Eight games into the season and the Jays appear to be contenders, not pretenders, a rather different expectation than many MLB fans initially thought.
Needless to say, 8 games out of 162 is a very small sample size. Still, it’s worth looking at what has gotten Toronto to this point and try to project what it might mean for the season as a whole. If the most optimistic of Jays fans had sat down to imagine what had to go right for the team to have its best case scenario, I doubt it would have looked anything like this.
1. Andres Gimenez Leads Team in HRs/RBIs
On December 10th, when the Jays traded Spencer Horwitz to Cleveland for Gimenez and RP Nick Sandlin, I admit I was confused by the trade. The Blue Jays needed to boost their offence, yet they traded away Horwitz, who had the team’s 4th best OPS in 2024 at .790 (2nd best if you only count players with a minimum 100 plate appearances). Gimenez is one of the better infield defenders in the game, but his career .716 OPS coming in to the 2025 season didn’t do much to convince Jays fans that he could help much in run production nor did his .638 OPS in 2024.
8 games into the season, Gimenez leads the team in home runs (3), RBIs (6) and has a quality .986 OPS.
Realistically, it is very unlikely he can maintain this hot pace which would see him with 61 HRs for the season. The question is when he inevitably cools off, how much will he cool off? Hopefully he won’t go ice cold. The hope is that he can still be a productive hitter and help the team on both sides of the ball. If he can come anywhere close to his career best OPS of .837 in 2022 when he was an all star, Blue Jays fans will be delighted. His offensive production might be one of the biggest X Factors that decides whether Toronto is a playoff team or a basement-dweller.
The good news is that two of the “big guns” haven’t yet put up numbers close to what is expected of them. No doubt OPS numbers at season’s end will be much better than what they are now for 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr (.710) and free-agent splash OF Anthony Santander (.527). When, or if, Gimenez cools off, hopefully Guerrero Jr. and Santander will have heated up, which should more than make up for the lost production.
2. Overall Team Offensive Production
I must admit that George Springer leading the regular position players with a 1.237 OPS isn’t something I had on my bingo card, especially not at this stage in his career. Springer’s OPS has declined each year he has worn a Jays uniform, .907 in 2021, .814 in 2022, .732 in 2023 and .674 in 2024. His offensive production in spring training was almost non-existent, and there were even some who suggested the Jays should DFA him and eat the rest of this contract for the good of the team. Credit to Springer for making whatever adjustments were necessary at his age to return to being a productive hitter.
But that’s not all. Hitters like Will Wagner and Tyler Heineman who do not have blazing speed (to say the least) bunting for base hits, and apparently this was no fluke. Per Keegan Matheson of MLB, John Schneider self-funded a bunting competition in spring training.
Now before the “never bunt” crowd comes after me with pitchforks, I am not suggesting that the Jays could or should bunt their way to a championship. However, I have always believed that teams capable of winning it all need to have multiple weapons in their offensive arsenal. I can think of a number of times in team history where they were good at hitting home runs, but when they weren’t going deep, they weren’t scoring very much. Sometimes you face a very hot pitcher and it’s unlikely you will get a pitch to square up. When that is the case, a bunt single is better than an out. It is my opinion that teams capable of playing long ball AND small ball have the best chance to win games.
What about OF Myles Straw, who probably never should have been a Blue Jay to begin with (The only reason Toronto picked up his contract was to acquire additional international bonus pool money, in hopes to sign SP Roki Sasaki prior to him signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers). Straw has not been an everyday player, only having had 7 ABs so far. However, his 3 hits on April 2nd have inflated his OPS to 1.143, and more importantly he helped the team with that game. One good game for Straw is an exceptionally small sample size. We probably shouldn’t get our hopes up too high over a player with a career OPS of .627 over 8 MLB seasons. But again, if he can manage to remain productive when he is called upon, especially in the outfield, the Jays will have succeeded in making lemonade from a lemon.
3. Easton Lucas Outduels MacKenzie Gore
I was not one of the many Jays fans who seemed to be very excited when Toronto signed 40-year-old Max Scherzer to a 1 year, $15.5 million contract. The reason for this is simple. Scherzer has earned a world of respect for the Hall of Fame career that he has put together, but he has suffered 5 different injuries over the past two seasons. Now, at age 40, did the Jays think he would somehow be healthier and stay active enough to help the team? Yes, it’s early in the season but so far it doesn’t look great.
