Blue Jays made preseason expert MLB predictions look foolish and we have the receipts

"We'd like a do-over please," CBS MLB reporters - probably.

Before the 2025 season began, none of the experts were putting their money on the Toronto Blue Jays to win the division, let alone make the playoffs. In fact in the preseason predictions by the CBS Sports reporters, only two of them picked the Blue Jays finishing higher than fifth - and that was R.J. Anderson and Matt Snyder who both thought the Blue Jays would finish fourth.

Blue Jays made preseason expert MLB predictions look foolish and we have the receipts

It's hard to make predictions about any sport, let alone guessing how teams will finish over the course of a six month season - but these reporters were maybe a bit too quick to overlook Toronto's roster. After all they did address their need for a power bat in the offseason by signing DH/Outfielder Anthony Santander. They addressed their biggest flaw from 2024 in the bullpen, most notably by landing Jeff Hoffman and Yimi Garcia. Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer was added to the rotation and Andrés Giménez was brought in as one of the best defenders up the middle in the game.

Aside from the additions, the Blue Jays still had Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer, Kevin Gausman, José Berrios, and Chris Bassitt as stable leaders who were looking to overcome a lost season.

Going into the year though, the analytical projections also didn't favor the Blue Jays with FanGraphs giving Toronto just a 43.6% chance to make the playoffs and PECOTA projected the top of the AL East to be a battle between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles. However, they were a little more generous on where Toronto would finish, giving the Blue Jays a simulated record of 85.1 wins, placing them third in the AL East.

The two biggest things the reporters and the projects failed to correctly assess was how good the Blue Jays would be and how much of a step back the Orioles would take. Those two occurrences led to the division basically flipping on itself. While many also projected the Yankees to be at the top, which is what happened, nobody had the Red Sox finishing lower than second, when in reality they finished third.

It's also hard to blame this group though when Toronto was a last place team in 2024 and went from worst to first in one season, something that they had never done before and is incredibly rare to see happen within the toughest division in baseball.