Matthew Creally

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 July 23, 2026. Quick Hits: Arjun Nimmala Everyone in this organization is starved for anything to be optimistic about, so here's one: Arjun Nimmala is heating up in Double-A New Hampshire. He got promoted to the Fisher Cats for the first time in May before a hamstring injury cost him most of June and necessitated a rehab stint back in the lower levels. In 25 Double-A games, he's hitting .289/.373/.456 with three homers. On Wednesday night, he hit a 432-foot no-doubter... to the opposite field. Nimmala's strikeout and contact rates (23.5% K, 73.9% contact) hold up compared to what he was doing in High-A Vancouver (22.9% K, 71.3% contact), a good sign that he's not being overmatched by the better pitching in the Eastern League. Baseball America recently updated their top 100 list after the draft, and despite the addition of a few marquee 2026 first-rounders to the rankings, Nimmala still places 39th. It's all but certain the Blue Jays won't have anything to play for in the season's final months, so they'll likely be deliberate when it comes to promoting him (as they should be). A debut at some point in 2027, though, seems feasible. Alejandro Kirk When I last checked in on Alejandro Kirk, he was finishing up a very quiet first month back from his thumb injury (44 wRC+ in June). He was hitting way too many balls at suboptimal angles while also chasing everything, a trend that has ravaged the entire lineup and likely killed the Jays' season. Lately, he has turned things around, becoming the only Blue Jay with a wRC+ over 120 in July (min. 40 PA). A 17.8% walk rate is the driving force behind the improvement, but even the swing itself is getting closer to how it looked when he was at his best. Alejandro Kirk Key Indicators, 2025 vs July 2026 (Statcast) Sample Chase% Zone Swing% Hard-Hit% Groundball% Bat Speed Swing Length (') 2025 29.1% 65.8% 50.8% 44.2% 72.5 7.2 July 2026 14.6% 55.8% 50.0% 41.2% 71.7 7.0 Four of his 16 hardest-hit balls of the season came against the Rays this week, another encouraging sign that things are trending upward. He's also gone back to using the whole field more often. Kirk's never going to be a high-BABIP guy because he lacks speed and an outlier ability to hit line drives, but the .224 mark he's at right now feels unsustainably low, and the projections at FanGraphs agree, as each of their models forecast a wRC+ between 108 and 117 for him the rest of the season. His zone swing rate is something to watch, as he's evidently become too passive with strikes, but I'm not sure if that's due to lingering effects of the injury or part of a general conviction to see more pitches. Spencer Miles Spencer Miles has continuously been one of the only redeeming features of this year's roster, and he continued his storybook season on Wednesday (3.2 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 4 K, 0 BB). He threw the highest percentage of four-seamers and the lowest percentage of sinkers we've seen from him since early April. Metrically, the four-seamer isn't a great pitch, but the Rays are 29th in MLB in rate-based run value against four-seam fastballs this year. He decided to pitch to his opponent's weakness, and it worked. Because the sinker has been the focal point of Miles's gameplan for months now, Tampa Bay's hitters probably weren't expecting to see the four-seamer much, and the numbers back that up. The four-seamer, which sits 96 mph with movement patterns that are quite predictable relative to his arm angle, got five whiffs on 10 swings and a 30% chase rate. Miles is in line to pitch once more before the trade deadline, and if the Jays sell, I'd hope to see them be a tad more careful with his workload in August and September. If they're going to bounce back in 2027, he's going to be part of that solution. Davis Schneider In case you're new here, the format of this column alternates every week. One week, I'll profile two pitchers and one position player, and the next it'll be two position players and one pitcher. This is a two-position-player-week, but I cannot bring myself to profile anyone who has been a part of this league-worst offense besides Kirk, so let's take a look instead at Davis Schneider, who was called back up to the majors in advance of Thursday afternoon's game. Schneider made some waves for his objectively hilarious stat line a few games into his first demotion to Triple-A Buffalo, which effectively demonstrated the complete lack of hittable pitches he was given in the International League. He's now played 30 games there on the season, and the numbers are still pretty weird. Davis Schneider Key Indicators, Triple-A Buffalo, 2026 (Statcast) Zone% 43.8% Zone Contact% 86.8% Zone Swing% 57.4% Chase% 16.8% K% 20.2% BB% 30.2% Hard-Hit% 31.0% EV90 101.5 Fly EV 88.5 No, that isn't a typo. He actually walked 30% of the time, which is what happens when a guy sees this many pitches out of the zone and chases less than Juan Soto. I'm most encouraged by the mid-80s zone contact rate because of his struggles to get bat on ball earlier this season. The quality of contact wasn't great, but the way he was pitched definitely had something to do with that, especially given the small sample. He's deserving of another shot and should be motivated by the chance to secure an extended stay with Jonatan Clase hitting the IL. View full article

