday, the Jays were more careful, not even attempting a challenge through 7 innings. With the go-ahead run on base in a tie game in the top of the 8th, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got a 1-0 slider from old friend Nate Pearson that was easily off the outside corner of the plate but called a strike anyway. Guerrero didn't challenge. The next batter, Jesus Sanchez, unsuccessfully challenged an obvious strike on an 0-1 fastball before striking out swinging on the very next pitch.
• In the finale, George Springer challenged a called third strike. It was a changeup that was in the zone by more than 3" according to Baseball Savant. Alejandro Kirk successfully overturned a ball call in the top half of the next inning at catcher, but he would lose one on a close call while hitting just a half-inning after that. Blue Jays hitters were victimized by multiple bad calls late in the game, but were unable to do anything about it thanks to their earlier mistakes, and it was an extremely fitting end to a disappointing series that the Astros won Wednesday's game on an overturned strike 3 call.

Shane Bieber

Bieber showcased passable stuff in his much-anticipated return to the mound. His four-seamer continued to sit in the low-90s with 19" of iVB and 11" of run compared to 18"/10" last year. He was able to mix in plenty of cutters, while the kick change that he revamped during his rehab process in 2025 got 4 whiffs on 8 swings. Unfortunately, none of that matters without good location, which is the primary reason he gave up 5 barrels, 10 hard hits (17 BBE), and 3 consecutive home runs to the Astros. He was never able to elevate the fastball, missing middle-down most of the time, while his slider was either hung or bounced with no real in-between. Only 1 of the 3 homers came on a true meatball, that being the fastball that Taylor Trammell sent into the 500 level, which perfectly illustrated why simply avoiding the heart of the plate isn't going to cut it when you don't throw hard. Command and execution have to be top-notch for a guy like Bieber. I'd be more concerned if his fastball was sitting in the high-80s, but he's going to have to do a better job of hitting his spots in his next start.

Shane Bieber fastball (left) and slider (right) location, June 23 vs HOU (Statcast)

Alejandro Kirk

It's still very early on in the season for Kirk, which is good news as he's slashing just .222/.267/.259 since his return from the IL. His swing-and-miss and strikeout rates are slightly up compared to last year, but stop me if you've heard this before about some of his teammates: We're still waiting on the chase (+9.2% vs 2025) and batted ball quality (xwOBACON down 122 points vs 2025) to return to career norms. Interestingly, this is the most pull-oriented we've seen Kirk in his career, something he isn't doing when he's at his best. His current sample of batted balls is small enough to even out naturally in the near future, but the inflated pull rates are nonetheless backed up by his bat tracking stats.

Year	Bat Speed	Bat Speed 90	Swing Length	Swing Tilt	Attack Angle	Attack Direction	Contact Point vs Center of Mass
2025	72.5	77.2	7.2'	24°	8°	5° oppo	30.1"
2026	70.6	74.8	7.3'	22°	7°	1° oppo	31.2"

His groundballs and popups are up, a classic indicator of a guy still looking to find his timing. Brandon Valenzuela getting off to a hot start theoretically affords the Jays the ability to take things slowly with Kirk, although I'm not sure this is the sort of thing that will get better if he only plays 3-4 times per week.

Trey Yesavage

On Wednesday against the Astros, Yesavage threw the highest percentage of sliders (43%) we've ever seen from him in a big-league start, excluding game 5 of the World Series. His previous season-high was his last start in Boston (32%), and before that, it was two starts earlier against the Orioles (28%). This was a new culmination of a pattern that's been going on for a while now: A decreased feel for the splitter, which was used a season-low 20% of the time last night. We've also seen something like this with Kevin Gausman at times, which goes to show how important "feel" is for a pitch like the splitter.

The difference last night was a loss of command on the four-seamer as well (34% zone, 45% strike), no doubt a factor behind the 5 walks he issued. Yesavage's stuff scores on the fastball have been down for about a month now, but he continues to induce batted balls at poor angles better than most pitchers in the league. Once again, my level of concern about him at this point is directly tied to how often he's in the zone, something that's more of a start-to-start thing. Regardless, as long as he has reduced confidence in the splitter, he'll still be searching for the pure dominance he has shown before.

All stats entering June 25, 2026.

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