Blue Jays shake up relief corps by adding two pitchers with unique arm angles

A trade and a signing all came together for the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday evening. Both moves give the Blue Jays some bullpen upgrades, which was a focus for them at the on-set of the 2025 offseason. While neither guy is considered a "closer" by trade, the Blue Jays have acquired two hurlers who are going to keep opposing batters off balance.

Right handed pitchers Tyler Rogers and Chase Lee are the newest members of the Blue Jays and they could solve several issues for Toronto's bullpen.

Blue Jays shake up relief corps by adding two pitchers with unique arm angles

Starting with Lee, the Blue Jays acquired him from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for minor-league lefty Johan Simon. The 27-year-old Lee made his major league debut last season, striking out 36 batters in 37.1 innings. While his fastball by itself doesn't blow anyone away, sitting at 89 mph, it's from where he throws it that causes fits for the batters he faces.

Lee is a side arm thrower and according to Shi Davedi of Sportsnet, the arm comes in at a minus-4-degree angle. This allows his three pitch mix, sinker, four-seam, sweeper, to look like completely different pitches compared to when someone else throws them, in particular, Trey Yesavage.

Yesavage gained notoriety during his MLB debut, in September and throughout October, for his high release point. When the 6'4" Yesavage lets go of the ball, he comes straight over the top and at it's highest point the ball comes out of his hand at a height of 7.18 inches. Seeing a fastball from that angle in your first at-bat is tough enough, let alone to then see Lee come out of the pen and throw one from a minus-4-degree release.

Things get much worse if hitters then have to face the 34-year-old Rogers, whom the Blue Jays signed for three years and $37 million, with a vesting option for a fourth year. Rogers is a submarine pitcher and he shoots balls towards the plate from just slightly above the ground with his release being measured at 1.33 feet, a minus-61-degree arm angle.

Rogers was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the 10th round in 2013 and spent his entire Major League career there (making his MLB debut in 2019), until last season, when he was dealt at the deadline to the New York Mets. That was one of the few moves the Mets made that panned out for them as Rogers pitched to a 2.30 ERA in 28 appearances out of the pen. In 27 innings he allowed 27 hits but only gave up seven earned runs and managed a 1.098 WHIP.

Like Lee, Rogers doesn't have electric stuff. He has a two pitch mixed in which he throws an 83.5 mph sinker 75% of the time and a slider that he utilized the other 25%. The velocity of his sinker ranked in the first percentile, but his average exit velocity ranked in the 99th percentile with hitters averaging just 85.8 mph off that pitch. Most of the time, batters just pounded the ball into the ground with his ground ball percentage sitting at 61.6%, which ranked in the 99th percentile in MLB.

Last year at the deadline, the Blue Jays targeted a couple of guys with big swing and miss stuff in Louis Varland and Seranthony Dominguez. Varland is still with the team while Dominguez is currently a free agent, and so the Blue Jays have switched up tactics somewhat by going after two players that have completely different mechanics from anyone else in their bullpen.

While the Blue Jays failed to grab a top of the line, dominant closer type arm, they may have come out with an even better, more well rounded duo for a portion of the cost.