Blue Jays stick up for their guy after Louis Varland award snub

One of the most interesting storylines of the 2025 offseason was the amount of awards the Toronto Blue Jays didn't win. They had six finalists for Gold Glove awards as well as being one of the finalists for the American League Team Gold Glove Award. The only player that picked up that hardware was Ty France, getting the GG at first base.

John Schneider missed out on manager of the year - aided by a Toronto based sports writer voting for Cleveland's Stephen Vogt, while players like Alejandro Kirk wasn't nominated for a Silver Slugger or George Springer wasn't nominated for AL MVP. While we don't think the latter two should have won those respective awards, there was an easy case to make for them being nominated.

Alas, the snubbing continues into the 2026 season as the Player of the Month awards have been announced by MLB.com and they chose a player other than Louis Varland as the reliever of the month for the month of May. In 15 innings pitched, Varland gave up 11 hits, and walked five while striking out 16 batters and allowing zero earned runs. Two unearned runs scored, but Varland's stat line reads of a 0.00 ERA with a .200 batting average against, a 1.96 FIP and 1.07 WHIP.

Yet MLB.com decided Cade Smith of the Guardians deserved the award more. There is a little bit of solace in the fact that Smith is Canadian, but it does seem like Varland should have won the award over the Abbotsford B.C. native, and the Blue Jays stuck up for their guy on social media.

Varland is now the backbone of the Blue Jays bullpen

If you really want to dig into the numbers, there are cases to be made for Smith. His 0.73 WHIP and .188 OBA were better than Varland's. But that doesn't take anything away from the fact that Varland has become the most trusted reliever in the Blue Jays bullpen.

That may have actually started last year during the playoffs in which Varland pitched in 15 of the 18 games the Blue Jays played in. He managed a 3.94 ERA and had 17 strikeouts in those 16 innings pitched. He was called upon to pitch in all kinds of situations during the playoffs and that was once again the role that he was tasked with to begin this season.

It may also be the role he ends up pitching in for the rest of the year unless the Blue Jays find an actual closer. While Varland could be annointed the team's closer and many people would say, "finally" he's actually too valuable to only be used in the ninth inning. A good case study for that was on Saturday (May 30) in Baltimore when Varland came out of the 'pen in the bottom of the eighth with the Blue Jays ahead 4-1. The best part of the Orioles lineup was coming up to bat and so manager John Schenider decided to use Varland at that point instead of saving him for the ninth.

Varland pitched a three up, three down, inning and the Blue Jays tacked on another run to make it 5-1 in the ninth, but couldn't secure the win after Jeff Hoffman's latest meltdown allowed the Orioles to rally. But had Hoffman been able to get those three outs it would have shown how the "closer by committee" plan can, and has, worked to a degree as long as Varland is facing the toughest parts of the order in the most high leverage moments of the game.

Not wanting to pigeon hole themselves, the Blue Jays are trying to stay creative and look for the most effective way to use all of their relievers. While it didn't work on Saturday against Baltimore, the Blue Jays have to trust that Varland will keep producing when called upon. Judging by the numbers he's put up so far there's no reason not to trust him - even if he isn't the reliever of the month.

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