The one weakness that could haunt the Blue Jays in October during MLB playoffs

The Toronto Blue Jays have bounced back in a big way to produce a successful 2025 MLB season after a disappointing 2024 campaign. Fuelled by their much-improved offense and pitching, along with stellar defense all around, the Blue Jays not only made it back into the postseason, but they also managed to win the American League East division title for good measure.

With everything practically firing on all cylinders, the Jays enter the MLB Playoffs as a legitimate contender for the World Series this month. However, as good as Toronto has been in all aspects of the game, there was actually one glaring weakness for the team. That one main weakness that could potentially haunt the Jays in October is their ability to steal bases.

The one weakness that could haunt the Blue Jays in October

On the season, the Blue Jays collectively stole just 77 bases, which ranked them third last in the league. In comparison, the stolen bases totals for World Series contenders such as the Milwaukee Brewers (164), Chicago Cubs (161), Seattle Mariners (161) and New York Yankees (134) during the regular season ranked them all among the top 10 in the majors.

The aging veteran George Springer led the team with 18, followed by Myles Straw and Andrés Giménez with 12 each. After that, everyone else on the Jays squad had six or less to count for.

Not only that, the Jays’ base stealers were also caught 25 times for just a 75.5% success rate, which put them 23rd in the entire MLB. So when Toronto was even trying to make things happen with their speed on the basepaths, they weren’t as successful as the majority of the other teams in the majors.

Some could argue that this is just a minor flaw to their game and that they can probably get by without it in the postseason. But in fact, having a potent stolen base ability could be a huge difference maker during the postseason.

By having a stealing threat on the base paths, it forces the pitcher to pitch from the stretch and/or with a slide step, rather than their usual slower windup. In addition, it could serve as a distraction to the pitcher, ultimately limiting their effectiveness in their pitches thrown to the plate, giving the batter a drastic advantage.

One of the best example of this was during Game 6 of the 1993 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. With the late Rickey Henderson, the greatest base stealer of all time, on second base as the potential game tying run in the ninth inning, his constant distraction as a potential threat to steal helped lead to Joe Carter's series-winning home run heard around the world.

But without such a threat, pitchers wouldn’t need to worry much about baserunners and would be able to focus solely on the batter. In doing so, they would be more effective at delivering their pitches and would likely give them the advantage over the hitter over time.

Consequently, the Jays could be faced with tougher at-bats even with runners on base as a result. In addition, even when Toronto does end up getting runners on base, they won’t be able to setup and generate runs as easily without the ability to steal bases effectively.

Therefore, to significantly offset such a weakness, the Jays should give the green light to more of their speedsters this postseason. Otherwise, one can expect their overall hitting and offense to be neutralized, much like how the Minnesota Twins did it to the Jays the last time that they made the MLB Playoffs in 2023.