Last week, I picked one stat to watch for each Jays hitter on the infield and in the outfield. Now we’re moving over to the pitching staff. The results have been very mixed so far, but…
Chris Bassitt: 45.2% of pitches on the edge of the zone. Bassitt has lost 1.2mph off his fastball this season. Normally for a 36 year old pitcher that would be the kiss of death. In his case, though, I think it might represent a strategy. Bassitt is hitting the corners at the highest rate of his career, while also throwing his fewest pitches in the heart of the zone. His game has never been about nasty stuff, even in his younger days. Instead, he has half a dozen pitches and can spot all of them, betting that you won’t guess right and that it’ll be in a hard spot to square up even if you do. By taking a little gas off and focusing on precision, he’s doubling down on his strengths. So far it’s resulted in is best start as a Blue Jay.
Kevin Gausman: 32.2 inches of vertical break on splitters. Gausman’s struggles last year stemmed from a loss of depth on his splitter (about two inches relative to 2022 and 2023) and a half a mile an hour off his fastball. He’s got both back this season, and as a consequence both pitches are drawing a few more whiffs than they did in 2024. The dominant days of 2022 and 2023 probably aren’t coming back, and he’s still getting tagged a little more than would be ideal, but after some concerning signs of skill erosion last year he looks like a solid #2/3 again.
Jose Berrios: 9.6% walk rate. One of the main strengths of Berrios’ game has always been that he avoids issuing free passes. He doesn’t strike out a ton of batters, but in his good years he suppresses contact a bit and keeps the walks in the 6% range (vs. a league average that’s typically in the 8.5-9% area). This year, hitters are chasing just a little less against him (27% vs. a career rate of 30%) and it’s putting him behind, setting him up in more jams and making life a little harder than usual, which has resulted in a mildly disappointing 4.22 ERA.
Bowden Francis: .276 BABIP. Francis’ profile is puzzling. His pitch movement and location look about the same as last year, when his ERA was 1.7 runs lower. He’s allowing a marginally lower contact rate but getting fewer Ks. He’s popping even more hitters up (his real strength), but also getting barrelled up more often. I’m tempted to write a lot of his bad start off to luck. As with old friend Marco Estrada, some times when you live by the pop up you die by the fly ball double. And as with Estrada, a .276 BABIP would be lucky for most guys but represents a problem when your whole game is getting cheap outs on lazy fly balls.
Eric Lauer: 77.4% contact rate. A career best (excluding an 11 inning blip in 2020), and the reason for his also-career best 26% K rate. Still, notably, worse than league average. The stuff has never been impressive, but Lauer is deploying and locating well enough to look like a legitimately alright sixth starter type.
Jose Urena: 74.6% in-zone swing rate. Only 14 qualified hitters are more aggressive inside the zone than the whole league is against Urena. None of them chase as rarely as the 26.5% rate he induces. Only Freedie Freeman (28%) comes close. If you’re a pitcher, you don’t want the whole league looking like Freddie Freeman against you, never mind looking better.
Paxton Schultz: 129 Fastball Location+. Schultz’s stuff is fairly vanilla. He’s got some nice depth on his cutter, but otherwise neither the velocity nor the movement on his pitches is far from average. He nails his spots though, especially with his fastball, which Fangraphs’ Stuff+ model considers the 8th best located in the game right now. You can see it in the heat maps on his Baseball Savant page: the four seamer is in the top quarter of the zone or on the black inside to righties, but rarely anywhere else. If he keeps that up, he might just carve out a longer term role in the MLB bullpen.