Shape of the Blue Jays: Cellucci, Bateman, Varland

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.

All stats entering September 17, 2026, unless otherwise stated.

Quick Hits: Trey Yesavage

• On Tuesday, Yesavage made his first rehab start since suffering a meniscus injury on August 4 in Houston, taking the hill for the Buffalo Bisons. The results weren't inspiring (0.2 IP, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 H, 0 K, 1 BB).
• The key physical indicators, though, were good, and that's what matters in rehab starts. Yesavage was lifted after 34 pitches, 20 of which were fastballs. The heater averaged 93 mph with 18.1" of iVB. Both are down from his MLB averages this year (94.3 mph, 19.5" iVB), but that isn't entirely surprising after just one rehab start. 
• With the injury being a lower body one, I was curious to see how his extension would be affected. Yesavage isn't a big extension guy, as his release height makes his delivery enough of an outlier as is. He averaged 6.2 feet of extension in the majors this year. That was only slightly down to 6.1 feet on the 20 fastballs he threw. Ultimately, the knee didn't seem to have a notable effect on him. He's currently slated for a return on either Sunday or Monday, yet another incentive for the Jays to keep their heads above water for just a little bit longer.

Brendan Cellucci

The 28-year-old lefty was fantastic in his first big league outing, drawing into the bullpen game on Tuesday that would later go awry through no fault of his own (1.2 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 3 K, 0 BB). He has a four-seamer, a two-seamer, and two distinct slider shapes: One resembles a true bullet/gyro shape in the mid-80s, but the moneymaker is the sweeper, which he threw 44% of the time. Both stuff models at FanGraphs approve of the offering, as does mine (keep in mind that the two FanGraphs scores include the three gyro sliders he threw):

Brendan Cellucci Sweeper Pitch Modeling, 9/15

It is a hard, high-lift, high-break monster. 83.8 mph is fast as far as sweepers are concerned, and it averaged 6.6" of iVB and 15.3" of glove-side action. That's more glove-side than the average sweeper gets despite Cellucci's 40° arm angle. Most pitchers who throw sweepers have lower arm angles, but not only does Cellucci manage, he gets a lot of horizontal movement on it. You might think the break patterns mean he has a unique talent for spinning the ball, but the pitch only averaged just over 2400 rpm on Tuesday. It's a seam-shifted wake sweeper: The direction of its break doesn't match what we'd expect based on the direction it spins.

Brett Bateman

Remarkably, Bateman has accrued 1.6 fWAR since getting traded to the Blue Jays, higher than any other position player traded at the deadline. He even hit his first big league homer last Friday against Baltimore and then promptly homered again the next day, a pleasant surprise for someone who hit six long balls in 317 career minor league games. He has a 138 wRC+ with Toronto. Six weeks ago, he looked merely like an option in the outfield, but his performance suggests he could be their center fielder of the future.

He certainly has the tools for it. Highly regarded for his speed and defense at the minor league level, he's been worth 3 outs above average in the majors so far. His arm strength places in the 95th percentile among MLB fielders, and his sprint speed isn't far behind in the 84th percentile. In fact, he's one of just 20 players in MLB this season in the 90th percentile or better for arm strength and the 80th percentile or better for sprint speed.

I'll be watching his bat carefully over these last few series. He's running a .419 BABIP and a wOBA 62 points higher than expectation. He's fast and pounds the ball on the ground a lot, usually a good recipe for a high BABIP, but .419 is quite the outlier.

Louis Varland

It's the middle of September and Varland's ERA is still under 1.50, he has 34 saves, and he's amassed 3.0 fWAR. It's arguably the best season a reliever has had in franchise history and may be the primary reason the Blue Jays haven't been eliminated from playoff contention yet. An uncommon wrinkle surfaced on Monday night, however, when he failed to complete a five-out save with multiple relievers not available in a one-run game against the Tigers. He took the loss after the go-ahead run scored when he dropped a throw from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. while covering first.

Was it a good throw? Yes. Should he have caught it? Definitely! But, I can't help but feel the offense is indirectly to blame for his performance. The eventual winning run reached base via walk, and Varland's been walking more batters than usual lately. It came back to bite him during the loss he took in Sacramento last week too.

His walk rate is at 12.1% this month, into the double-digits for the first month all season. To me, this is a sign of tiring. Throughout the year, maybe he could've been spared from pitching if the Jays had opened up greater leads a few more times? It's been an extremely busy season, right after an extremely busy postseason, for Varland. Maybe I'm struggling to blame him for his role in Monday's loss because of how outstanding he's been, but it's why I've harped on the fact that winning low-scoring games is unsustainable: A tired bullpen will often reveal itself come September, and it would be a shame if this uber-talented group of relievers didn't get a shot at the postseason.