The writing is on the wall. Thanks to an 8-17 record in their past 25 games, the chances of the Toronto Blue Jays becoming sellers at the trade deadline seem likelier by the second, a stark contrast to a year ago at this time when they led the AL East by three games. The Jays' worst stretch of the season has coincided perfectly with a historic win streak by the Boston Red Sox, as well as a recent surge from the Baltimore Orioles, who finally snapped Boston's streak at 15 games. This has led to Toronto's playoff odds dropping nearly 50% over the past month, according to FanGraphs. The American League landscape remains uninspiring, but even despite that, the Blue Jays are 6.5 games back of the final Wild Card spot. It's time to seriously consider punting on 2026. Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, George Springer, and Daulton Varsho are the headliners on expiring contracts. Unfortunately, Gausman, Springer, and Varsho have all been scuffling lately, but it's important to remember that big league front offices don't make trades for what players have done. It's what they're projected to do in the future, especially relative to their salary, that matters. Expected production relative to cost is where surplus value comes from, a popular term amongst executives when it comes to the ultimate goal of every trade. Last year, inspired by this video from Lance Brozdowski, I built a rather skeletal MLB trade engine in Google Sheets that revolves around that very concept. It uses the latest guiding principles around the dollar value of prospects, the dollar value of WAR, projecting salary for players before they hit free agency, and inflation. Let's plug each of our potential trade chips into the system and see how they're likely to be viewed around the industry. All figures entering July 22, 2026. Kevin Gausman Ideal return: 1 A-minus prospect & a deep sleeper, or 2 mid-range prospects I'm not emotionally prepared to see Gausman pitch in another uniform, least of all for the one team that got in the way of his quest to win a ring for the city that he took a discount to come to. As painful as it is, the Dodgers, thanks to their boatload of injuries on the pitching side, their surplus of outfield prospects, and their willingness to spend, are a good fit. There are other playoff-bound teams that need Gausman more, but Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell remain on the IL, Shohei Ohtani isn't pitching for the time being, and Justin Wrobleski is probably best suited to be a reliever come playoff time. Any time a selling team can poach a prospect of Charles Davalan's caliber at the deadline, they'd be happy to do it. The lefty-hitting Canadian isn't a top-100 prospect, but he has 14 homers and 15 steals, along with a 13% walk rate and an 11% strikeout rate, in High A this year. Scouts seem to be the most fond of his hit and speed tools. Dylan Tate is a wild card who has barely started his affiliate career since getting drafted in the 11th round last year. FanGraphs gives him a 60-grade fastball. It's crucial to remember that even the slightest conflicting opinions of a prospect's caliber can swing the outcome of a trade. For example, Davalan is a 55-grade prospect according to Baseball America, but FanGraphs, as is often the case, is a little more conservative with a 45 FV valuation. If the Dodgers' own internal model is closer to BA's grade, the chances of them accepting this trade probably go down, but their deep farm system might force them to overpay in a seller's market. Mitch Bannon of The Athletic recently mocked Gausman to the Cubs for two prospects a tier below Davalan. For the purposes of this exercise, there's no point in getting caught up in particular teams and prospects. If a starting pitcher with Gausman's salary who is projected to put up a little more than 1.0 WAR for the remainder of the season is going to fetch multiple prospects, the return could go one of two ways: a couple of guys in that 40-40+ FV tier, or one closer to 45 FV along with a lottery ticket. Shane Bieber Ideal return: 1 mid-range prospect, more if packaged Bieber exercised his player option to stay in Toronto, but unfortunately, while his rest-of-season projections are better than what the Jays have gotten from him since his return, they aren't enough to offset the salary he is still owed. That's why it might make sense to include him in a package to maximize the return. The $/WAR method is probably underrating him a little bit, but nonetheless, in this instance, I have him going to Atlanta alongside the currently-injured Jesús Sánchez, who has one more year of control but is a tad redundant of a presence on the Jays' roster. Old friend Alex Anthopoulos recently professed his desire to upgrade the pitching staff for his Braves, so why not see if he'll follow through? A prospect of Owen Murphy's stature might not be attainable with Bieber alone, but Sánchez could be useful for a team with a shallow corner outfield group thanks to Ronald Acuna Jr.'s continued injury troubles and no offense whatsoever on their bench. Murphy, who made his big league debut a few weeks ago, has a flat, high-carry fastball and a 27% K rate at Triple A this year. The Blue Jays could use another young starter who's ready to contribute at the highest level, with Johnny King and Nolan Perry not quite yet ready to join Dylan Cease and Trey Yesavage in the prospective 2027 rotation. Jorge Mateo would simply be a warm body that the Jays could plug in at a variety of positions until his term is up at the end of the year. George Springer Ideal return: 1 high-risk sleeper It's difficult to imagine the Blue Jays truly acing a George Springer trade because he's only been a high-end contributor once over the past three years, and that was last season when he was anchoring the lineup. There won't be a long line of suitors for a 36-year-old rental DH who's still owed more than $8M, but the Padres have seemingly been in win-now mode forever, and their revolving door of designated hitters has hit for an 84 wRC+ this season. In terms of how the Jays' options stack up in this scenario, San Diego's prospect pool takes a clear backseat to Atlanta's, and it isn't really in the same universe as the Dodgers', so they'll have to take a shot in the dark with an unheralded prospect they believe has some untapped potential. I'd be curious to see what they could do with the 22-year-old Braedon Karpathios. His 30% strikeout rate and middling slash line in Double A leave a bit to be desired, but he's someone who can impact the ball with a good blend of in-zone aggressiveness and discipline. Recently, Toronto's MiLB hitting personnel have been successful in getting some of their