One under-the-radar reason the Blue Jays' offence feels less dynamic

If you were so inclined, you could make an argument the 2022 Toronto Blue Jays have hit better than their 2021 counterparts.

Although their overall output is down from last year, the team's wRC+ of 115 tops last year’s mark (112) — indicating that they’ve been better in the context of the league’s offensive environment. Hitters around the majors aren’t producing at the level they did last year, and the Blue Jays are doing very well relative to their peers. 

That may be the literal truth, but for anyone who’s watched the Blue Jays extensively this year it doesn’t feel quite right. Toronto’s offence hasn’t seemed as dynamic as it was last season, and one reason why is the club's brutal performance on the bases.

While this Blue Jays team has never been a group of burners, last year they created value on the base paths. In 2022 that hasn’t been the case. 

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According to FanGraphs' BsR metric the Blue Jays are currently the 28th-best base running team in the majors (-9.9 runs). Last season they were 13th (+2.8). 

The most obvious way to accumulate base-running value is success stealing bases, and that’s an area where the team has struggled this season.

Some of this can be explained by personnel changes, as the departure of Marcus Semien — who went 15-for-16 on stolen base attempts — hurts those numbers. That said, many of the same players simply aren’t having the same success.

The most obvious example of that trend is Bo Bichette who went 25-for-26 stealing bases in 2021 before a 9-for-17 showing so far this season. He’s not alone, though. Teoscar Hernandez went 12-for-16 in 2021 and he’s sitting at 6-for-9. Santiago Espinal is 5-for-9 after going 6-for-7 last year.

While stolen-base statistics come from small samples and are liable to fluctuate significantly, it’s notable that a number of Blue Jays have seen their Sprint Speed numbers decline this season.

The chart below shows every position player currently on the roster that played with the team in 2021 and how their Sprint Speed percentile has changed year-over-year:

As guys get a little older it makes sense that this metric would sag slightly, so what we’re seeing with Springer — who’s having his most efficient base-stealing season to date — Hernandez and Biggio isn’t concerning. The trend of a little less speed across the board adds up, though.

Bichette and Espinal are a different story. This dropoff in raw speed certainly helps explain how the pair went from a 93.9 percent success rate stealing bases to just 53.8 percent in 2022. Their raw true talent is still probably better than the latter number suggests, but the way they’re currently running their 2021 results might be impossible to replicate.

The dropoff in raw speed shows up beyond simply stolen bases, too. Baseball-Reference keeps an 'extra bases taken percentage' statistic to measure how often a player goes from first to third on a single, first to home on a double or second to home on a single.

According to that metric (XBT), Bichette and Espinal have both declined in 2022:

This pair isn’t solely responsible for the decline of the Blue Jays' speed element, but they are playing a disproportionate role.

While the Blue Jays aren’t going to sink or swim solely on its base running, last year they were about to generate positive value with their legs. It was a small ingredient in their success, but far from an insignificant one.

This year that significant, if modest, strength has morphed into a weakness. The addition of Whit Merrifield could go a ways to restoring this team's base-running success, but it seems that a small part of what made the 2021 Blue Jays so potent has been lost.

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