April can be a confusing month in Major League Baseball, and few teams have been more perplexing than the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays got off to a solid start, taking over first place for a week or so, and they got a boost of positive PR when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed a 14-year extension. However, after a three-game sweep at the hands of the Houston Astros, they’re now back under .500.
It’s still an important year for the future of the Blue Jays, even though they no longer have to worry about Guerrero leaving in free agency. This was a last-place team in 2024, and they’re going to have a top-10, borderline top-5 payroll for the foreseeable future.
There’s still a lot of time for the Blue Jays to prove they’re playoff contenders. But one insider has also identified a potential Achilles’ Heel that could cost them a few important games.
On Friday, Jim Bowden of The Athletic wrote up reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic for all 30 teams, and on the negative side for the Blue Jays, he honed in on the defense.
“The Blue Jays were projected to be the top defensive team in MLB by FanGraphs, but for whatever reason, that hasn’t been the case early in the season,” Bowden wrote.
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“In fact, the Jays rank 16th in overall defense, 22nd in runs above average (measuring range) and 24th in outs above average (measuring range). I still think they have the potential to be a strong defense, but it hasn’t looked good in April.”
The Blue Jays are typically a perennial candidate for the team Gold Glove Award, and though they’ve been missing Daulton Varsho in the outfield, they added former Platinum Glover Andrés Giménez to play second base.
Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will never be plus defenders, but it’s still a surprise that on the whole, the Blue Jays’ defense has come out in the bottom half of the league so far.
Granted, this is why MLB plays 162 games. It’s barely been an eighth of the year, so it’s too early to make sweeping statements. But defense was supposed to be part of this Toronto team’s winning formula, so they’d better turn it around soon.
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