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Blue Jays: 3 strengths and 2 weaknesses shown in the first week of the regular season

By Edward Eng |
Toronto Blue Jays v Kansas City Royals - Jordan Romano
Toronto Blue Jays v Kansas City Royals - Jordan Romano / Ed Zurga/GettyImages
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With one week of the MLB baseball season in the books, let’s take a closer look at what went well, and what didn’t for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Strengths

1. Solid Defense

One of the key strengths of the Jays going into the 2023 season is their drastic improvement on defence. During the offseason, the likes of Kevin Kiermaier and Daulton Varsho were acquired to help in that regard, and so far this regular season, the results have been quite impressive.

As a team, the Jays have committed only two errors through six games, with a fielding percentage close to .990. In addition, they have turned eight double plays and have made some stellar defensive plays along the way, including a couple of these:

It is expected that their quality defence will continue to help them win many more tight games throughout the season, when the games could become a game of inches.

2.  Dynamic Speed

In previous seasons, team speed was generally not an attribute that they could take advantage of in helping them win games. One may have to go all the way back to the Devon White/Roberto Alomar/Shannon Stewart era, or even into Lloyd Moseby/Tony Fernandez/Damaso Garcia territory before we find a contingent of Blue Jays that presented a constant speed threat whenever they got on base.

However, for 2023, with the acquisitions of Kiermaier and Varsho, along with those already in place in Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, George Springer, Whit Merrifield and newcomer Nathan Lukes, they have the potential to have multiple double digit base stealers to deploy from their arsenal. So far, they have stolen four bases in six games, including one by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. too, whereas last year, they had only 67 for the entire season.

In addition, with the added speed this year, it has enabled more aggressive base running and run-scoring opportunities, with more potential outs becoming safe instead as a result, as seen here:

If the Jays can continue to use their speed to their advantage, they will certainly keep their opponents on their toes and may find themselves on the winning side of many games throughout this season.

3.  Steady Bullpen

During the first game of the season in which the Jays were involved in the slugfest with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Jays’ bullpen certainly did not get off to a good start, giving up six hits, four earned runs, with four walks over 5.2 innings. But basically nothing was really working for either team that day, other than the fact that Jordan Romano saved the day and helped sneak out a 10-9 win.

But since that day, the bullpen has actually settled down and pulled off a string of decent outings, pitching over 15 innings, scattering 11 hits, two earned runs, while striking out 15 and walking only four, leading to a 1.20 ERA. Although FanGraphs had ranked the Jays’ bullpen to be only the 13th best in all of baseball, early signs appeared to show it actually may be more steady and reliable than expected.

Based on the 2022 season, when the Jays’ starters were generally taken out of the game by the sixth inning or earlier, knowing that they have a strong and dependable bullpen so far in 2023 will go a long way to help secure many leads or to keep games close to the end.

As good as the Jays’ defence, speed, and bullpen have been during the first week of the season, there were also some alarm bells to be aware of at the same time.

Weaknesses

One thing that really stood out was, to the surprise of many fans, the starters were shaky to start off the season. With what was believed to be a great strength for the Jays coming into the 2023 season, it certainly didn’t look like it in the first go-around for their starting rotation. But here, we won’t be looking at that aspect, as we expect them to hopefully have a bounce back start (similar to what Alek Manoah did in his recent start against the Kansas City Royals) in the coming days to show that their first start may have just been an anomaly. Instead, we will take a look at two other less evident factors that may become more worrisome over the course of the season if not improved upon.

1. Power Outage

During the offseason, when the Jays elected to focus on acquiring players with superior defense and those that bat left-handed, they sacrificed some power bats, such as Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., in doing so. It was expected that they might have a slight decrease in power coming into the season, but with the acquisitions of Brandon Belt and the potential breakout season for Varsho, the Jays were hoping it would help make up for some of that lost power at least.

So far after one week into the regular season, the Jays have collectively hit only three home runs over six games, which projects to a total of 81 home runs over the course of the entire season, compared to 200 in 2022. It is still early, but if regression to the mean doesn’t occur, this may be an area of concern for the rest of the season.

It is definitely gratifying to see that the current Jays team is starting to make strides in utilizing their speed and playing more small ball to generate runs, as opposed to just relying on the long ball which they had done for many prior seasons. However, sometimes the odd home run here and there is needed to help get back into some lopsided games much more quickly and to help generate momentum for the team.

Without reliance on the home run, the Jays will thus need to be more competent now in situational hitting. Speaking of which…

2.  Clutch Hitting Woes

Another area of concern currently is the number of runners the Jays had been stranding on base the past few games. It is imperative that if there is a lack of power to generate runs with the home run, they must fully take advantage of cashing in runners when they get on base.

Over the past six games, the Jays have hit 13 for 56 for a .232 average with runners in scoring position, with 56 runners stranded in total. Their inability to drive in runs was particularly evident in game two against the Cardinals, when Cardinals’ pitchers issued TEN walks to the Jays over the course of the game, but the Jays were able to only score one run off a wild pitch as a result of it, per theScore and The Associated Press.

As well, it appeared as though every time the Jays were ready to make a rally in the games they were trailing, their untimely hitting would snuff it out. It may be just a few games into the season, but if the current trend continues, instead of winning close ball games, the Jays may start to find themselves on the losing side of many games due to the failure to produce in the clutch.

Obviously, one week of games isn’t enough of a sample size to dictate how the Jays will do the rest of the season, but it gives them a certain idea of what they have going right so far as a team, and what they may need to work on more. Hopefully the Jays can work out their weaknesses in due time; after all, they still have a whole season to play, and they should fully take advantage of their strengths to help propel the team to a successful winning season.

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