Blue Jays: Grading the first quarter of the season

Somehow a quarter of the Blue Jays season has already come and gone. 42 games into the year, the team is 23-19 and sitting two and a half games out of first place in the American League East, despite being in fourth place.

With a top-10 offence in baseball and a pitching staff that has exceeded expectations so far, the Jays have put themselves in position to make a run at back-to-back playoff births and a division title.

According to ESPN, the Blue Jays have had the fourth most difficult schedule to date. This should set them up with the opportunity to keep up their winning ways against weaker competition.

To this point, we haven’t seen a full-strength Jays team, and despite seeing players move in and out of the lineup due to injury — including prized free-agent signing George Springer — they have held their own in the best division in baseball.

This makes it hard to project what the team may look like come September and October, but hopefully means once the team returns to full strength, they can separate themselves in the AL East and insert themselves squarely into the World Series picture.

Here we are going to give each Jays positional group a grade for their first quarter performance.

Infield

Starting behind the plate, Blue Jays catchers rank 23rd in MLB, generating a 0.1 WAR so far. This number may be a bit deceiving as the trio of Jays catchers — Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Reese McGuire — have generated -6.03offensive WAR and 1.6 defensive WAR, showing how their defence is keeping the group at replacement level.

While Jansen has caught the majority of the innings so far this season, his bat has been nowhere close to replacement level. While a catcher’s main focus should be on their glove work, Jansen ranks 20th amongst all catchers in defensive WAR.

Before his injury, Kirk looked to be starting to heat up, hitting .385 over his final five games, including his two home run game against the Braves. Despite a slow start to the year, Kirk profiled as a guy who might have been getting unlucky with some of the balls he was putting in play. With an average exit velocity of 90.2 mph and a BABIP of .194, it was only a matter of time before some balls started to find some holes and fall in for hits.

McGuire has come in and filled in admirably for Kirk. Hitting .400 through his first seven games, he may be able to work himself into more playing time if he continues to find his way on base from the bottom of the order.

At first base, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is looking like a bonafide MVP candidate. It’s hard to say how much the position change has contributed to Guerrero’s breakout season but it seems like he has settled in at first and is reminding the league why he was the #1 ranked prospect just two years ago.

By offensive WAR, Guerrero has been the best hitter in MLB this season. While the numbers have been repeated again and again so far this year, Guerrero’s walk rate has skyrocketed to 15.2 per cent this season and he falls third in average exit velocity (94.5 mph), ripping the ball every time he puts it in play.

Meanwhile, 2021 hasn’t been too kind to Rowdy Tellez. The 26-year-old has a wRC+ of 39 and although he is hitting the ball hard — an average exit velocity of 94.3 mph — too often he is expanding the zone, reflected in his 2.2 per cent walk rate and 34.4 per cent chase rate.

Marcus Semien has played nearly every game at second base for the Blue Jays so far in 2021. The offseason acquisition has really turned it on since the end of April. After seeing his batting average fall to .174 on April 20th, Semien has arguably been the best two-bagger in baseball. Since the 20th he has a slash line of .343/.419/.6598, which now has him as the highest second base WAR generator in the league (1.8). Semien is posting a career-high in hard-hit percentage (43.7%) and has been everything the Blue Jays could have expected when they signed him.

At shortstop, Bo Bichette has maybe not had the type of year that Jays fans have come to expect after his first two seasons, but Bichette has still been one of the best shortstops in baseball.

Posting a top-10 WAR at his position and starting to regain some of the defensive value that he lost early on, Bichette continues to impress and may be in line for an All-Star appearance in his first full MLB season.

Rounding out the infield, are Cavan Biggio, Santiago Espinal and Joe Panik. While Biggio has struggled to start the season, posting a negative offensive and defensive WAR, Panik and Espinal have had varying levels of success. Espinal has been very good defensively and has held his own at the plate, while Panik has struggled on both sides of the ball.

Despite the slow start, Biggio is starting to show signs of life at the plate in May, with three multi-hit games so far this month. He is also looking better defensively, only making one error since the calendar flipped, compared to the five he made in April.

Grade: A

While the Blue Jays may be lacking production from the catcher and third base positions, there is a chance that we see multiple Jays infielders representing the team at the All-Star game.

Outfield

The Blue Jays have had five different players roam the outfield so far in 2021 and none of them are named George Springer. With Springer only getting in four games so far, Randal Grichuk has been outstanding in his place up the middle.

After looking like he may have been on the outside of the starting lineup when the roster was fully healthy, Grichuk came out of the gates on fire. He was one of the team’s best hitters through the first few weeks of the season, and despite cooling off a bit recently he still holds a 117 wRC+ and has been a positive contributor both offensively and defensively.

For Teoscar Hernandez, 2021 has seen him miss 16 games after testing positive for COVID-19. But when he has been on the field, he has picked up right where he left off after an outstanding 2020. Hernandez has a wRC+ of 136 and a slash line of .304/.366/.480. Having Hernandez in the lineup gives the Blue Jays an extra dimension to the already dynamic offensive group and since his return on April 30th, the team is 12-7.

The other outfielder who has received the majority of the playing time is Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Gurriel Jr. has had a tough start to the season only slashing .228/.243/.317. His hard-hit percentage has dropped by just less than 15 per cent from last season, as he just isn’t squaring up balls as much as he has in the past. With an increasing chase rate and decreasing walk rate, Gurriel Jr. may be in need of a hot streak to get himself back on track.

Jonathan Davis and Josh Palacios both have less than 50 at-bats this season and neither has been overly productive in their appearances. Both have been below league average hitters and neither has played enough to produce any relevant defensive stats.

Grade: B

This is a tough group to grade as we have yet to really see a fully healthy Blue Jays outfield group. But what have seen is two of the three everyday starters producing at a high level, while Gurriel Jr. tries to find his groove this season.

Overall the Blue Jays outfielders rank 21st in MLB in WAR. The group has evidently struggled as a whole with Hernandez and Springer missing so much time, but hopefully, when Springer gets back on the field, the Jays will have one of the best groups in all of baseball.

Bullpen

One of the best relief units in all of baseball has certainly been a nice surprise for the Blue Jays in 2021. Although the group has been decimated by injury, they still have the 5th best ERA (3.17) in MLB and racked up the 7th most innings pitched.

While this recipe for success may not be stable, the Blue Jays have done a good job of distributing those innings to different relievers as no single member of the bullpen has thrown over 19 innings so far.

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Losing David Phelps and Julian Merryweather to the 60-day IL hurt as both had a sub 1.00 ERA but pitchers like Joel Payamps (1.93 ERA) and Tyler Chatwood (0.56 ERA) have been fantastic and have softened the blow.

Trent Thornton, Ryan Borucki and Jordan Romano have also all been very good so far. The trio has combined to throw 45 innings in relief and strike out 45 hitters in that time.

As a unit, the Blue Jays bullpen doesn’t strike out the most hitters or walk the fewest, but they rank top-12 in both HR/9 (0.93) and ground ball rate (45.4%).

Grade: A+

This group of relievers has been a huge part of the Blue Jays first quarter success. Although it may not be sustainable to rely on your bullpen this much, if the Jays can find some more success and eat up more innings with their rotation, the bullpen may be able to become even more effective in a more limited role.

* All stats courtesy of Fangraphs