MLB Team Roundup: Toronto Blue Jays
Cole, Strider highlight top 10 fantasy starters
D.J. Short and Eric Samulski reveal their top 10 fantasy baseball starting pitchers for 2024 and discuss the order in which they should be ranked.
2023 record: 89-73 (.549)
Third Place, AL East
Team ERA: 3.79 (4th)
Team OPS: .745 (11th)
What Went Right
Let's start with the pitching. The Blue Jays went from a team built around a high-powered offense to a team carried by their pitching. Some of that could be the result of field adjustments made in the offseason. The Jays increased the height of the wall across the vast majority of their outfield and saw their Statcast Park Factor rating go from 15th in a three-year rolling leaderboard to 25th in the 2023 season. The Rogers Centre had also previously ranked 15th in park factor for just runs and 14th for home runs, while in 2023 it ranked 25th for runs and 19th for home runs. It's only a one year sample, but that does appear to make it seem like the Rogers Centre will play slightly more pitcher-friendly, and the Blue Jays capitalized with the 4th-best ERA in baseball.
However, their pitching success was due to more than just park factors. Toronto's starters were third in baseball with a 24.4% strikeout rate. Kevin Gausman was his typically dominant self with a 3.16 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and 23.9% K-BB% in 185 innings. Chris Bassitt produced another solid season with a 3.60 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and 15.4% K-BB% across 200.1 innings pitched. Yusei Kikuchi also rebounded with a 3.86 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 19% K-BB% across 167.2 innings, while Jose Berrios had a 3.65 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 16.9% K-BB% in 189.2 innings. That's a pretty good performance from (most of) the rotation.
The bullpen was similarly solid, ranking 8th with a 3.68 ERA, 3rd in strikeout rate at 26%, and 4th in WHIP at 1.23.
As a team, the offense was fairly solid. They ranked 6th in strikeout rate, 8th in batting average, 8th in wRC+, 11th in OPS, 16th in home runs, and 22nd in steals. However, the lack of power stood out. For a team that was supposed to be driven by offense, they had only two players hit over 20 home runs: George Springer had 21 and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had 26.
Bo Bichette had his best batting average season as an MLB regular, slashing .306/.339/.475 while lowering his strikeout rate to 19.1%. He also lowered his walk rate to 4.5% and had career lows in home runs and steals while playing 135 games, so it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
The Blue Jays did enjoy a strong bounceback season from Whit Merrifield, who hit .272/.318/.382 with 11 home runs and 26 steals just a season after he stole only 16 bases and many people wondered if his time as a starter was coming to an end. Similarly, infield prospect Davis Schneider forced his way into the Blue Jays lineup after hitting .275 with 21 home runs in 87 games at Triple-A. In the majors, Schneider slashed .276/.404/.603 with eight home runs and 20 RBI in just 35 games. He did show an elevated strikeout rate, but the 24-year-old could push for every day at bats next season.
What Went Wrong
While most of the pitching went right this season, things went horribly wrong for Alek Manoah. After a strong 2022 season, Manoah cratered in 2023, posting a 5.87 ERA and 1.74 WHIP with a 4.8% K-BB% in 87.2 innings. He was sent to the instructional league and then ended the season by needing to get multiple injections in his pitching arm, raising tons of questions about his potential health and effectiveness for next season.
The Blue Jays also got the short end of the stick in their offseason trade with Arizona (at least, after just one season). In his first year in Toronto, Daulton Varsho provided solid defense in the outfield, but he hit just .220/.285/.389 with 20 home runs and 16 steals across 158 games. Meanwhile, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit .261/.309/.463 in 145 games for Arizona with 24 home runs and five steals and Gabriel Moreno hit .284/.339.408 with seven home runs and six steals in 111 games in Arizona and, perhaps most importantly, led all of baseball in caught stealing percentage as a catcher.
With Alejandro Kirk hitting .250/.334/.358 with eight home runs in 123 games and providing just average defense, it's entirely possible that the Blue Jays traded the best of their three catchers and a solid outfielder for Varsho. That might not be a great deal at the end of the day.
