The Blue Jays Lineup Is Leaving Runs on the Table — And the Data Shows It

The Toronto Blue Jays aren't scoring enough runs, but that's not new news. The team's lack of offence has been the storyline of the young season, with several articles written about it. Back in early April, it was noted that the Blue Jays were just hitting the ball on the ground too much, and three weeks later, Leo Morgenstern followed up with a piece about how the Jays need to trade contact for impact. It reached the point where John Schneider was asked about the team's lack of power after an 8-3 loss to the Mariners in April. He said he was not concerned and that the power would come "fairly quickly."

Well, here we are over two weeks later, and the Blue Jays' lack of power is still relevant. They rank 27th in baseball in runs scored, 28th in isolated power, and 30th in home runs hit. But as we all know, there are more ways to score runs in baseball than just hitting home runs. Getting guys on base, moving them over and bringing them in has been a recipe for success for baseball teams going back to the deadball era.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you’ve been watching as many Blue Jays games as I have this season, then you know that they’ve been struggling to score runs that way too. Take last week's series against Cleveland as an example. Gavin Williams was very clearly not at his best in his start. He allowed a lead-off home run to Bo Bichette (the shortstop's first of the season), and when all was said and done, Williams had allowed seven hits and walked five (and allowed another runner to reach via a dropped third strike) through only four innings of work. If I were to tell you the Jays had 13 baserunners through four innings, you’d probably think they were off to the races. Instead, they eked out just two runs by the time Williams left the mound. Because the Blue Jays couldn't add more runs early in the game, it was close late, and Yimi García came in for the third time in four days, threw a season high 32 pitches and ultimately took the loss in a game that should have never been in that place in the first place.

Game three featured a similar moment as well. In the eighth inning with the Jays down by one, they got a lead-off walk from George Springer and a base hit by Alejandro Kirk to get runners on first and second with no one out. The rest of the inning went as follows:

• Ernie Clement hits a sac bunt, moving the two runners to second and third.
• Myles Straw flies out to right.
• Nathan Lukes pops up to third.

And just like that, the Jays were held off the scoreboard.

In the ninth inning, by then down by two, the Blue Jays got off to a similar start. Andrés Giménez reached on an error, Bichette singled to right to set up runners at the corners, and then the Jays went:

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sac fly
• Anthony Santander groundout
• George Springer strikeout

And just like that, the Jays lost by one and ultimately lost the three-game series against the Guardians, a series the Blue Jays felt they should have won.

It wasn't just this series either. FanGraphs has a stat called RE24 (run expectancy based on the 24 base-out states), and I’ll leave a link to the complete definition here. But essentially, RE24 measures how many runs a team should expect to score in each plate appearance based on how many outs there are and where the baserunners are placed on the bases, using data from the previous year's season to determine the average run expectancy for each base-out state. Here’s what the run expectancy chart looks like using 2024 data, courtesy of FanGraphs' Ben Clemens:

Based on the two examples given prior, the Jays would be expected to score just shy of 1.5 runs in a situation with runners on first and second with zero out, or just shy of two runs with runners on first and third and zero out. In reality, they just scored one across both innings.

RE24 tracks changes in run expectancy. For example, the average run expectancy (using 2024 data) leading off an inning is .491 runs scored. If the leadoff hitter reaches first, the run expectancy climbs to .890, so that hitter is credited with the difference between those two numbers (in this case, 0.399). That means the batter's RE24 would climb by 0.399. If the leadoff hitter made an out instead, the run expectancy would drop from .491 to .265, and this hitter would then be debited with the negative difference (-0.266 in this scenario).

On the season, the Blue Jays have not done well in this category. Their -32.88 RE24 ranks 26th in the league, ahead of only the Rangers, Royals, Pirates and Rockies. That's not the company the Blue Jays imagined themselves amongst.

FanGraphs also has a stat called REW, which takes RE24 and attempts to convert that number into wins above or below average. According to REW, the Blue Jays have cost themselves -3.43 wins so far this season, which makes sense considering they are currently three games below .500.

On the individual player level, the RE24 leadboard makes for an interesting list. Springer leads the team, followed by Guerrero and Tyler Heineman. You can see the full list below:

Yikes. Santander, Clement and Alan Roden being at the bottom of this list is tough, especially because those three players were all expected to have an important impact on the offense going into the season. Instead, those three are all in the bottom 25 out of all players in MLB. More yikes. Per REW, just those three have cost the Blue Jays 2.69 wins on the season already. For a team that has goals of making the postseason, the Blue Jays need to do better in this department.

On the pitching side, the Blue Jays rank 21st in baseball, and their RE24 dropped substantially after Tuesday night's lopsided loss to the Angels. Chris Bassitt and Jeff Hoffman are leading the way (5.55 and 3.48 RE24, respectively), while Easton Lucas (-6.02) and Bowden Francis (-8.45) are at the bottom of the list.

If the Blue Jays are ever going to get the offence going, then they need to start hitting the ball out of the park, or they need to be better at just scoring the runs that they are supposed to. Either one will work fine, and the two of those naturally go hand in hand, but it's starting to get to be "now or never" for the Toronto Blue Jays' offence this season.