Ranking the 5 biggest culprits that deserve the most blame for Blue Jays’ awful start

The hitters

Following the departures of legitimate run producers this offseason in Matt Chapman, Brandon Belt and Whit Merrifield, the Jays were relying heavily on the dynamic trio of George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette to step up this year to help make up for some of the lost offense. However, the worst possible scenario came to be when all three of them fell flat coming out of the gate.  Not only were they struggling to drive in runs, they were all uncharacteristically hitting way below their career averages by almost 80-100 points.

To make matters worse, other than Danny Jansen, almost every other Jays’ hitter have had their struggles at some point in time during 2024. For instance, Cavan Biggio has lost his magic from the latter half of last season and looks lost at the plate at times this year. Alejandro Kirk’s All-Star season from two years ago seems like a distant memory now as his hitting regression has continued into 2024. Daulton Varsho appeared to be putting together a strong bounce-back campaign with a blazing start, but has also recently fallen back down to earth despite still maintaining his home run power.

As for the newcomers to the team this season, let’s just say they haven’t been able to make the impact that was expected of them thus far other than Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who has been steady both offensively and defensively. The list could actually go on and on, but we will just stop at those few as it presents a clearer picture on how the Jays’ offense had been holding up. As a result, they have inadvertently put the burden on their pitchers to help carry the load in order to give the team the opportunity to win.

On the bright side, with a recent run in the soft part of their schedule the past couple of weeks, a few of the hitters have started to heat up. In particular, both Springer and Guerrero have turned things around and have been leading the Jays to some important victories. In addition, the team collectively have scored 5 or more runs in nine of their past 15 games. Therefore, the Blame Score on the hitters would have been closer to 8 near the start of the season, but has now been lowered with their recent surge.

Blame score: 5