prospects to make more contact, so he could be a project worth taking on. Karpathios is unranked in FanGraphs' system, but Baseball America has him as a high-risk 45 FV guy, hence the compromise of his 40 FV grade here. Daulton Varsho Ideal return: 1 B-tier prospect & 1 sleeper The timing of Varsho's horrendous July has not been ideal, but he would still be an offensive upgrade for the Guardians in center field. Cleveland doesn't usually add rentals at the deadline, but they've connected with the Blue Jays on the trade front many times before, and Varsho gives them a rare opportunity to add a bat without much financial strain. In return, I like Jace LaViolette for the Jays, who has tremendous raw power and the potential to stick in center field but also comes with major strikeout concerns. The industry is divided on him: FanGraphs has him at 45 FV, while Baseball America has him at 55 but with a high-risk grade, which brings his adjusted grade down to 40. His ceiling is high, and his floor is very low. Will Dion is currently in the Guardians' bullpen, but I don't imagine he'll be there for long, as fellow lefty Tim Herrin is soon to return from a rehab stint. Dion has an uninspiring 5.65 ERA through 14.1 MLB innings, but he has a 27% strikeout rate to go with a 4.5% walk rate and a 110 Stuff+ on the four-seamer that he has thrown 42% of the time. No matter what happens in the final two months of the season, Mason Fluharty deserves another lefty who can pick up the slack in Toronto's bullpen, and Dion could stick long-term. As difficult as Varsho's season has been, his rest-of-season projection coupled with a reasonable salary will likely result in a return not too far from what Gausman would hypothetically bring back if traded. Final Thoughts Conversations like the ones in this piece were not supposed to be in the cards this year for anyone in the Blue Jays organization, but the shocking underperformance of their core position players has forced them to consider a reality without the likes of Kevin Gausman, who has repeatedly stated a desire to finish his career in Toronto, and Shane Bieber, who they acquired less than a year ago as they geared up for the pennant race. Unlike their previous last-place finish in 2024, there aren't many obvious fundamental issues with the way the roster is built. In fact, the pitching staff was clearly built to win now. Aside from former assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense, who was instrumental in the game-planning process that the Jays got so much credit for last season, and Don Mattingly, who made up for a disappointing tenure as hitting coach by becoming a trusted voice in the clubhouse, the coaching staff is essentially identical to 2025. If this is indeed the end of the road for this current iteration of the Toronto Blue Jays, it's almost entirely thanks to the underperformances from the guys who made last year so special (or absences, in the case of Addison Barger). The Jays could get creative at this deadline by shipping away players who won't be hitting the open market this winter, such as relievers Jeff Hoffman and Tyler Rogers. I personally wouldn't trade these next two names if a 2027 bounce-back is the goal, but based solely on the fact that their value may never be higher, it's also worth listening to offers for Louis Varland and Ernie Clement should they surface. The market and their own trade chips are different than two years ago, but this is a team that sold at the deadline in 2024 and was better off for it, with some of the cascading effects from those trades still paying dividends today. It feels bleak right now, but there's opportunity in selling. Let's hope they do it right. View full article

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 July 9, 2026. Quick Hits: Draft The 2026 MLB Draft starts this Saturday. The Blue Jays won't be on the clock until the 39th overall pick, and so much can happen between picks 1 and 38 that it isn't worth putting too much time into predicting the exact player they will select. However, Baseball America's draft preview podcast gave us some intel as to where they could be headed. BA's Carlos Collazo noted the Jays have had a particular affinity for players who are young for the class in their past few drafts. The acquisitions of Arjun Nimmala and JoJo Parker also indicate a liking for hit-first high school shortstops. As such, another high school hitter would make sense. Collazo listed shortstop Connor Comeau (BA's 55th-ranked draft prospect), third baseman Bo Lowrence (38), Archer Horn (51), James Clark (52), Landon Thome (57), and Taj Marchand (66) as the most logical fits for the Jays' first pick. He also mentioned Will Adams (88) as a candidate for Toronto later on. All the players listed above are high school prospects, and every one of them except for Marchand is a lefty hitter. All except for Lowrence and Adams profile as shortstops at the moment, while Horn has potential to be selected as a two-way player. Dylan Cease On Wednesday afternoon, Dylan Cease authored one of the best starts in franchise history, falling three outs short of a no-hitter in San Francisco (8+ IP, 0 R, 1 H, 11 K, 3 BB). Since returning from the IL, Cease has been money, with a 1.73 ERA and a 39.2% K rate in six starts (36 IP). He leads qualified AL starters in FIP and fWAR and is second to Cam Schlittler in ERA. Remember all the concerns about the gap between his results and peripherals in 2025? This is why baseball executives don't care about ERA. On an overall basis, Cease's usage patterns weren't out of the ordinary. The story was his pitch selection with two strikes. He used a higher percentage of changeups (22%) in two-strike counts than any other start this season against a Giants lineup that featured five lefties. The majority of these two-strike changeups went for balls, but of the four that were swung at, three were put in play for weakly-hit outs, and the other was missed. Even when it wasn't putting batters away, it was inducing harmless balls in play, which are imperative