The Blue Jays will also have a question to answer at third base. Matt Chapman continues to provide tremendous defense at the hot corner but was woeful at the dish after his strong start to the season. From May 1st on, Chapman hit .205/.298/.361 with a 29.1% strikeout rate and 12 home runs in 113 games. The 30-year-old is also coming off a 2022 season in which he hit .229/.324/.433, so Toronto will need to decide whether his high barrel rates and power potential are worth betting on going forward.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. also took a slight step back in 2023. After hitting .274 with 32 home runs and eight steals in 2022, he hit .264 with 26 home runs and five steals in 2023. His home run totals have now dipped from 48 in 2021 to 32 in 2022 to 26 this season, and that was despite his fly ball rate and average launch angle increasing this year.
Fantasy Slants
** When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was a prospect, a lot was made about his swing not being designed to consistently elevate the ball out of the park. When he came out and hit 48 home runs in 2021, that narrative seemed to be dismissed, but we now have two straight seasons where Guerrero appears to be a 30-home run hitter. Now, there's obviously nothing wrong with a player who will hit .270 with 30 home runs; however, I think that appears to be more of who Guerrero is than what he flashed in 2021, which is an outlier from both his MLB and Minor League track record. Since he doesn't really run, penciling Guerrero in for 30 home runs instead of 40 brings his fantasy value closer to players like Christian Walker, Triston Casas, and Spencer Torkelson and less in the higher tier where we find Pete Alonso
** Cavan Biggio has really struggled to break into a contributing role in Toronto after coming up as a prospect with lots of name value. However, after being sent to the minors in the middle of the season, Biggio came back up and looked like a different player. In 53 games in the second half of the season, Biggio hit .272/.404/.361 with two home runs, 32 runs scored, 22 RBI, and three steals. He likely won't contribute a lot of power and will provide just a handful of steals, but he vastly improved his plate discipline metrics, which led to a high batting average and made him a huge on-base percentage asset. He could emerge as a MIF target if he can carry this over into 2024.
** We might need to accept the "new normal" for George Springer. Now 34-years-old, the outfielder has been a .260 hitter with 20 home runs and 15-20 steals in each of the last three seasons. Now, in 2021 we were able to argue that there was more in the tank because he played just 78 games so he still had a 30-homer bat in him. After the last two seasons, I think it's fair to say that's not who he is anymore. He still hits atop a good lineup and will push for 160 Runs+RBI, so putting that together with a .260 hitter who can go 20/20 is certainly nothing to be upset about, but he may be sliding down into a tier of outfielders that includes players like Bryan Reynolds, Evan Carter, Seiya Suzuki, and Lane Thomas.
** Next year may finally be the year we get to see Ricky Tiedemann in the majors. The left-handed starting pitching prospect was limited to 44 innings this year as he battled injury, but he posted a 3.68 ERA with 82 strikeouts. The 21-year-old finished off the season strong with a month of September that saw him register a 1.98 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, while giving up only three earned runs with 21 strikeouts in 13.2 innings pitched. In four starts in the Arizona Fall League, he has a 2.50 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, with eight walks and 23 strikeouts in just 18 innings of work. It's unclear if the Blue Jays feel good enough about his health to let him start the year in the rotation, but he should push for a spot.
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Key Free Agents
Matt Chapman, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon Belt, Kevin Kiermaier, Jordan Hicks, Whit Merrified ($18 million mutual option), Chad Green ($9 million team option)
Team Needs
The Blue Jays will return 4/5 of their starting rotation and the majority of their bullpen, aside from potentially Jordan Hicks, so the team seems set on pitching unless it wants to add one or two more bullpen arms to replace free agents. The key for Toronto will be adding punch to their lineup.
It feels unlikely that the team picks up the $18 million option for Merrifield, so the Blue Jays will need to determine if they feel Biggio or Schneider is ready for second base. They could also put one of them at second and the other at third, if they opt not to bring back Chapman. Right now, those are the two biggest holes on the infield, and then the team will need to replace Belt and Keirmaier at left field and designated hitter.
That means Toronto has four open spots in their lineup and they could trot out a vastly different offensive team than this season. Considering their offense has a need for more thump, it might not be a surprise to see them make a run at somebody like Cody Bellinger, Rhys Hoskins, Jorge Soler, or even bring back Teoscar Hernandez.
What we do know is that we should see a fair few new faces in the batter's box in Toronto next year.
