5 players who need to step up for the Blue Jays to avoid being trade deadline sellers

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The Toronto Blue Jays have had a rough season so far in 2024 as they have seen their pitching but more evidently their hitting struggle at various times over the course of the season. Their star players haven’t been exactly leading the way, and the complementary pieces also haven’t been providing enough secondary support to help the team to more success.

As a result, after getting swept by their arch rivals Boston Red Sox in three games, the Jays now sit in the AL East basement with a 35-39 record and six full games out of the third and final Wild Card playoff spot. They will really need to start turning things around soon to avoid falling out of contention and subsequently become trade deadline sellers. To do so, the Jays desperately need some of their key offensive producers to pick up their game big time to help lead the way.

Here, we will take a look at five players that will need to provide more significant and consistent contributions going forward for the Jays to have any chance in remaining a legitimate contender.

Bo Bichette

The most surprising and perplexing player on the Jays’ squad this season has to be star shortstop Bo Bichette. For one of the most prolific and consistent hitters since the turn of the decade, Bichette has always been front-and-center leading the charge for the team. Not only has he been able to put up stellar offensive numbers, he seemed to be getting better and better after each season.

As a result, no one really saw it coming when Bichette would endure in the worst slump of his career in 2024. In 66 games, he has hit only .237 with a .628 OPS, together with just 22 runs scored, 4 home runs and 28 RBI. At this rate, Bichette is on pace for easily his worst season as a pro. More worrisome was the fact that something just doesn’t seem right for Bichette.

On top of that, it is kind of hard for the Jays to maintain their hope and motivation to turn things around this year when the heart and soul of the team is struggling so badly. However, with his current right calf strain injury, it could actually be a blessing in disguise as it will now give Bichette the much-needed time off to reset and re-focus on his game. In doing so, hopefully when he gets back, he will revert to his dominant form that we have been accustomed to and help lead the Jays back into a team of significance in the coming months.

Justin Turner

As perhaps the team’s biggest offseason splash in the free agent market, Justin Turner is turning out to be a huge disappointment. Turner was expected to help carry the club’s offense this year following the departures of offensive juggernauts Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt and Whit Merrifield at the end of the 2023 season. After all, with a career batting average of .285 while consistently putting up close to 20 home runs and 80 RBI per season, the club truly believed that Turner could help offset some of the lost offense through free agency.

However, Father Time may have finally caught up to Turner despite effectively holding it off the past few years. Since the beginning of May, Turner has hit a dismal .179 with a .531 OPS, along with just 1 home run and 7 RBI in 34 games played. In a way, it's similar to Chapman last season following his spectacular first month, except in the case for Turner this time around, his offensive output has been a lot worse.

With their key power bat addition from the past offseason struggling mightily, it has put the Jays in quite the bind, as they now needed to rely mainly on the contributions from their returning cast of players to pick up the slack. However, that hasn’t been happening either. As a result, the Jays will need Turner to somehow turn things around similar to like how Belt did last season, and become a more relevant run producer for the club before it’s too late.

George Springer

As one of the main veteran leaders on the team for the past three seasons prior to this year, George Springer often let his bat do the talking as he led by example to help power the Jays’ offense to elite levels. Despite running into some injury issues in his first two years with the club, Springer still proved that he could be a huge difference maker when healthy, averaging close to 30 home runs and 100 RBI over a 162-game schedule for each season.

However, some red flags were raised in 2023 when he had an uncharacteristic down year compared to his usual standards. Over almost a full schedule, Springer managed only 21 home runs and 72 RBI of offensive output, although he did steal a career-high 20 bases in the process. Nevertheless, the apparent regression in his hitting stats was worrisome for the Jays, as he wasn’t going to get younger any time soon.

This year, it had gotten a lot worse for Springer, as to date, he has compiled just a .197 average, .579 OPS, with 5 home runs and 15 RBI in 67 games played. Over a full season, that would mean just 12 home runs and 36 RBI in total, which would easily mark his career-lows. With Springer being part of the Jays’ big three, which included Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., he was counted on heavily to be instrumental in leading the offensive attack, not hinder it. With the fact that he is still getting everyday playing time right now, Springer will need to provide some much-needed spark for the team by stepping up in a big way in the coming weeks to give the team any hope going forward.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Speaking of Guerrero, there’s no doubt that we need to also include him as a part of this group. Following his MVP-calibre season back in 2021, the bar inadvertently has been set quite high for Guerrero. That was because his noteworthy performance has put him among the elite in the league, with the likes of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. However, in doing so, he will forever be compared to that year for the foreseeable future.

After a couple of so-called down seasons for Guerrero since then, 2024 has not been friendly to him either as he has suffered a considerable power outage to date. Despite still hitting for a respectable average, he has put up just 7 home runs and 30 RBI in 74 games so far this year. That would put him on pace for just 15 home runs and 66 RBI, which would be his lowest output for a full 162-game season since his rookie year back in 2019.

But at least among the big three, Guerrero has struggled the least in terms of actual hitting, as he currently sports a .278 average and .759 OPS. However, he has hit a funk once again in recent weeks, batting just .211 with a home run and 3 RBI in his last 15 games. Nevertheless, as the true leader of the team, he should take on the burden to help carry the team on his shoulders and bring them back into contention by leading by example. For being one of the faces of the franchise, his time to shine is now, before he becomes part of the trade talk at the deadline himself.

Daulton Varsho

Finally, we have an unexpected candidate that has unexpectedly fallen onto this list in outfielder Daulton Varsho. So why does he need to step up his game for the Jays, as wasn’t he doing that already? After all, we are talking about the current Jays’ offensive leader in runs scored with 40, in home runs with 11, and in RBI with 35. On top of that, he has provided elite defense in the outfield as always, committing zero errors and registering 13 DRS already on the season.

Well, it is because Varsho hadn’t been providing the offense with consistency in recent weeks. In his first couple of months, he amassed 10 home runs and 30 RBI along with 31 runs scored to lead the Jays’ offensive attack. However, for the month of June, he has put up just one home run and 5 RBI in 18 games, with the bulk of it coming on one swing in his grand slam that he hit this past Sunday. More importantly, being the team’s main driving force for offense, Varsho hasn’t come through when it mattered most in clutch situations. He has hit a measly .182 with 21 strikeouts in 55 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

So with the bulk of the lineup struggling to generate runs and with Varsho the clear offensive leader of the team so far this season, it becomes more vital that he needs to take full advantage whenever he has the opportunity to cash in runners. As a result, he needs to turn it up one more notch to get the job done in high-leverage situations for the Jays. That way, he can ultimately live up to the claim by his manager that he’s “the best outfielder in baseball”.

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