Newest Blue Jays' arrival poised to lower walk rate for Toronto’s bullpen

Tyler Rogers is about to call Rogers Centre home for the next three, or possibly four years with a vesting option. The Toronto Blue Jays signed the 34-year-old righty over the weekend to a $37 million contract, made official on Monday and they are hoping that what he lacks in velocity, he will more than make up for in attacking the zone.

Rogers has never been feared for how hard he throws the ball to the plate, but his bread and butter has been getting guys to succumb to his unique delivery, and in the process he has avoided walking hitters just about as well as anyone in the league.

Newest Blue Jays' arrival poised to lower walk rate for Toronto’s bullpen

Free passes were a thorn in the side of the Blue Jays bullpen last season. As a group they allowed 261 walks, the eighth most in the league. Rogers, on the other hand walked just seven hitters in 2025, a year he split between the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. He sported the lowest BB/9 rate among all qualified relief pitches with an 0.81 mark. In 77.1 innings pitched, Rogers threw 978 pitches and only 250 of them ended up being called balls, that's the third least within that same group.

He only throws two pitches; a sinking fastball, which he used 75% of the time last season and a slider that covered the other 25% of his throws. The fastball only sits on average at 83.5 mph which is in the first percentile in the league, but he 61.6% of the batters he faces to ground out, thanks to his unique delivery.

With his submarine style, Rogers throws the ball from just over a foot high off the ground. It's the lowest release point in Major League Baseball and it gives hitters major league fits when they see it come in. While he doesn't strike out a ton of hitters with those mechanics, with just 48 K's in 2025 and 306 career strikeouts in 424 innings pitched. He also has one of the lowest whiff percentages in the league with his 15.9% rate docked in the first percentile. But what he does well is get batters to completely roll over balls.

As mentioned, the ground ball rate is one of the best in the league and hitters get absolutely nothing on the ball, as they just pound it into the ground over and over again. Rogers' barrel rate is in the 100th percentile as only 2.1% of the hitters he faced in 2025 managed to get their barrel of the bat on the ball and his hard hit rate sits in the 95th percentile.

The weak contact is one thing, but again, the real boon for the Blue Jays in picking up Rogers is his ability to control the walks. His walk percentage has ranked in the 100th percentile over the past two seasons and doesn't figure to change any time soon, coming over to the American League and facing many new hitters for the first time the advantage will surely be on Rogers' side.

Of course it's not as if none of the American League teams have seen Rogers, with Inter-League play a part of the schedule, but that shouldn't worry Rogers or the Blue Jays. Over his career Rogers owns a .223 batting average against and .544 OPS against in 98 career games against teams from the AL with only 13 walks allowed in those contests and a 0.952 WHIP.

The Blue Jays relief corps had a 10.3% walk percentage in 2025 but those numbers should improve in 2026. Not just by adding Rogers, but the Blue Jays also no longer employ Seranthony Dominguez (14% BB/9 rate), and Nick Sandlin (11.6%) while Yariel Rodriguez (11%) and Justin Bruihl (10.8%) are no longer on the 40-man roster.