if you're going to try to throw a no-hitter. This was a statement conclusion to the first half for Cease, who is on the short list of candidates to start the All-Star Game for the AL next week in Philadelphia. Daulton Varsho Daulton Varsho got on the board with two hits against the Giants in the series finale, but he's still just 5 for his last 39. His wRC+ on the season is down to 99 after the early-July dry spell, and he's on pace for the second-lowest fWAR total in his four years as a Blue Jay. Earlier in the season, I was ambivalent about the series of adjustments he made to improve his bat-to-ball skills, but it's absolutely fair to question whether any of it was necessary given how he's tailed off the past couple weeks. Varsho's running the lowest strikeout and whiff rates, and the highest BABIP, of his career. However, he's on pace for just 14 home runs; he's never hit fewer than 18 in a full season and has been a mediocre hitter after hitting 20 homers in 71 games last year. Varsho is a notorious tinkerer, having changed various aspects of his swing every year since getting traded to Toronto. Hindsight is always 20/20, and there's still half a season to go, but it seems like a bold move to rework things in a contract year after how it all came together for him in 2025, which was the first time he was a threat to hit the fastball in a Blue Jay uniform. His xwOBA against fastballs has dipped back below .300 in 2026, thanks in part to him being late on 8% more of his swings against fastballs compared to last year. A 2.8-mph reduction in bat speed undoubtedly has something to do with that. Hitting involves constant adjustment, but is the increase in bat-to-ball worth it given the decrease in power? Jeff Hoffman You don't need me to remind you that on May 31, with the Blue Jays three outs away from climbing above .500 for the first time since April 3, Jeff Hoffman played a large part in blowing a 5-1 lead in an eventual walk-off loss in Baltimore. Did you know that since then, Hoffman has given up one earned run, struck out 15, and walked five in 13.2 innings? Some of this is positive regression. After posting BABIPs of .538 and .500 in April and May, which prompted an ominously-titled article from Davy Andrews at FanGraphs, his BABIP dropped to .160 in June and a pristine zero in July. At the same time, by xwOBAcon, the quality of batted balls he has given up has decreased over the past six weeks as well. Interestingly, Hoffman's arm angle has steadily climbed throughout the season, going from 30° in April to 35° in July as he has slightly raised his release point. This has allowed him to kill the vertical break on his slider, which is making it play up even though he's not throwing it any harder than usual: In his two July outings so far, the slider has garnered a ridiculous 83% swing-and-miss rate. According to the Stuff+ model on FanGraphs, four of Hoffman's five highest-ranked appearances sorted by Stuff+ on his slider have come in the past three weeks as this change has subtly taken effect. View full article

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. Quick Hits: Farm System Check-In With the calendar turning to July, Baseball America updated their list of the top 100 prospects in baseball, as well as the top 30 in the Blue Jays system. Lefty pitching prospect Johnny King was added to the top 100 for the first time, something that evaluators around the industry saw as increasingly likely to happen over the past 6-12 months. He slots in at 82 on BA's list. Arjun Nimmala (39) is inside the top 40. JoJo Parker is at 56. BA had King, Jake Bloss, Nolan Perry, Charles McAdoo, and Danny Thompson Jr. as risers in the system. Seeing Bloss there is curious because he's gotten decimated at Triple-A this year (12.3% K rate, 7% BB rate, 4.76 HR/9), so the industry is clearly betting on the fact that his fastball velocity is into the upper 90s post-surgery. Perry was promoted to Double-A New Hampshire earlier this week and struck out seven batters while walking two in his three-inning debut on Tuesday; his meteoric rise hasn't slowed down yet. It's also unsurprising to see McAdoo here after he made his MLB debut in late May. The 2026 draft is fast approaching, and the Jays won't be on the clock until pick 39, so it's not as likely they'll acquire a blue-chipper like Trey Yesavage or JoJo Parker, who were each taken in the upper half of the first round. Yet, the changes that have occurred in this farm system since the hirings of people such as Marc Tramuta, who now leads their amateur scouting department, as well as Justin Lehr, their director of pitching, are hard to ignore. This prospect pool isn't yet one of the true elites in the game, but from a player development standpoint, the franchise is as strong as it has been in years. Kazuma Okamoto It's scary to think where the Blue Jays would be without Kazuma Okamoto, who carried their offense for large portions of June while the rest of the lineup was anemic. Okamoto hit .286 with a .913 OPS last month, and central to his success was his strong performance against breaking balls (.404 wOBA, .350 xwOBA). Gone are the days of April when it felt like he was automatically neutralized every time he saw spin. His chase, contact, and hard hit rates against breaking pitches were all better than in April and May. Kazuma Okamoto Statcast Metrics vs Breaking Balls, 2026 Month Chase% Contact% Hard Hit% Bat Speed Attack Angle Swing Tilt Early% On Time% March/April 25.6% 62.2% 26.3% 72.4 19° 31° 42% 52% May 31.9% 52.8% 33.3% 73.4 18° 30° 39% 57% June 20.3% 64.1% 40.9% 72.3 21° 33° 33% 59% It's not that Okamoto increased his output by swinging faster at breaking balls. Instead, he's been sitting back on them more, as evidenced by his swing timing stats, while also further optimizing his swing to do what he does best in general: lift and pull. Scouts who had seen him in Japan were right about him being a pull-air guy, but looking back, it's interesting that the industry considered Okamoto to be someone with good bat-to-ball and passable