The Blue Jays have a long list of players nearing career milestones in 2024

The 2024 MLB season may end up becoming a very special one for the Toronto Blue Jays. Not only will they be trying to make the playoffs for third consecutive season for the second time in team history (the last streak occurring from 1991-93), but many of the players will be up for specific career milestones this year as well. Here, we will take a closer look at the long list of pitchers and positional players from the Jays’ roster and the accomplishments that they will be aiming to achieve in 2024.

Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios – 100 career wins

For one of the best in the game, some may find it surprising that Jays’ ace Kevin Gausman has yet to accumulate 100 wins for his career. However, it wasn't until he finally mastered the effectiveness of his devastating splitter while in a Giants’ uniform in 2020 that his career took off. Since then, he has put up double-digit wins in three straight seasons, compared to only twice in eight prior. With only 12 to go, he should have no problem achieving it as long as he stays healthy in 2024.

Back when he was the ace of the Twins’ pitching staff, José Berríos consistently put up double-digit wins. Even after joining the Jays, he has continued that winning trend, that despite registering one of his worst years of his career statistically in 2022. As a result, he has given himself an outside shot of reaching 100 wins in 2024 if he manages to have a huge breakout season, as he needs 17 victories to achieve the feat. Not bad for someone just turning 30 in a couple of months.

Chris Bassitt – 1000 career strikeouts

Chris Bassitt may not be one of the top strikeout pitchers in the league, but he has been a pretty consistent and effective one in producing close to 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings for his career. Most importantly, he is just coming off his best season with the Jays in which he set his career-high in wins with 16 and strikeouts with 186. If he can somehow come close to what he did from last year, the 143 he needs to reach 1000 should be a walk in the park.

Jordan Romano – 100 career saves

In terms of elite closers that have pitched for the Jays in the history of the franchise, there weren’t many that were durable enough to accumulate more than 100 saves during their tenure with the club. Only Tom Henke (217), Duane Ward (121), Roberto Osuna (104) and Billy Koch (100) managed to reach that mark. Well, Jordan Romano will have the honour to join the distinguished group this season despite being part of the team for five years. In fact, it could happen even sooner than you think, since he is actually only three saves away from doing so. Perhaps a bigger milestone for Romano to aim for in 2024 will be to pass Ward and become second on the all-time saves list for the Jays.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 500 career RBI

We all know what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. can do and what he brings to the team. But in terms of run production, he has been a beast for the Jays for the past five seasons. As a result, for someone just turning the young age of 25 in 2024, he has the opportunity to hit 500 RBI for his career if he can put together another stellar season of at least 96 RBI in total.

Bo Bichette – 100 career home runs 

For Bo Bichette, it may also seem shocking that he hasn’t tallied 100 home runs already for his career. After all, as one of the best hitters in the league along with his tremendous power, it feels like he should have passed that milestone ages ago. But being the smart hitter that he is, he doesn’t go for the long ball each time he steps up to the plate. Nevertheless, Bichette is now just 11 homers away from the mark, so let’s give him say two months into the season to reach it.

Justin Turner – 200 career home runs

This will actually be quite the accomplishment for Justin Turner if he ends up doing it because believe it or not, he only had 15 career MLB home runs prior to his age-30 season in 2015. He definitely made up a lot of ground in the past decade to get to this point, clearly suggesting that he's only gotten better with age. Turner only needs 13 more home runs to reach 200 for his career, so given that he had 23 blasts just last season, it shouldn’t be a major obstacle for him to conquer in the end.

George Springer – 100 career stolen bases

As a bonafide lead-off hitter throughout his career, together with decent speed, one would have expected George Springer to have topped 100 stolen bases by now after a full decade of baseball in the game. Perhaps it was the product of being on teams with stacked lineups, as Springer had the likes of José Altuve, Alex Bregman and others hitting behind him in Houston, and with Bichette, Guerrero and others here in Toronto. With the elite hitters that followed him, he probably had to refrain from potentially running into outs to ensure the big bats had a chance to cash him in. Nevertheless, Springer has made up for some lost time in the past two seasons with 14 swipes in 2022 and another 20 in 2023. If he can maintain that pace this year, he only needs another 14 bags to hit the century mark in 2024.

Kevin Kiermaier – 100 career home runs and 500 career runs scored

Finally, for one of the rare Jays players with two milestones to chase down in 2024, we have Kevin Kiermaier looking to do it with his bat and on the bases. Given his above-average speed, he has scored many important runs over the years for the Rays and now with the Jays. Currently, he is just 32 runs away from 500, so he should be able to obtain it by the summer. But what probably has flown under-the-radar due to his dominance in defense and speed is the fact that he actually has some pop in his bat as well. As a result, Kiermaier is only 10 home runs away from 100 for his career. This perhaps is the more challenging of the two milestones for him to achieve, since he hasn’t hit double-digits in home runs since 2019, but if he can stay healthy this year, we say he does it.