Blue Jays: Good and bad, careers that changed from a year ago

From a career in the balance, to a brighter future than ever

I distinctly remember the last time Tim Mayza left the mound in 2019, and while I’m the furthest thing from a doctor, you didn’t have to be one to know that it would be a while until he would return. In fact, I wasn’t sure we’d ever see Mayza on a big league diamond again.

His injury was one of those violent pictures that makes your stomach turn, and it was clear that the southpaw was immediately in pain, and also knew that the injury was serious. After Tommy John surgery to fix that injury pitching arm, the then-29 year old was in camp last spring looking to win a job on the big league roster.

At the time I figured that Mayza was destined to start the year in Triple-A, which made sense as he continued to work back from injury. Instead, he ended up performing as good as any reliever in camp, winning a job for Opening Day. It was all that more impressive because Mayza had to beat out veteran Francisco Liriano for the gig, who was signed to a MiLB contract, and the Jays ultimately knew it meant they wouldn’t be able to keep Liriano in the organization.

It turned out to be the right decision, as Mayza was one of the few reliable veterans throughout last season. He finished the campaign with a 3.40 ERA and a 0.981 WHIP over 53.0 appearances, appearing in 61 games in total. What was even more impressive was that Mayza earned the trust of Charlie Montoyo to the point where he was the most frequently used set-up man before Jordan Romano, and it didn’t really matter whether right or left-handed batters were due up.

Mayza is poised to return in the same type of role in 2022, and this time he’ll be able to enter spring camp with a different mind set (assuming spring camp eventually happens). Instead of trying to win a job, the Pennsylvania native can prepare with different priorities in mind, knowing he’s all but guaranteed a job going forward.

I know the bullpen is a volatile area of any baseball team, but for a guy coming off of such a horrific injury and just trying to work his way back, what a difference a year makes for Tim Mayza.

From core piece, to chopped meat

While it was a lot more fun to talk about how much things improved for Tim Mayza over the last year, it didn’t go that way for everybody. There are a handful of players we could talk about in that regard, but at the top of the list would be Cavan Biggio.

Think back to a year ago and you might remember the promo spots the Blue Jays used to run that included Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio. It was an easy thing to feature since all of their fathers are well known former big leaguers, but it was always a bit of a reach to include Biggio in the same company as the other two, even if they’d all moved through the minor league system together. In 2021, that became more apparent than ever.

Having said that, I believe that Biggio’s struggles last season were largely due to injury, and I’m a believe in a bounce-back season ahead for the versatile infielder. I think he’ll be better off if he’s able to return to his more natural position at second base, but we’ll see what happens with the rest of the Blue Jays roster build was the lockout finally comes to an end.

While Biggio may not be the star of this team by any means, he showed what kind of value he can bring to the table over the course of his first two seasons in the big leagues. Over those first two years he played in 159 games, roughly the equivalent to a full season in the big leagues, and he earned 5.0 bWAR the along. That’s an immensely valuable player, and one that was putting up those numbers while still getting their feet wet in the big leagues.

Do I think Biggio is going to be a 5.0 WAR player in the future? I sincerely doubt it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recover his value and make an important contribution to the Blue Jays in 2022 and beyond. Count me among the believers that think he’ll do just that, and hopefully I’ll be able to write about him in this same kind of space in a year from now, but in a much more positive light.

The most pleasant surprise of 2021

For as many fun moments as there were in 2021, I don’t know that any player brought as many smiles to my face as Alek Manoah.

The rookie right-hander was a revelation for the Blue Jays, and one that came at a perfect time for a rotation that needed the reinforcements. He broke a pile of Blue Jay records in his first season in the big leagues, and finished 9-2 with a 3.22 ERA and a 1.048 WHIP over 20 starts that covered 111.2 innings. The big righty also struck out 127 batters on the way to earning 2.8 bWAR.

While I’m not surprised that Manoah has been able to impress at the highest level, I have to admit that he caught me off guard with how quickly he found that success. Prior to last season there were several writers in notable publications that were worried about him for one reason or another, and some of their points were valid. Missing the 2020 season because of the Covid-19 pandemic was a big deal was far as his potential development, and instead of being able to progress through the minors that year he was left to work out in Florida. As good as that instruction may have been, you can’t replace the experience of real games.

In the end, none of that mattered for the Florida native, and he won the hearts of most of the Blue Jays fan base along the way. He’s easily regarded as the top young pitcher in the organization right now, and he’s blown well past Nate Pearson, which was hard to see coming a year ago.

Hopefully he can keep up the same level of production during his sophomore season, and if he can, the Blue Jays are going to have one of the best rotations in baseball.

We knew it was coming, and it was worth the wait

I have a confession to make, and I’m not proud of a conversation I had a little over a year ago. A friend asked me what I thought about Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s 2020 season, and my reactionary and frustrated response was, “maybe they should put him on the trade block before he loses more value”.

In my defence, I was frustrated with the way the 2020 season had gone for young Vladdy, and not necessarily because of his performance. In his 21 year old season, I fully expected there to be bumps in the road as he continued to adjust to the highest level of baseball. That’s only natural for any developing player, especially one that reached the big leagues at such a young age.

What had me making such a ridiculous statement at the time was the fact that Guerrero Jr’s conditioning appeared to be a legitimate issue, and one that I worried could get worse. The Blue Jays had moved him from his original position at third base over to first, largely because of the shape he showed up in for camp that year. His natural talent still showed in flashes, but I was legitimately worried that he could end up as a tremendous waste of potential.

Then a switch flipped for the young phenom, and it actually came during the summer of 2020. That’s when he made a renewed commitment to fitness, and the results were drastic. Not only did he get in the best shape of his life as a pro, he also blossomed into a star at the same time. Obviously those two things are related, but I didn’t expect them to happen simultaneously, or so quickly.

In 2021 Guerrero Jr. finished 2nd in AL MVP voting, and if not for the heroics of two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani, he likely would have won the award. He finished with a slash line of .311/.401/.601 with a league-leading 48 home runs, 123 runs, and OPS+ of 169. Simply put, he was the American League’s best hitter.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t really serious when I told my buddy that the Blue Jays should trade Guerrero Jr., and it would have taken a treasure trove of players coming back before I would have been okay with such a thing. However, the fact that I said it at all shows where things were for Vlad Jr. a year ago (and how impatient I was at the time), especially when you compare it to how things stand today. What a difference a year can make.