Toronto Blue Jays: 2022 – High School Yearbook Awards

With the heartbreaking end to the Blue Jays 2022 campaign still fresh in most of our minds, a lot of the discourse surrounding the team has been much less fun than many of us may have hoped for. This isn’t without good reasoning, it can be hard to have fun when you’re talking about your favourite team who just days ago had one of the worst collapses in recent baseball history. It hurts, I know, but we can’t just wallow in our self-pity forever, so why not try and have a little bit of fun as the offseason gets underway.

As the title of this article suggests, this is going to be yearbook superlatives and awards for players on the 2022 Blue Jays. If you’re unfamiliar, these are the little awards that are given out in high school yearbooks, like best hair, cutest couple, or most likely to succeed (these are what google said, I don’t actually think my high school yearbook had these, but you get the point). Now obviously I won’t be using only basic yearbook awards, because one, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. would obviously have best hair locked up, and two, most of them do not apply to Major League Baseball players. I will still try and use as many as I can, but we’ll play it by ear.

So here’s the plan; I’m going to hand out a series of high school yearbook-esque awards, some of which are actual awards you may find in a yearbook and others that I may have completely made up. Despite the disappointing ending and all the frustrating stretches, 2022 was a pretty good season, so we may as well try to have some fun with it. With all that out of the way, here’s the first award in the 2022 Toronto Blue Jays, High School Yearbook.

Cutest Couple: Alek Manoah and Alejandro Kirk

Maybe this isn’t the proper term, but honestly battery mates and couples are pretty much the same thing. In his first full season in the majors, Alek Manoah broke out in a big way, finishing third in AL ERA at 2.24, and fourth in innings with 196.2. He topped this all off with an AL Pitcher of the Month award in September and is likely to earn some CY Young votes come November. Alejandro Kirk also broke out this year, as he had an elite first half of the season and was named the starting catcher for AL All-Star team, before cooling off in the second half. Despite this, his 126 OPS+ still led all qualified AL catchers and solidified himself as one of baseball’s best young backstops.

So why do these two get cutest couple? As I mentioned, Manoah pitched 196.2 innings this season and for 190 of them, Alejandro Kirk was behind the dish. For most of the season, Kirk and Danny Jansen rotated as the team’s starting catcher, but for 30 of Manoah’s 31 starts, Kirk was the guy. If you asked most Jays fans who they would want calling a game behind the plate, they would probably say Jansen, but whenever the ace took the mound, it was Kirk who he wanted.

This award does specify that you can’t just be a couple though, but you must, in fact, be the cutest couple. I doubt there is a single person that would argue that fact, as Kirk became possibly the most beloved Blue Jay last season, and when Kirk was criticized for his weight on Twitter, it was Manoah that came to his defence. No one endeared themselves to Jays fans more in 2022 than Manoah and Kirk, so they were a shoe-in for this award.

Biggest Flirt: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and no, to my knowledge, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was not a notorious locker room flirt this past season. This isn’t what I mean by flirt, so allow me to explain what I really mean. In 2021, Vladdy lived up to all the hype and was arguably the best hitter in baseball. In 2022, many were hoping that he would solidify himself as one of the best hitters in the game, but he was never really able to make it over the hump. Instead, he finished the season with a 132 WRC+, down 34 points from the previous year, and his home run total dropped from 48 to 32.

Over the course of the season, Vladdy would show glimpses of being the player that many thought he could be, but it would never stick. He was still among the league’s best when it came to hitting the ball hard, leading MLB in balls hit 95+ mph, and was right near the top of every other exit velocity and hard-hit category. The issue was, a lot of these balls were hit right into the ground, as he finished with the fourth-highest ground ball rate in the AL. It was this back and forth of him having these incredible games where he hits the hardest home run you’ve ever seen, but all the other games where he goes 0-4 with three groundouts that led to the disappointing results. That’s why he was the biggest flirt. He would routinely flirt with greatness and make you remember why he was so hyped entering this season, but that’s all he ever really did.

It’s not that he was bad this season, he was actually really good and will likely be a candidate to win his second consecutive Silver Slugger Award, he just wasn’t as good as we maybe thought he was going to be. We all thought that this season would be the year he showed the baseball world that he was one of, if not the best hitter in the majors, but all that really ended up happening was a bunch of flirting.