game power. Swinging and missing has been the only issue in his profile, and he's easily been the most consistent power threat on the team. Forecasting players from overseas is hard! Either way, the Jays are certainly happy they got Okamoto at the price they did. Spencer Miles Spencer Miles drew high praise from his manager after a brilliant bulk relief outing in the Canada Day win (3.0 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 5 K, 1 BB). John Schneider said it was the best he had ever seen Miles throw. His sinker averaged 97.5 mph, a new career-best in single-game velocity, and topped out at 99.4. The extreme heat and humidity didn't hold him back, as seven of the 10 hardest pitches he's thrown on a big-league mound came yesterday. He continues to find new levels of command with the sinker as well; it was in the zone 78% of the time and had a strike rate of 83%. It was also responsible for three of his five strikeouts, and all three were looking. Spencer Miles Sinker Strikeouts, July 1 vs NYM It takes a lot of confidence to try to dot pitches like this where Miles did yesterday. Take a look at those two sinkers on the bottom corner: One of those was to Francisco Alvarez (righty), and the other was to Jared Young (lefty). He back-doored it to a righty and front-doored it to a lefty for strikeouts in the same game. If Miles can throw this thing 99 mph with command like that, it might be one of the best pitches on the staff. Sean Keys Sean Keys fast-tracked his way to the big leagues with an unbelievable showing in Double-A and Triple-A earlier this season. He's 2 for his first 12, including an opposite-field three-run homer on Canada Day as part of a 9-3 victory. There have been five strikeouts and plenty of swing-and-miss in that small sample, but the bat tracking stats are a sight to behold. Take a look: Year Bat Speed Bat Speed 90 Swing Length Swing Tilt Attack Angle Attack Direction Intercept Point vs Batter (Y) 2026 75.1 79.2 7.4' 28° 15° 14° pull 41.9" MLB average 71.7 77.6 7.3' 32° 10° 2° pull 30.7" The early returns suggest he will have to sacrifice some of this bat speed and natural lift in order to make enough contact to stay competitive at this level. Still, the Jays' lineup, which has been one of the more light-hitting groups in the league for most of the season, undoubtedly needs more of what Keys brings to the table. The power is real, and it is threatening. Bat speed stabilizes very quickly, and both the average and upper-echelon bat speed for Keys are already up there with some of the game's elite hitters. His bat path is rather flat, but he has an open stance with a very exaggerated pull-air approach so far. It's tough to say whether the ingredients will come together fast enough for him to be an effective major league hitter this year, and some mechanical and stance changes might be in order if that's not the case, but this team needs more high-ceiling hitters like Keys, and the early bat tracking numbers back that up. All stats entering July 2, 2026. View full article

Welcome back to Blue Jays Clutch Plays, a recurring post that highlights the six most pivotal plays (three pitching, three hitting) from the past week of Blue Jays baseball, according to MLB's win probability model. Click here to read last week's edition. Last Monday, the Jays completed the march back to .500, their first day with a breakeven record since May 29. This was immediately followed by what could be a season-defining 6-game losing streak. The final 2 games of their series against the Astros were lost in the late innings, and 3 of the 4 losses in the demoralizing sweep at the hands of the Rangers were decided by 1 run. The offense continues to be a non-factor early in games, starting pitchers aren't delivering much length, and their season suddenly appears bleak. Thanks to all of that, this edition of Clutch Plays will examine the pivotal plays of the past week in reverse order. Here are the moments that stung the most. Pitching 3. Kevin Gausman: Wyatt Langford 3-run HR, Top 3, 6/25 (-20.6% WPA) Gausman has been a symbol of consistency and stability throughout his entire Blue Jays tenure, but in his past two starts, he hasn't looked anything like himself. He gave up a solo shot to Joc Pederson, the first batter he faced, in Thursday's opener against Texas, before leaving a slider a little too high to Wyatt Langford with a couple of men on. Langford was placed on the IL a couple days later, but with this homer, he made sure to leave his mark on this series. 2. Louis Varland: Wild Pitch, Top 9, 6/28 (-32.9% WPA) Just minutes after the Jays finally tied the game on Nathan Lukes's homer, Varland bounced a first-pitch changeup to Corey Seager. Alejandro Kirk couldn't spear it on the backhand, and even worse, couldn't find the ball as it rolled deep into foul territory to the first-base side of home. This allowed Jarred Kelenic, pinch-running for Josh Jung after his 2-out double kept the inning alive, to score all the way from second as the eventual winning run, capping off a sequence that perfectly encapsulated how things have been going in Toronto lately. 1. Braydon Fisher: Joey Loperfido 3-run HR, Top 11, 6/23 (-57.5% WPA) It's hard not to feel sympathetic for Fisher, who posted a huge 0 in the 10th inning to put the Jays in a good position to win it in the bottom half. However, the top of the order could not deliver, and Fisher had to go back out for the 11th. He struck out 2 after intentionally walking Yordan Alvarez and got to 2 strikes against Joey Loperfido, but ultimately fell one pitch short as the former Blue Jay cranked what is likely to be the highest WPA hit of the season against his old team. Hitting 3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: Flyout vs Logan VanWey, Bot 10, 6/23 (-13.1% WPA} Guerrero, whose OPS on the season now sits below .700 after the least productive months of his career, had many chances to deliver in a big moment for his team over the course of the past two series. This one will hurt the most. It wasn't a terrible swing on a well-located