Has Eric Lauer Saved the 2025 Blue Jays?

On April 30, Eric Lauer made his Blue Jays debut against the Red Sox, throwing four innings in relief of the opener, Yariel Rodríguez. Lauer allowed a pair of runs on three hits in a game the Jays would storm back to win after falling into a six-run deficit. 

Since then, Lauer has been a mainstay of the Blue Jays pitching staff, making 10 more appearances, including five starts, and working a 1.96 ERA. He’s been a complete revelation for a staff that looked on the verge of falling apart after Max Scherzer left his first start just three innings into his Blue Jays tenure. 

For the last six weeks, Lauer-led bullpen days, whether he got the start or pitched bulk innings out of the bullpen, have been a fixture of the Blue Jays rotation as they’ve waited for reinforcements. When Lauer was recalled from Triple A at the end of April, the hope was that he wouldn't immediately sink the Jays every time he entered a contest, but instead, his appearances have had a direct impact on winning; the Blue Jays are 8-3 this season when Lauer appears in a game!

Obviously, pitcher wins and losses don’t hold much weight (Blue Jays fans will remember Drew Hutchison famously going 13-5 with a 5.57 ERA in 2015), but Lauer doesn’t just make sure the Jays don’t lose, he helps them pick up wins.

Opponents are hitting just .186 against Lauer, he has the best K-BB% of his major league career at 16.8%, and most importantly, he’s given up just 10 earned runs across 40.2 innings pitched for a 2.21 ERA.

It goes without saying that those are pretty awesome numbers from a guy who was expected to be nothing more than depth coming out of spring training, but digging into how he’s getting to them is somewhat fascinating.

Lauer’s four-seam fastball is in the 15th percentile in baseball when it comes to velocity. He throws it just 91.9 mph on average, but it’s been the most effective pitch of any qualified Blue Jay according to Statcast run value/100, as seen in the following table: 

Table is from prior to games on June 25.

Maybe even more impressive than that is the fact that Lauer’s is the ninth most valuable four-seamer in all of baseball in the same statistic. His fastball stands up against those of guys like Zack Wheeler, Robert Suarez, and Edwin Díaz.

It’s somewhat peculiar that Lauer’s fastball has been so effective at such a low velocity, especially considering his extension is also unimpressive, sitting in the 24th percentile in baseball at just 6.2 feet. This probably speaks to his ability to locate it so effectively and how well it plays off of his other pitches. 

Lauer has been featuring a changeup 10% of the time, but he throws three pitches that break: a cutter, a curveball, and a slider. All three play very well off of his fastball due to varied amounts of break and velocity changes.

With Lauer at just 40.2 innings pitched on the season, we still must apply the small sample size caveat, and there’s a reason the Jays forced him to prove himself over several outings before giving him his own spot in the starting rotation without an opener. He also has just a 93 Stuff+ according to FanGraphs, and guys without above-average stuff are a lot more volatile than guys with above-average stuff, simply because the margin for error is smaller on their mistakes.

But it cannot be overstated how positive a story Lauer has been for the Blue Jays this season. After a really poor 2023 starting for the Milwaukee Brewers, he had a 4.93 ERA pitching in Korea in 2024. Not many former major leaguers who perform that poorly overseas make their way back into big league rotations, but Lauer has done it. And he’s earned himself some leash.

Lauer’s next start is scheduled to come against the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday, and I can’t wait to see him get a chance to continue building on his success.

Stats in article updated prior to games on June 25.