The 2023 Toronto Blue Jays were always supposed to look different to previous iterations, but as the team’s transition into a group specializing in pitching and defence has been more dramatic than expected.
Toronto ranks fifth in the major leagues in run prevention while 14 clubs have plated more runs than the Blue Jays.
While there are a number of factors leading to those results, it seemed fair to assume the team would try to balance things out around the trade deadline by adding some offensive firepower.
Instead, the Blue Jays added a hard-throwing lefty reliever, a proven closer, and an elite defensive shortstop. That haul — all from the St. Louis Cardinals — was deemed underwhelming by many fans as Jordan Hicks was the only impact player the team onboarded.
Toronto didn’t shore up weaknesses. It just added to one of its core strengths while acquiring a little injury insurance.
Although it’s fair to quibble with the lack of an offensive addition, it’s interesting to see the Blue Jays pour additional resources into their bullpen when it’s been an extremely effective unit in 2023. Jordan Romano’s back injury may have played a role in the Hicks move, but the closer is expected back soon and the Blue Jays had the arms to weather his absence.
During the Blue Jays’ most recent competitive seasons, a lack of relief talent has been a consistent theme.
Back in 2015, the team’s bullpen stats were solid, but many of its highest-leverage innings were going to then-unproven guys like Roberto Osuna and Liam Hendriks. The Blue Jays’ relievers seemed to fall apart in big spots, meaning their contribution to winning didn’t match their stats.
That led to the acquisition of Mark Lowe and LaTroy Hawkins — solid arms but not relief aces on par with Hicks
More recently, in 2021, the Blue Jays bullpen was so bad early in the year that the team was forced to make unusually early trades for Adam Cimber (June 29) and Trevor Richards (July 6).
While the teams have changed over the years there has been a consistent pattern of Toronto bringing a middling-or-worse bullpen into the trade deadline and springing for mid-priced arms like Joaquin Benoit, Brad Hand, or Anthony Bass.
The chart below shows how Toronto’s bullpen stacked-up against the rest of the majors according to numbers from the day before the trade deadline in each of the team’s recent competitive years by ERA, fWAR, and WPA — metrics measuring their run prevention, peripherals, and literal in-game impact.
Season | ERA | MLB Rank | fWAR | MLB Rank | WPA | MLB Rank |
2015 | 3.36 | 12th | 2.5 | 13th | -3.09 | 29th |
2016 | 4.12 | 20th | 1.6 | 20th | +1.28 | 20th |
2020 | 3.17 | 4th | 2.7 | 3rd | +1.66 | 9th |
2021 | 4.05 | 14th | 1.5 | 20th | +0.47 | 16th |
2022 | 3.89 | 15th | 1.4 | 24th | +0.48 | 16th |
There is one exception to the trend in 2020, but it’s a relatively easy one to dismiss as the COVID-19 shortened season was full of small-sample size wackiness.
On the eve of the 2020 trade deadline the Blue Jays bullpen was being driven by outlier performances from the likes of A.J. Cole (1.23 ERA), Thomas Hatch (2.02 ERA) and Rafael Dolis (2.40 ERA) and Anthony Kay (2.93 ERA). Since 2020, that quartet has produced a 5.91 ERA.
Unimpressive results followed by modest additions has been the pattern in the Blue Jays bullpen, but the story is different this year.
Toronto entered the day it acquired Hicks with a bullpen ranking third in the majors in WPA (+5.00), fifth in ERA (3.65) and 10th in fWAR (3.4). It had room to improve from there, too, as the pitchers who had struggled the worst — Adam Cimber, Mitch White, and Zach Pop — weren’t in the mix for meaningful innings.
At the time of the Hicks deal the Blue Jays’ top seven relievers — Romano, Erik Swanson, Tim Mayza, Yimi Garcia, Trevor Richards, Jay Jackson and Nate Pearson — had a combined 3.20 ERA and 10.60 K/9.
Presuming a relatively speedy return to health for Romano, that would’ve been the best group the Blue Jays had taken to the playoffs in some time. Then Toronto traded for arguably the top reliever on the market, after adding an interesting high-ceiling arm in Genesis Cabrera days earlier.
If the Blue Jays make the playoffs they are likely to enter the fray equipped with a relief corps to be feared. Romano and Richards will have to return for that vision to be realized, but both project to find their way back.
Toronto has become used to going into battle with mighty lineups and strong rotations hoping a weak-link bullpen can hold onto the leads the team amasses. This year they finally have an elite group of relievers, but they’ll need them to uplift an offence lacking the potency of recent Blue Jays lineups.
Whether that’ll work or not is up for debate, but at the very least the Blue Jays seem unlikely to see their playoff dreams end the same way they did in 2022.