Reasons to be optimistic about the Blue Jays right now

The Blue Jays may be in the midst of a slump right now, but the season is still young and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

I won’t sugarcoat it, the Blue Jays have been bad lately, but thankfully they pulled out a win last night again the Rays. Every part of the team from their offence, to their rotation, to their bullpen have all struggled. Obviously, every game counts and you never want to get too far behind in the playoff race, but the reality of the situation is that we’re only about a fifth of the way through the season and the team is still in a playoff spot.

Their struggles with things such as scoring runs or going deep into games have been well documented, but it’s still only mid-May, and focusing on all the negatives is counterproductive at this point. Despite this, I’ve been seeing tons of people online overreacting to these struggles. I understand where this is coming from, I also hate seeing the team lose, but again, it’s still early and there’s no reason to panic.

It would be ignorant to say that there’s no reason to be critical, but there are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this team. There have been players that are hitting well, fielding well, and pitching well, so the idea that this season has been a huge failure so far simply isn’t true. Again, I understand where the criticisms of the team come from, and I agree with many of them, but it’s a young season, and it’s far more fun to focus on the positives.

Quick note: the Blue Jays defence has been phenomenal so far this season, but plenty of other people have already covered that, so I won’t be focusing on that here.

Kevin Gausman is really good

If you don’t care for stats, skip this page, there are going to be plenty of them here. At the time of writing this, Kevin Gausman leads the league in chase rate, innings pitched, FIP, home runs per nine, walks per nine, strikeout to walk ratio, pitching WAR, and is near or at the top of MLB for plenty of others. But just saying he’s first feels cheap, so let me give you context for how impressive some of those stats are.

His current FIP (fielding independent pitching, a stat that focuses on the three true outcomes) of 0.87, is unbelievably low. The best single-season FIP in MLB history is held by Christy Mathewson, with a 1.29 in 1908. The second-best in MLB is 1.22 held by Giants starter, Carlos Rodon. His strikeout to walk ratio of 27 is more than double the MLB single-season record of 11.6, held by Phil Hughes in 2014. I assume you can guess where his home runs per nine of 0.0 would rank all time. The point is, Kevin Gausman is really good.

Now, I know these stats are very cherry-picked and are likely unsustainable over the course of a full season, but even so, Kevin Gausman has been more than impressive to start the 2022 season. Filling the shoes of the reigning AL Cy Young winner should be an almost impossible task, but Kevin Gausman has done that and more thus far. If he sustains even 70% of this production, he could be the best pitcher in the league.

Vladdy has been struggling, yet he’s still one of the best hitters in baseball

I assume most of you remember Josh Donaldson‘s 2015 season, right? One of the best seasons in Blue Jays history that earned him the American League MVP award and revitalized the franchise. A season that was unanimously recognized as elite amongst fans. In that season he posted a 151 OPS+. As of writing this, Vladimir Guerrero Jr has a 155 OPS+, but we’re all talking about how much he’s struggled.

The point that I’m trying to get across isn’t that Vladdy isn’t struggling, because he has been. He hasn’t been hitting up the standards that we expect from a player of his caliber. Despite all this, he’s still one of the best hitters in baseball. I think we all need to recognize how insane that is. I have never in my lifetime seen a player on the Jays put up numbers like Vladdy has and still thought “he’s struggling right now”. That’s just how good he is, and I think we’ve all become a little bit too accustomed to having a generational talent on the team.

He’s also been above average defensively , sitting in the 65th percentile for outs above average per baseball savant. Speaking of baseball savant, his expected stats are still elite. He’s sitting in the 92nd percentile or higher for most hitting metrics, so even if the results we’re expecting aren’t there yet, the numbers say they’re coming.

Again, I won’t deny that Vladdy hasn’t been his usual self, but he’s still been one of the best hitters on the planet, which really shouldn’t be possible.