Which Blue Jays could regress in 2025?

Bowden Francis

It sure was a tale of two halves last year for Francis. After struggling as a starter and reliever in the first half of 2024, the 28-year-old pitcher came back to the ballclub as a completely different player following the MLB trade deadline. Gone was the inconsistent, wild version of Francis, who was instead replaced with a surprising, never-seen-before Cy Young-esque version of Francis.

Francis had a remarkable end to the season, as he posted a stellar 1.80 ERA and 0.60 WHIP, while holding opponents to a .140 batting average to go along with 58 strikeouts in 65 innings in his final 11 outings.

That impressive stretch of baseball included him coming dangerously close to tossing two no-hitters. Not only did he look confident and commanding on the mound, but it also seemed like hitters had a hard time catching up to his stuff.

And while the end of Francis' season was great, it would be practically impossible for him to keep that up across an entire season. As a result, there’s no question that he will regress a bit to the mean this coming year.

But ZiPS projections still has the 28-year-old right-hander recording a decent 8-6 record with a respectable 3.92 ERA and 1.0 fWAR, which should be decent enough for a back-end starter for the Jays’ rotation this season.