Scherzer, not surprisingly was placed on the IL due to his thumb injury. The Jays needed a starting pitcher. Yariel Rodriguez was used as a starting pitcher for all of 2024 with mixed results; the fact that they didn’t insert him back in to the rotation right away suggests to me that they really prefer him in the bullpen.
So who would get those innings? Newcomer Jake Bloss might have gotten the nod, but after allowing 8 runs on 9 hits in 4 innings in his first start with the Buffalo Bisons on April 1st, it’s clear that he isn’t ready for prime time. Both Alek Manoah and Ricky Tiedemann had Tommy John surgery well in to the 2024 season and they are both several months away (best case scenario). The Jays 2024 first round draft pick Trey Yesavage has exciting upside, but he has yet to pitch professionally. Starting him off in MLB would be very premature.
Enter Easton Lucas.
The pitching matchup going in to April 2nd’s game looked to be a major league mismatch. Gore looked to have become the ace pitcher he has been expected to become for some time on March 27 vs a strong hitting Phillies team, going 6 innings with no runs, 1 hit, 0 walks and 13 strikeouts. 28 year old Lucas, on the other hand, came into this season as somewhat of a journeyman. He made his MLB debut in 2023 with the Athletics, then pitched a handful of games in 2024 for the Tigers and Blue Jays. Overall, he owns an era of 8.10 in 15 games.
It’s doubtful that many people expected him to pitch 5 scoreless innings, on his way to his first MLB win as a starting pitcher and helping the Blue Jays secure their first sweep of the season against the Washington Nationals.
Per Shi Davidi on sportsnet.ca, Lucas had been working for much of the offseason to change his pitching repertoire. Apparently, he has changed his hard slider to a sweeper and also has been working to improve his changeup.
WIth no timetable for Scherzer’s return and an unexpected strong performance from Lucas, no doubt he will get more starts, which will allow the Jays to better assess what they have in him. He will face some tough tests going forward with his (likely) next opponents being the Boston Red Sox, and then the Baltimore Orioles. If this works out, the Jays will have a lefty in the rotation, which they haven’t had since they traded away Yusei Kikuchi at the 2024 trade deadline.
4. A Shorter Leash for Poor Performances
I was more than a little bit surprised when the Jays chose to let P Ryan Yarbrough walk at the end of spring training, rather than adding him to the roster. They needed bullpen help and Yarbrough was quite effective as a long man for them in part of the 2024 season (2.01 era in 31.1 innings over 12 games). The spot Yarbrough might have occupied went instead to RP Richard Lovelady. Looked like a poor move by the front office, however, as Lovelady had an abysmal few games in long relief.
Lovelady was a disaster for the Jays in 2 games in 2025 with a 21.60 era, 2 games that the Jays lost. However, rather than keeping him around for who knows how long, they replaced him on the roster with rookie Mason Fluharty (Lovelady is now a free agent). It may be a silver lining and it won’t bring Yarbrough back (although Yarbrough himself has struggled so far with the Yankees) but it’s good to see the organization act quickly to try to improve the team rather than sticking with a player who doesn’t have what they need, especially with a young lefty with upside.
I’m hopeful that 23 year old Fluharty can have a successful MLB career. The slow start he has had so far (18.00 era in 2 games) could be largely due to having only been in high leverage situations as a raw rookie (and I strongly question John Schneider’s judgment in putting him in these situations). I’d like to see them get him in some lower leverage situations soon, which can give him have some success that he can try to build on.
5. A Stout Team Record of 5-3
We all know it’s very early, as 8 games in to a 162 game season is barely 5%. A lot can and probably will change. But at the very least, getting off to a good start isn’t a bad thing. Better that then having a hole for the Blue Jays to try to dig themselves out of. Just for fun, if the regular season ended today, Toronto would be the first wild card team and clinch their 3rd postseason berth in 4 seasons.
Closing Thoughts
I believe there is reason for cautious optimism regarding this version of the Jays, but everything needs to go right for them to succeed in 2025. At the very least though, so far there have been surprises which have been entertaining for Jays fans to watch and dream about. A 5-0 shut out loss vs the New York Mets on April 4th snapped a 4 game win streak, but here is hoping they get back to winning soon.