The Toronto Blue Jays and the Battle Against .500

It’s hard to believe that we’re already talking this way, but we’re now more than a quarter of the way through the 2025 MLB season. After 46 games, the Blue Jays are 22-24, two games below .500.

There have been a number of high points, including sweeps of the Nationals and first-place Mariners, but extended stretches of poor play, including losing eight of their last 10 to finish April, have made it feel like every time the Blue Jays take a step forward, a step backward is coming next.

We can look at this in one of two ways. On the positive side, despite having yet to play their best baseball, the Jays have managed to keep their heads above water and find themselves half a game back of the Boston Red Sox for second place in the AL East. 

The Blue Jays are still in a position to have an extremely successful regular season and are firmly in the Wild Card race despite Anthony Santander's 64 wRC+ and -0.7 fWAR, some massive questions regarding starting rotation depth, injuries to key bullpen arms, and perhaps most notably, starting the season as the worst home run-hitting team in baseball. Instead of allowing all of these issues to compound and fester, the Jays have done well to pick up some important wins early in the season.

On the other hand, we can look at this season so far and recognize that the Blue Jays are underperforming relative to their own expectations. According to Spotrac, they have the fifth highest payroll in MLB at over $246 million. All four teams above them in payroll are in first or second place in their division and well above .500, while the Blue Jays sit a couple of games under. The expectation among teams with payrolls well in excess of $200 million is not to hover around .500 and fight for Wild Card spots. It’s to coast to 90 wins and compete for a division title. 

The Jays have essentially been operating with a four-man rotation since Max Scherzer went down with thumb soreness three innings into his first start of the year, and while Easton Lucas, Eric Lauer, and bullpen days have looked like effective stopgaps at times, one more long-term injury could see the lack of starting pitching depth topple this season like a house of cards on a windy day. With Jake Bloss recently going down with season-ending UCL surgery, the Blue Jays are going to have to continue to rely on guys like Lucas and Lauer followed by a parade of bullpen arms to get through innings every fifth day, at least until Spencer Turnbull is built up or one of Alek Manoah or Scherzer is healthy enough to pitch in the big leagues.

Position players like Alan Roden, Davis Schneider, and Will Wagner that made the Opening Day roster and were expected to play key roles in the offense have since been sent down to Triple A, and while names like Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes and Myles Straw have been able to step up and contribute in some big spots, the lineup is still clearly a bat or two short of being truly dangerous.

The Blue Jays are far from being a juggernaut, but if we look around at their competition in the American League, they’re surrounded by a dozen other imperfect teams. There are playoff spots up for grabs, and teams that have obvious holes are going to fill them.

The margins in the American League this year are as tight as ever, with 10 teams within five games of a Wild Card spot as of Monday. The difference in the American League playoff race is very likely going to boil down to which teams can do the best job of filling holes at the trade deadline to set themselves apart from the rest of the AL mediocrity. 

This is why it’s so important that the Blue Jays find a way to solidify themselves as an above .500 team, rather than float around the mark as they’ve done so far in 2025. They need to prove to the front office and ownership that they should continue to invest in the major league roster. The appetite to pour resources into the team, whether that be prospect capital, money, or both, will be a lot higher if the Jays can prove they’re an above .500 team than if they continue to sputter every time they string a few wins together.

In Blue Jays land, the example always floats around that in 2015, the Jays were 50-51 after 101 games. Then, they got a boost from a historic trade deadline that saw David Price and Troy Tulowitzki join the team. Toronto finished the season on a 43-18 run and won a division title.

Is a trade deadline like that possible for this year’s Blue Jays team? Sure, but with so many teams in the hunt for playoff spots, fewer will be out of the race by the deadline and willing to part with impact players in favour of prospects, something the Jays aren’t exactly overflowing with anyway. The other key difference between the 2015 team and this year’s Jays is that the 2015 club paired its 50-51 record with a +94 run differential.

Already at a -28 run differential this season, the Jays are unlikely to put up a similar number and convince the front office that they’re a sleeping giant worthy of an all-in style trade deadline, meaning their record is going to have to speak for itself. If they are five games above .500 at the deadline, rather than a game or two below, that could end up making the difference as to whether or not the Jays pull the trigger on a trade that would add a big bat to the lineup or an ace to the rotation.

Being above .500 by the end of July would all but guarantee an aggressive deadline for the Jays, whereas being below the mark would likely lead to a second straight year of a disappointing sell-off of pending free agents, or worse, standing pat and hoping the team can go on a run as is.

A quarter of the way through the season, this team has proven itself to be good, but the Jays are going to need external help if they want to take the leap from good to great. The only way they’re going to be able to do that is if this group of players is able to bear down and prove to the front office that they’re worth parting ways with prospects for more big league talent.