slider from Logan VanWey, but the ball harmlessly settled into Brice Matthews's glove at the edge of the track in right-center, setting into motion the events that would lead to the Jays losing in the 11th. 2. George Springer: Groundout vs Logan VanWey, Bot 10, 6/23 (-20.2% WPA) Before Guerrero's first-pitch flyout, George Springer had a chance to walk it off without even recording a hit. Things began on a promising note as he got ahead 1-0, but his ensuing swing on a VanWey slider well off the outside corner of the plate was an apt representation of how the Jays' plate discipline struggles have held them back this year. He was lucky to even make contact and in hindsight, it might've been better if he didn't. Instead, it was a slow roller to short with the infield in and an easy second out. 1. George Springer: Flyout DP vs Bryan King, Bot 8, 6/24 (-20.7% WPA) Luis Urias made a good first impression in his team debut, knocking a 2-run homer as part of a 2-hit game. The next night, though, he had a mental lapse at second base that couldn't have come in a bigger spot. With the Jays trailing 2-1 after Jeff Hoffman and Kazuma Okamoto got crossed up on a confusing pickoff play at first, Urias represented the tying run as Springer once again found himself ahead in the count. He got a middle-away fastball from Bryan King, the kind of pitch he's driven the other way to right field so many times when he's on, and drilled it into the right field corner. Cam Smith made a beautiful leaping catch at the wall, but Urias thought it dropped, and was a deer in the headlights by the time the throw came back to second. View full article

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. Quick Hits: ABS Mishaps A lot of things went wrong in the Houston series, and one of them is flying under the radar due to the broader fundamental mistakes that cost the Jays in the rubber match: They got absolutely schooled by the Astros when it came to ABS challenges. Houston was a perfect 5-for-5 through 4 innings of Monday's opener, including 3-for-3 in the first inning. The Blue Jays went 0-for-2 and were out of challenges in the bottom of the 2nd. It's true that home plate umpire Bill Miller had a brutal start to the game, but the Blue Jays learned that just because the umpire isn't at his best doesn't mean it's okay to start blindly challenging every close pitch. If the top of the order is going to be lifeless and the margins are going to be thin, wasting challenges is something that will haunt them eventually. On Tuesday, the Jays were more careful, not even attempting a challenge through 7 innings. With the go-ahead run on base in a tie game in the top of the 8th, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got a 1-0 slider from old friend Nate Pearson that was easily off the outside corner of the plate but called a strike anyway. Guerrero didn't challenge. The next batter, Jesus Sanchez, unsuccessfully challenged an obvious strike on an 0-1 fastball before striking out swinging on the very next pitch. In the finale, George Springer challenged a called third strike. It was a changeup that was in the zone by more than 3" according to Baseball Savant. Alejandro Kirk successfully overturned a ball call in the top half of the next inning at catcher, but he would lose one on a close call while hitting just a half-inning after that. Blue Jays hitters were victimized by multiple bad calls late in the game, but were unable to do anything about it thanks to their earlier mistakes, and it was an extremely fitting end to a disappointing series that the Astros won Wednesday's game on an overturned strike 3 call. Shane Bieber Bieber showcased passable stuff in his much-anticipated return to the mound. His four-seamer continued to sit in the low-90s with 19" of iVB and 11" of run compared to 18"/10" last year. He was able to mix in plenty of cutters, while the kick change that he revamped during his rehab process in 2025 got 4 whiffs on 8 swings. Unfortunately, none of that matters without good location, which is the primary reason he gave up 5 barrels, 10 hard hits (17 BBE), and 3 consecutive home runs to the Astros. He was never able to elevate the fastball, missing middle-down most of the time, while his slider was either hung or bounced with no real in-between. Only 1 of the 3 homers came on a true meatball, that being the fastball that Taylor Trammell sent into the 500 level, which perfectly illustrated why simply avoiding the heart of the plate isn't going to cut it when you don't throw hard. Command and execution have to be top-notch for a guy like Bieber. I'd be more concerned if his fastball was sitting in the high-80s, but he's going to have to do a better job of hitting his spots in his next start. Shane Bieber fastball (left) and slider (right) location, June 23 vs HOU (Statcast) Alejandro Kirk It's still very early on in the season for Kirk, which is good news as he's slashing just .222/.267/.259 since his return from the IL. His swing-and-miss and strikeout rates are slightly up compared to last year, but stop me if you've heard this before about some of his teammates: We're still waiting on the chase (+9.2% vs 2025) and batted ball quality (xwOBACON down 122 points vs 2025) to return to career norms. Interestingly, this is the most pull-oriented we've seen Kirk in his career, something he isn't doing when he's at his best. His current sample of batted balls is small enough to even out naturally in the near future, but the inflated pull rates are nonetheless backed up by his bat tracking stats. Year Bat Speed Bat Speed 90 Swing Length Swing Tilt Attack Angle Attack Direction Contact Point vs Center of Mass 2025 72.5 77.2 7.2' 24° 8° 5° oppo 30.1" 2026 70.6 74.8 7.3' 22° 7° 1° oppo 31.2" His groundballs and popups are up, a classic indicator of a guy still looking to find his timing. Brandon Valenzuela getting off to a hot start theoretically affords the Jays the ability to take things slowly with Kirk, although I'm not sure this is the sort of thing that will get better if he only plays 