Blue Jays veteran earns player of the year honours after rebound season

George Springer's 2025 campaign proved that age is just a number, as he completely reversed the aging curve. The 36-year-old was named the Blue Jays Player of the Year and the Most Improved player, based on the regular season, as voted by Toronto chapter of the BBWAA. He was nearly a unanimous winner, receiving 19 of 20 first-place votes.

Throughout Springer’s 2024 season, he just couldn’t find his rhythm offensively, and it certainly looked like the six-year, $150-million contract was trending in the wrong direction. To his credit though, his defensive excellence never wavered. He finished 2024 with a career-worst .220/.303/.371 slash line and a .674 OPS across 145 games, placing him among the least productive qualified hitters in the league.

His ongoing struggles ultimately resulted in a demotion, as he was pushed out of the leadoff role in which he’d occupied dating back to his time in Houston. A deeper look reveals exactly why the downturn was so severe: a notable dip in hard-hit rate and exit velocity. To truly appreciate his case as the Blue Jays Comeback Player of the Year, it’s crucial to lay out just how much he was able to turn those numbers around, as he looked like a younger version of himself in 2025.

The biggest driver of his resurgence was the return of his power through improved contact quality. This season, Springer improved his average exit velocity to 90 mph with a max exit velocity of 114 mph, both clear upgrades from last year’s 87.5 mph average and 110.6 mph max. His barrel rate skyrocketed to 16.1%, landing him in the 94th percentile, a massive improvement from his 9.3% in 2024. When diving into virtually every metric, the contrast between this year and last year is staggering.

It's truly rare to see a player resurge in his age-36 season. After ranking in the 52nd percentile in bat speed a year ago, he’s now up to the 73rd percentile. His barrel percentage also jumped, improving from the 63rd percentile in 2024 to the 94th percentile this season, elite territory for any hitter, let alone a 36-year-old. Despite the years of big-league mileage, he looked more explosive in the box than he has been in years, consistently generating the kind of impact reserved for players a decade younger.

Springer's across-the-board improvement fueled a complete rebound season, enabling him to produce a batting average of .309 with 32 homers, 84 RBI, and a .959 OPS, the second-best mark in the majors in 2025. He wasn’t just the clear-cut Comeback Player of the Year, he became one of the Blue Jays’ most electric and entertaining stars, powering their ride deep into October while delivering one of the most notable home runs in Blue Jays history.