Eight Bold Predictions for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025: Part Four

Blue Jays fans! The time has finally come to stop reflecting on the disappointment that was 2024 and to turn the page (or throw the old calendar in the trash and replace it with a new one). Let's start looking ahead to what 2025 has in store for our Blue Jays. Will it be a year of making deals with long-time friends, fresh faces carving out their space on the team, and exceeding expectations? Or will the sequel be worse than the original? Only time will tell, but as 2025 is such a pivotal year for the Blue Jays — imminent free agents, young players stepping into bigger roles, and veterans looking to play key roles — I figured I’d take a stab at coming up with some bold predictions for what lies ahead in the next calendar year. This is the third of a four-part series that will run all week. You can read part one here,  part two here, and, you guessed it, part three here. Let's finish strong.

7. The Blue Jays have zero qualified starters with an ERA under 4.00

The starting rotation has been a noted strength of the Blue Jays for the last three seasons, accumulating over 36 fWAR since 2022, which is good for ninth in baseball. And with the rotation relatively unchanged (aside from the loss of Yusei Kikuchi), the talk around the Jays seems to involve a lot of trust that this type of performance can be expected again in 2025. But it’s a dirty little secret that if you check out the FanGraphs Depth Chart projections, the Jays are currently in line to finish 2025 with just 10.4 fWAR from their starting pitchers. That would rank 23rd in baseball (also known as eighth-to-last).

The last three seasons have seen an impressive run of health from established veterans, which has been a big part of the rotation's success. The Jays haven't needed to dip very far into their depth to make up for missed innings by guys like Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, and José Berríos. That kind of good fortune tends not to last forever.

Gausman had a health scare during spring training in 2024, and though he was never quite able to get back to the elite stuff he had from 2021 to 2023, he was able to battle his way through the season and put up a respectable 3.83 ERA over 181 innings. However, the process was not nearly as dominant as we’d come to expect over his previous two seasons as a Blue Jay. First and most importantly, he’s lost more than a tick of velocity on his four-seam fastball since 2022. From 2023 to 2024, Statcast saw his fastball run value drop from the 95th percentile all the way to the 38th. Gausman also went from a strikeout percentage of 31.1% in 2023 to 21.4% in 2024, an extremely steep drop-off. Neither the FanGraphs Depth Charts nor I expect Gausman to take step back even further this year, and Steamer naturally projects Gausman him to regress back to his old level of performance, improving his strikeout rate and ERA. But it's not usually safe to place a bet on a 34-year-old who’s pitched 732 2/3 innings over the last four years and has already shown major signs of decline. Just a little bit of bad luck or, God forbid, some injury struggles, and Gausman could easily see himself with an ERA above 4.00 this season.

As you may have seen in the table above, Kevin Gausman is the only Blue Jay starter projected to finish with an ERA under 4.00, and I hate to admit how confident I am in my case for him to be above that. José Berríos is expected to lead this rotation alongside Gausman, and he has also built up one of the more reliable track records among starting pitchers. He’s thrown at least 189 2/3 innings in five out of the last seven seasons, just missing out during the short 2020 season and the peculiar 2022 in which he was never able to find his way. Berríos outperforms his xERA like clockwork, but in 2024, he didn’t miss bats like he had in previous seasons. His arm has been through a lot, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him struggle to maintain the quality stuff that he needs to avoid getting hit hard. I find it unlikely Berríos has another season that is reminiscent of his dismal 2022, but I think the case for a perfectly fine, low-fours ERA is the most likely scenario. 

Chris Bassitt is the final veteran on the staff, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better word to describe him than ‘veteran.’ Another pitcher who’s been the model of consistency for years, Bassitt has seen his numbers steadily decline since he put up a 2.29 ERA for the Oakland A’s in 2020. In 2024, he surpassed 4.00 for the first time in his career (minus a 2016 campaign where he pitched just 28 innings across five starts). Heading into his age-36 season, after three straight seasons with more than 170 innings, I think Chris Bassitt is a safe bet for another slight increase in ERA in 2025. 