3-4 times per week. Trey Yesavage On Wednesday against the Astros, Yesavage threw the highest percentage of sliders (43%) we've ever seen from him in a big-league start, excluding game 5 of the World Series. His previous season-high was his last start in Boston (32%), and before that, it was two starts earlier against the Orioles (28%). This was a new culmination of a pattern that's been going on for a while now: A decreased feel for the splitter, which was used a season-low 20% of the time last night. We've also seen something like this with Kevin Gausman at times, which goes to show how important "feel" is for a pitch like the splitter. The difference last night was a loss of command on the four-seamer as well (34% zone, 45% strike), no doubt a factor behind the 5 walks he issued. Yesavage's stuff scores on the fastball have been down for about a month now, but he continues to induce batted balls at poor angles better than most pitchers in the league. Once again, my level of concern about him at this point is directly tied to how often he's in the zone, something that's more of a start-to-start thing. Regardless, as long as he has reduced confidence in the splitter, he'll still be searching for the pure dominance he has shown before. All stats entering June 25, 2026. View full article

Welcome back to Blue Jays Clutch Plays, a recurring post that highlights the six most pivotal plays (three pitching, three hitting) from the past week of Blue Jays baseball, according to MLB's win probability model. Click here to read last week's edition. The past few days marked the beginning of a stretch in the Blue Jays' schedule that they must take advantage of in order to firmly insert themselves into the playoff picture, and they've seized the opportunity so far. The sweep of the Red Sox in Boston marked their first road sweep of the season and their first since opening weekend against the A's. The weekend at Wrigley Field began with a Cubs rout, but a huge comeback on Saturday evened the series before a Sunday rainout cut things short. Toronto is one game under .500 after a 4-1 week, with a 10-game homestand on the horizon. Pitching 3. Spencer Miles: Nate Eaton Groundout, Bot 5, 6/17 (+10.8% WPA) The Red Sox had a week to forget in the clutch-hitting department. They left 26 men on base and went 1-for-24 with RISP over the 3 games, and their most consequential missed opportunity came with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth inning of Wednesday night's contest. Spencer Miles came on in relief of Mason Fluharty in what was yet another bullpen game for the Blue Jays and got Nate Eaton to chop a grounder to first. Eaton turned on the afterburners up the line, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. dove to touch the bag with the ball in his glove and end the threat. 2. Louis Varland: Michael Busch Flyout, Bot 8, 6/20 (+11.3% WPA) After the Jays roared back with eight unanswered runs to take the lead on Saturday afternoon, Fluharty got into a world of trouble, loading the bases and failing to record an out in the eighth. You know what that means? A lot of pivotal plays for Louis Varland. Shortly after a run scored on a groundball to the infield, Michael Busch came up as the go-ahead run with two outs. Varland fell behind 2-0, but Busch popped a changeup up to the left side. Myles Straw didn't have much room near the foul line but jumped up and made the catch against the wall to get out of the inning. 1. Louis Varland: Seiya Suzuki Strikeout, Bot 8, 6/20 (+13.5% WPA) One batter before Busch, it was the dangerous Seiya Suzuki up with men on the corners and one out. Even a sac fly would've sufficed for the Cubs here, and things got sketchy for Varland when he found himself down 3-1 in the count to the Chicago outfielder. He ran things full by inducing a foul ball and then got one of the uglier swings you'll see from Suzuki, who half-heartedly flailed at a knuckle curve in the dirt. This clutch pitching play of the week is the Jays' 20th-most pivotal on the season. Within that top 20, nine belong to Varland. Hitting 3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: RBI Single, Top 8, 6/20 (+17.4% WPA) Alejandro Kirk brought the lineup one step closer to tying things up on Saturday before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went up and got to a fastball above the zone and punched it into center field for a base hit. George Springer scored with a head-first slide for Toronto's second run of the inning. For all the discussion about Guerrero's lack of power this season, he continues to show up in big moments for the Jays. He's been a better hitter with men on base than with the bases empty and has a 214 wRC+ in high-leverage spots. 2. Kazuma Okamoto: 3-run HR, Top 8, 6/20 (+33.9% WPA) Okamoto's 16 homers lead the team by a lot, but his go-ahead three-run blast on Saturday is the biggest of his career so far. He got a 2-1 fastball up in the zone and didn't miss it, launching it over the ivy and into the fifth row of Wrigley's famous left field bleachers. The Blue Jays haven't been coming back in games as frequently as they did a year ago, but this blast punctuated a brilliant response to what had been a tough series to that point. Sunday's rainout means they'll be able to ride its momentum for a little while longer into the coming week. 1. Brandon Valenzuela: RBI Double, Top 9, 6/18 (+39.1% WPA) If the Blue Jays truly do turn their season around, this at-bat will be talked about for a while. Brandon Valenzuela worked a nine-pitch double off the monster to score an already-in-motion Ernie Clement from first, breaking a 3-3 tie in the ninth and helping the Jays clinch the sweep. Valenzuela didn't see a single pitch slower than 98.8 mph this entire at-bat, and the one he got was a 100-mph sinker in on his hands. For his career, opponents are slugging .234 off Aroldis Chapman in full counts. Valenzuela, just moments after being on the receiving end of a fortuitous gust of wind that caused a playable popup to drop foul, became one of the few to have ever done damage on a payoff from one of the best closers ever. View full article

