2020 ZiPS Projections: Toronto Blue Jays

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

If you planned a Bond villain-esque scheme to abduct the sons of famous baseball players and put them to work in your baseball mines, it would make for a pretty good plot, and a hell of a lineup. Toronto’s storyline is still incomplete, however, as the next phase of the plan involved collecting a bunch of castoffs and tossing them into the batting order.

Perhaps this is a touch on the mean side. Whatever else you can say about the Jays, it’s unlikely they have a floor anywhere near as low as some of the other teams — like the Marlins or Royals — likely to land in the 70s for wins. The outfield has a lot of guys to juggle, as players like Dalton Pompey and Anthony Alford never developed into the types that carve out permanent roles. ZiPS remains skeptical of Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s offense, and while the computer has him ticking up near an OPS+ of 100, that isn’t all that exciting when you’re talking about a corner outfielder instead of a middle infielder. The Jays don’t really have a center fielder in this group — at least among those likely to start — which raises some concerns about what their defense will look like.

But when we get to Toronto’s fortunate sons, things look a lot better. ZiPS isn’t terribly concerned that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. didn’t catapult to instant stardom like some other recent phenoms; it’s easy to forget that Vladito is playing in the majors when most prospects are getting used to High- or Double-A pitching. Bo Bichette’s done enough now that his rest-of-career win projection hasactually passed Guerrero’s by the thinnest of hairs. Vlad could steal that back, but the fact that Bichette has shown improvement while the former still has to take his step forward has a real effect on the probabilities. Cavan Biggio is a clear step back of these two, but ZiPS is betting on him being average for a long time, light years ahead of where it had him last year.

Pitchers

Hyun-Jin Ryu was the team’s big offseason addition, and ZiPS is confident he’s a reasonable No. 1 starter for the Jays, though it’s not as confident that he’ll again threaten to lead the league in ERA. Tanner Roark is a plug-and-play average pitcher, and ZiPS gives a strong projection to Shun Yamaguchi. Toronto will happily take an ERA+ of 100 from Matt Shoemaker, but his 13 game projection is a reflection of how risky it is to count on his health. With one big exception, who I’ll talk about later, none of the likely No. 5 starter candidates project to have much upside, but I’ve seen far worse groups contending for a final rotation spot.

When it comes to the bullpen, the projections are brilliantly lackluster. Ken Giles looked a lot like the pitcher he was with the Phillies last year. With only the Rays left to go in the projections, Giles’ projected ERA+ ranks ninth among relievers and eighth once you eliminate Felipe Vázquez. The problem isn’t Giles, but the rest of the bullpen, with all but one pitcher projected to be worse than league average.

That exception is a blast from the past, former Cubs prospect Rafael Dolis. He went to the NPB a few years back and his signing is one of the more interesting low-profile additions of this offseason. Dolis still throws hard, but his command is much better than it was years ago and he’s learned a hard splitter that induces a ton of groundballs. He only allowed six homers in four years in Japan, and ZiPS is confident he’ll succeed in his second major league chance.

Prospects

ZiPS has a very aggressive projection for big Alejandro Kirk, though his status at the top of the catcher heap is more a reflection on how bearish the computer is about Reese McGuire and Danny Jansen. Kirk’s a big dude, in definite large adult son territory. What makes Kirk interesting is his combination of power and plate discipline, and without being a Peter O’Brien-esque disaster defensively. I’d like to see him stick behind the plate as long as possible as he’s less interesting as a first base prospect, though he could still carve out a career like Daniel Vogelbach’s.

But one player ZiPS is really excited about is Nate Pearson, recently ranked eighth by Eric Longenhagen on the 2020 Top 100. Recovered from his broken forearm in 2018, Pearson and his century fastball fared very well in Double-A despite a real lack of professional experience. He made the Futures Game in July and pitched in Triple-A in August, and I’d love to see him in the mix for the fifth spot in March. Pearson still doesn’t have a lot of innings on his arm, so they’ll probably stretch him out in Triple-A, which isn’t quite as much fun. One can make the argument that it’s for the best because if the projections for the bullpen are accurate, as the Jays may not have the depth there to use Pearson in a Julio Urías swingman role in 2020.

One pedantic note for 2020: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals. Also, I’ve added Shun Yamaguchi, who is not yet in our system, into the depth chart.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2020 due to injury, and players who were released in 2019. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in June to form a ska-cowpunk Luxembourgian bubblegum pop-death metal band, he’s still listed here intentionally.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article.