Here’s where it gets a little bit weird. Not only did Bowden Francis lose his spot in the rotation in April of last year, he lost his spot in the big leagues. But after spending some time at triple-A Buffalo, developing a vicious splitter, and drastically reducing his USA of a mediocre breaking pitch, Francis finished 2024 incredibly well, although there are some serious questions about whether or not the way he did it is going to be sustainable over a full season. Francis allowed just 24 hits and an incredibly low .125 BABIP across nine starts to finish the season. Combining this with his below-average chase and whiff percentages definitely makes him a candidate for some serious regression to the mean, and a low-fours ERA is absolutely a reasonable expectation for Francis in 2024. 

The fifth starter spot is up for grabs between guys like Yariel Rodríguez, Jake Bloss, and any starter signed between now and spring training (Jose Quintana, Nick Pivetta, and Lance Lynn are on my radar). There’s not a whole lot of track record with either of these guys, but the expectation would not be for them to come out and dominate in 2025. 

To tie a bow on this prediction, I think the case for the Jays having two or three starters with an below 4.00 is just as plausible as the one for them to have none, and predicting ERAs in the low four is NOT predicting horrendous seasons. 

8. The Blue Jays finish with OVER 76.5 wins.

Many people will tell you that the journey is more important than the destination, but many other people will tell you that they don’t ask how, they ask how many. That’s why I saved the most important prediction for last, and I will use my seven previous predictions to make the case for the Blue Jays winning at least 77 games. 

First of all, in the three Wild Card era, the lowest number of wins to get into the playoffs is shared by the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins at 84. So any team set on competing, as the Blue Jays are, builds the team with the goal of reaching at MINIMUM 84 wins. The Jays could fall seven wins short of that target and still make my prediction a winner. 

But here’s the baseball case for why I think the Jays are a lock to win at least 77 games: I lined out in previous predictions why Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are more than likely to play out the whole season with the Jays, but just for a quick recap, I find it hard to see a world where this team, in what is likely the last year of this contention window, punts at the trade deadline and gives up on the opportunity to retain these players in favour of a rebuild. We’ve seen in many seasons (other than 2024) prove just how effective this duo can be, and if Bo Bichette can get back to form, the foundations of a strong offence are going to be playing shortstop and first base every day. 

Anotherunderrated pick for a big offensive year is Alejandro Kirk. Since 2022, Blue Jays catchers have the third-best wRC+ among catching corps in baseball. Kirk’s 2022 season weighs heavily on that stat, and if he can rediscover some of that prowess at the plate, similar to the end of last year, he could be one of the important middle-of-the-order bats that this lineup needs. 

Many are concerned about the Spencer Horwitz-shaped hole that’s been left in this lineup since the Andrés Giménez trade, but I’m not. I think Alan Roden is primed to bring his contact-first profile and impressive minor league numbers to the big leagues, if not out of spring training, early in the season. It might not be fair to dream on guys who’ve never had a plate appearance in the big leagues, and it’s always dangerous to ask them to play big roles on contending teams, but the Jays are looking to add at least 10 wins to their previous year’s total, and if it’s going to happen, they’re going to need some good stories from guys like Roden. 

The last position player I want to touch on is the newly-acquired Giménez. The premium defence he’ll bring at second base has been widely covered, but I’m just as excited for how he can help the offence score runs. Anything Giménez brings with the bat will be gravy, but I think the way he runs the bases will have a dynamic effect on the Jays' attack. Giménez is a legit stolen base threat, a piece that the Jays have been lacking for a long time, and his effectiveness on the base paths will help to make up for some of the power the roster is lacking at this point.

As far as pitching, we’ve already seen Ross Atkins address the league-worst bullpen in a big way, adding two arms that figure to be the eighth and ninth-inning guys in Yimi García and Jeff Hoffman, as well as a couple more that will factor into the middle innings, in Nick Sandlin and Josh Walker. Hoffman and García are established relievers experienced in getting the biggest outs of baseball games; just what the doctor ordered.

Now, I’m sure you read part one of this article and saw that I’m not overly high on any of the starting pitching options, but before you call me a hypocrite, hear me out. I was able to uncover five playoff teams since 1997 that finished a season without a pitcher who started more than 16 games and carried an sub-four ERA. This included the 1997 New York Yankees, who won 101 games. Remember, it’s not unprecedented for good teams to have starting rotations without a certified ace, and for starting pitchers, it’s more than possible to be valuable and productive without a great ERA. 

I think this team has much higher aspirations than 76 wins, and I’m more than confident enough in the players I outlined throughout this series to believe that them winning more than that is much likelier than them winning less.