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. Quick Hits: Another Rising Prospect After his first taste of big league spring training was followed by a .993 OPS in 49 games at Double-A New Hampshire, Toronto's 2024 fourth-rounder Sean Keys was promoted to Triple-A Buffalo earlier this month. Keys had never played above High-A before this year and was named the 20th-best prospect in the Jays' system by Baseball America in their preseason report. In 11 games so far with the Bisons, he's continuing to lay waste to opposing pitchers, slashing .343/.465/.771 with three homers. BA has already bumped him up to 14th in the system in their latest rankings. All Triple-A parks log Statcast data, meaning Keys's advanced stats are now available to the public. Since the promotion, his 90th-percentile exit velocity is a loud 108.7 mph. His hard hit rate is at 52%, his barrel rate is 12%, and his hard-hit balls are averaging a launch angle of 16°, indicating he's making his loudest contact in the air. To achieve these incredible batted ball numbers, he's had to fork over some discipline and contact, as his chase rate is a hair above the MLB average at 29.2%, while his zone contact rate is 79.7%. It's more than worth the tradeoff, though, if he's going to do this much damage. Keys is a lefty bat who just turned 23 and is limited to the corner infield positions, which somewhat limits the chances he'll play an immediate role in the majors in 2026, unless he picks up a new position like Charles McAdoo did. Still, his progression this year has nonetheless been exciting to see. George Springer George Springer is starting to look more like himself at the plate (122 wRC+ in June). It starts with his selectivity, as his chase rate this month is down to 19.2%, a decrease of 10% compared to May and the first time he's been under 20% in a month since August of last year. His mechanics have slightly changed too. His swing length this month is down a couple of inches from his season average without any material sacrifice to his bat speed. George Springer Bat Tracking Stats, 2026 overall vs 2026 June {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Sample Bat Speed Swing Length Contact Point vs Center of Mass Attack Angle Attack Direction YTD 2026 72.5 mph 7.4' 21.9" 9° 0° June 2026 72.1 mph 7.2' 18.9" 7° 5° oppo The recurring issue with Springert early in the season was similar to what we saw in his down year in 2024: too many ground balls rolled over to the pull side. He has launched a couple towering pull-side dingers this past week, with one of them being his 300th career long ball, but he's been looking to use the whole field again in an effort to move away from those slow rollers to the left side of the infield. Springer already lets the ball travel more than almost every hitter in baseball, and this month, he's doubling down on that approach and shooting more hits the other way. This approach often leads to a decrease in power output, but his recent success indicates it might be what he has to do in order to avoid an abundance of weak contact. Louis Varland After finally reminding us that he was human last week, Louis Varland went right back to dominating in the first two games of the Boston series. On Wednesday night, he struck out the side on 10 pitches, one shy of an immaculate inning. The night before, Varland had to enter a three-run game for a four-out save after Tommy Nance struggled in the eighth, adding to the increasing concerns about his workload. Despite that, his stuff looked about as good as we've ever seen it the very next day. His fastball averaged 99.8 mph, and his slider was up a couple ticks in velocity to around 94 mph while adding some vertical drop. It feels like the Blue Jays have to turn to him every day, but that hasn't stopped his average fastball velocity from increasing each month of the season. Through 40 innings this year, Varland is rocking a 0.90 ERA, 1.50 FIP, 1.99 xFIP, and 1.8 FanGraphs WAR, tied with Cade Smith for the highest reliever WAR in the AL. Among every single Blue Jays relief pitcher season in history (max. 100 IP), Tom Henke has the highest fWAR at 3.5, a mark he reached in 1986. In terms of the best ERA, it's B.J. Ryan, who had a 1.37 in 2006. Varland is on pace to match Henke's fWAR in a slightly smaller sample, and his ERA is still on the right side of 1.00. I'll keep saying it until it isn't true: Appreciate this while you can. The Jays have never had a closer this good, and it'll be a long time before the stars align like this again. Andrés Giménez Andrés Giménez's hot streak has lengthened out the lineup quite nicely (146 wRC+ in his last seven games). His ability to occasionally surprise everyone with an absolute missile off a lefty pitcher is delightful on the rare occasion it happens, and in Tuesday's series opener, he took a Payton Tolle cutter deep to Fenway's cavernous right-center field, going back-to-back with Davis Schneider for the first instance of back-to-back homers the Jays have had in 2026. On balls in play, Giménez's xwOBA against changeups and splitters is a whopping .547 so far in June. A few things stand out from his bat tracking stats of late. Giménez is standing a tad farther back in the box, and his stance is both more open (12° open in June, compared to 2° open in 2026 overall) and more upright, with a smaller gap in between his feet in recent weeks. The visual comparison below shows that his front foot is slightly offset from his back foot, something we didn't see at the start of the year, as he's facing the pitcher more directly. When he first got to Toronto and immediately opened 2025 on a productive note, his stance was more open than it was in Cleveland. Hitting is a game of constant adjustments, so it makes sense this didn't last all year, but he's trying the same thing again right now, and it's working. Andrés Giménez Batting Stance Comparison, April 2026 (left) vs June 2026 (right) All stats entering June 18, 2026 View full article