Most Confusing: Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

I know this isn’t an actual yearbook award but I’m using it anyways because I don’t understand Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Entering this season, Gurriel Jr. had 63 home runs in 347 games, which gave him a 162-game pace of 29. This season, he hit five in 121, for a 162-game pace of six. That does not make sense. Do you know what else doesn’t make sense? Per baseball savant, he was in the 80th percentile for average exit velocity but was in the 12th percentile for barrel percentage. To put that in perspective, he ranked 51st in MLB for average exit velocity but had a worse barrel percentage than Jonathan India, whose average exit velocity ranked 241st. That isn’t how this is supposed to work. There is almost always a direct correlation between barrel percentage and exit velocity, but I guess Lourdes just doesn’t care.

Want to hear some more stats that don’t make sense? Let’s run through a few. Per baseball savant again, his outfield jumps and arm strength both had notable drops, but his outs above average jumped 24 percentiles. From early June to late July, he had a 38-game stretch where he hit .409, and then promptly hit .232 in his last 36 games of the season. His OPS in 0-2 counts was over 200 points higher than his OPS in 2-0 counts. I’m unclear on how this one is possible, but again according to baseball savant, if he had played all his games in Cincinnati, he would have hit 12 home runs, more than double his actual total. Finally, look at his monthly splits.

I think you get the point now. Lourdes Gurriel Jr had a very confusing 2022, and I feel it merits this award.

You’ll Get ‘Em Next Year Champ Award: Every starter that isn’t Manoah, Gausman, or Stripling

This one is even more made up than the last one, but I think it’s well-deserved. Obviously, Alek Manoah had a great season, and Kevin Gausman and Ross Stripling both had some nice years themselves. The rest of the Blue Jays rotation very much did not, and all of them are likely anticipating much better 2023s. Let’s run through them.

Jose Berrios was, by most metrics, the worst statistically qualified starting pitcher in baseball this year. He had the worst ERA, ERA+, and WHIP in the majors, and very much did not live up to the seven-year, 131-million-dollar extension that he was given last offseason. What gives room for optimism is that he wasn’t consistently horrible, it’s just that when he was bad, he looked like he was throwing batting practice. When he wasn’t doing that, he threw 17 quality starts, which was 12th in the AL, ahead of pitchers like Gausman, Dylan Cease, and Shohei Ohtani. If you want to be positive, it’s really easy to think of this season as a fluke, so that’s what I’m going to do for now. You’ll get ’em next year champ.

Yusei Kikuchi was brought in to be the Blue Jays fifth starter, and he finished the year as a low-leverage reliever. He was not very good this season and finished with a -1.0 WAR, but there’s always hope for next year. He was brought in as a bit of an upside project, and while he may have been worse than anyone expected, we need to keep thinking of him that way. He actually finished the season with a better ERA than Jose Berrios, so you know, it could’ve been worse. You’ll get ’em next year champ.

Mitch White was acquired at the deadline to hopefully do what Kikuchi was unable to, but instead was even worse. His 7.74 ERA in 43 innings was certainly not ideal, but his FIP was much lower at 3.76 so there’s that. Not really that much to say about him, but there has to be nowhere to go but up. You’ll get ’em next year champ.

Hyun Jin Ryu had a very rough start to the season and right once he started pitching better he ended up hitting the Injured List and eventually having Tommy John surgery. If you tried to draw up the worst season imaginable, it would probably look something like this. Even if he misses the vast majority of 2023, it’s almost inconceivable that it could go worse. You’ll get ’em next year champ.

Most Likely To Be Prime Minister: Jordan Romano

This one’s a little limited since there really aren’t that many players that could even qualify for this, but he deserves it nonetheless. Also, Prime Minister might be a bit of a stretch, but Jordan Romano is almost a bona fide national hero after the past two seasons he’s had. In 2021, Romano pitched 63 innings with a 2.14 ERA, and his 2022 campaign was virtually identical, as he posted a 2.11 ERA in 64 innings. Over these two seasons, he’s established himself as one of baseball’s top closers, and his 59 saves over that stretch are the third most in the AL. Not only that, but he’s been almost untouchable in Canada, as he only let up four earned runs in 32.2 innings pitched at the Rogers Centre last season, which was good for a 1.10 ERA.

To put this dominance from a Canadian in perspective, he already has the seventh most saves in MLB history amongst Canadian-born players and leads Jays pitchers by a mile (or kilometre since this bit is Canadian-themed). This stat’s a bit more cherry-picked, but he also has the lowest ERA of any Canadian-born pitcher with at least 100 innings pitched in Major League history at 2.58. Outside of all the stats though, Romano’s impact is clearly huge. This is the first time in a while that the Blue Jays have had a closer that really felt like “the guy”, and to have him be from the GTA only makes it cooler. He feels like an integral part of this team and while being elected Prime Minister may be a bit tricky, maybe he could start at running for Mayor and see where it goes from there.