2025 Blue Jays make history, surpassing record of the 1992 World Series champions

Everything is coming up Milhouse for the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays. If you’re old enough to get the reference you probably remember the last time the Blue Jays were this hot before the All-Star break. If you don’t, turn on Disney+ and check out this little-known show called “The Simpsons” which had a really good run in the early 1990’s. Just like The Simpsons peaking in the early ‘90s so too did the Blue Jays, who have their best record before the All-Star break ever.

“Remember how good those 2015-16 Blue Jays lineups were? This year’s Blue Jays team has a better record through 90 games than both of them. It’s their best record through 90 games since they won their first of consecutive World Series titles in 1992.”

That’s a tweet from Jared Carrabis pointing to the Blue Jays record of 52-38 after the seven game home stand where they went 7-0. They’ve improved to 54-38 after their two wins over the Chicago White Sox this week, surpassing the 53-34 record the Blue Jays of 1992 had before hitting the All-Star break. 

This raises the question of how similar are this year's Blue Jays built in relation to those champs of ‘92? It’s hard to answer right now since we still have a long way to go in the 2025 season, but what we can do is look at the makeup of that team and see how they compare to today's Blue Jays.

Offense

The ‘92 Blue Jays were very much a product of their time. They had a standard 1-9 lineup that Manager Cito Gaston would roll out regularly, with nine players getting into over 120 games each. They were also built in the old school way where you had high speed/contact guys up top, your power guys in the middle and then at the bottom were the hitters who were more-so in the game because of their defense.

On almost any given night, the Blue Jays lineup looked like this:
Devon White - CF 
Roberto Alomar - 2B
Joe Carter - RF
Dave Winfield - DH
John Olerud - 1B
Candy Maldonado LF
Kelly Gruber - 3B
Pat Borders - C
Manny Lee - SS

Barring any major injuries or some extreme lefty-righty matchups, this group was THE group to lead the offense.

Compared to today’s team where Manager John Schneider rarely puts together the same lineup on back-to-back nights. They have proven that you need a full bench of players contributing to be successful. There’s also way more data for the coaching staff to utilize to piece together their lineup offering a different look on a nightly basis depending on who the opponents have on the mound. 

Regardless of the personnel, the ‘92 Blue Jays were built to score runs, finishing second in MLB with 780 runs scored and tied for second in the league with 163 home runs. However, they only had one player hit over 30 home runs that year (right fielder, Carter, 34) but four other players had at least 16 home runs and two more were also in double digits.

They also had two guys who could really run at the top of their order with Alomar swiping 49 bases and White taking 37 and as a team they finished with 129 steals, 11th in the league. The Blue Jays were also great situational hitters who capitalized on cashing in runs, evidenced by their .429 slug with runners in scoring position.

This year, they are not hitting for as much power. Their 97 home runs are tied for 15th in the league, but strangely enough it is right fielder George Springer who is leading the team in that category with 16. They have four total players in double digits in home runs. They also don't steal bases like they did in '92 as they sit 23rd in the league with 47 steals. However, the Blue Jays have scored 420 runs as a team, mostly through timely and clutch hitting.

They have a team on-base percentage of .329 which is third in the league and they own the lowest strike out rate in MLB with just 609 K’s. So while the 2025 team doesn’t over power teams or beat them with blazing speed on the base-paths, they also find ways to to damage with runners on, with a .283 average (third in MLB), .355 OBP (fourth in MLB) and .773 OPS (sixth in MLB) with RISP.   

Pitching

In 1992, the Blue Jays team ERA was 20th in the league with a 3.91 mark. They were led by an effective top three in Jack Morris (4.04 ERA), Jimmy Key (3.53 ERA) and Juan Guzman (2.64 ERA). Todd Stottlemyre (4.50 ERA) was fine as a fourth starter but the last spot was where they lost ground.

Dave Sieb was not the dominant guy they had gotten used to seeing throughout the 1980’s and he was essentially replaced by a mix of David Wells, some other spot starters and eventually David Cone who was acquired in August. The starters had the ninth most strikeouts in the league with 638 and they kept opponents to a .249 batting average against.  

This year they sit 22nd with a 4.17 ERA and are facing similar issues to what the ‘92 staff was facing. The back end of the Blue Jays rotation has had a variation of spot starters, bullpen games and ineffective hurlers starting while the top three in the rotation of José Berrios, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt have been mostly solid for large portions of the season. The starters have 434 strikeouts and have kept opponents to a .256 batting average against.  

Meantime, the bullpens were built quite differently. The 1992 Blue Jays had a 3.46 ERA, led by the two-headed monster of setup man Duane Ward (1.95 ERA in 101.1 innings pitched and 12 saves) and closer Tom Henke (2.26 ERA in 55.2 innings pitched and 34 saves).

Outside of those two, and swing man David Wells,  only one reliever racked up more than 50 innings pitched and that was 23-year-old Pat Hentgen who started two games as well. It really was an era where the starters were going deep into the game and the bullpen relied on mostly two arms. The Blue Jays bullpen threw just 403 innings across 162 games, with 316 strikeouts. They kept opposition hitters to a .245 batting average against.

This year, the Blue Jays bullpen has seen seven pitchers throw 20+ innings already, and have racked up 379 strikeouts in 351 innings pitched. They have a team bullpen ERA of 3.62 (10th in the league) and have a batting-average against of .216.

While Jeff Hoffman has been the main closer, finishing 34 of the 40 games he has appeared in, players like Yariel Yodriguez, Chad Green, Braydon Fisher, and Yimi Garcia have all also been that ‘last man on the mound.’ Not necessarily in save situations, but they aren’t beholden to going to the same two guys every time the eighth and ninth rolls around.  

Second half finishes

The Blue Jays of ‘92 went 41-31 over the final 72 games of the regular season to finish 96-66, they played below .500 in August (14-16) but had a September to remember with an 18-9 record, and a 3-0 October before the playoffs began. 

For the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays, making the Wild Card, at the very least, might only require them to win 90 games this season. Both Kansas City and Detroit were Wild Card teams last year with 86 wins. 

The Blue Jays would “only” need to go 36-35 the rest of the way (after Tuesday’s win) to get to that 90 win threshold. It would certainly be much better to reach beyond that target, but after an impressive turnaround in the first-half of 2025, the Blue Jays have put themselves in the conversation for a similar finish to that of ‘92.