These Blue Jays have bounced back after disastrous 2024 seasons

While the Blue Jays are in the midst of an ugly five-game losing streak, they still were able to earn some national recognition recently thanks to the play of three of their veterans.

Earlier this week, MLB.com's Thomas Harrigan put out an article highlighting eight players putting together rebound seasons at the start of 2025 — three of whom were Blue Jays.

Chris Bassitt, Kevin Gausman, and George Springer were the players highlighted by Harrigan. It's some much-needed recognition in what's been a strong season for the trio.

Bassit is coming off the worst outing of his season Tuesday night against the Houston Astros when he allowed four earned runs in 5 1/3 innings against the Astros, but he still has just a 1.88 ERA across 28 2/3 innings on the season.

He's also on-pace to set a new career-high in strikeout rate (28.6%) and walk rate (5%).

Last year, Bassitt posted an ERA of 4.16 (the highest full season ERA in his career), which made it seem like the 36-year-old was on the decline. But he's bounced back, and is a big reason why the Blue Jays' starting rotation has looked like a strength this season.

Gausman is another pitcher who has looked like an ace this season after struggling immensely in 2024.

After experiencing a fairly drastic decrease in his strikeout-rate in last season (his 21.4% strikeout rate in 2024 was nearly 10% lower than the year prior), the 2012 first-round draft pick has whiffed nearly a third (29.3%) of batters over his last three starts, which is due in large part to his nasty splitter.

Gausman’s underlying numbers made it seem like decline could be imminent (4.71 expected ERA), but his numbers this season (3.16 ERA, 3.48 xERA) have squashed those concerns.

Springer put together the worst year of his career in 2024 (.220/.303/.371 slash line), which led to some legitimate concerns about how the final two years of Springer’s, six-year, $150 million contract would play out.

But Springer's made those concerns a thing of the past.

After looking lost for parts of spring training, Springer has rebounded with a .333 batting average (6th in the AL), .946 OPS and 174 OPS+ through 22 games. His traditional stats are impressive, but he’s also among the league’s most improved hitters in terms of hard-hit rate ( he's currently in the 87th percentile), barrel rate (85th percentile, and sweet-spot rate (79th percentile).

While it seems like he's made some technical changes to his swing, he's also hitting lower in the order this year, which seems to have helped his approach.

 While the Blue Jays' offense is currently mired in a historic slump, Springer was one of three Blue Jays to have multiple hits in their series against the Astros, which shows that he's still seeing the ball well.

The Blue Jays understand they need some breaks this season to achieve their goals. Getting resurgent performances from three of their most trusted (and well-compensated) veterans is a solid start.