2025 ZiPS Projections: Toronto Blue Jays

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

The AL East team that entered 2024 with the highest projected floor turned out to have… the lowest actual floor in 2024. Curse you, probability! The rotation disappointed last year, and a wide swathe of the starting lineup either underperformed or got injured, and in some cases, both.

Despite their issues last season, ZiPS still projects the Blue Jays as having a reasonably good starting nine, especially after the shuffle that brought in Andrés Giménez. After his terrific 2024, it feels especially bad that the team couldn’t get Matt Chapman to agree to the six-year, $125 million deal they repeatedly extended to him before he became a free agent, as ZiPS projects the hot corner as middling, populated by a rather unimpressive assemblage of players. Elsewhere, Orelvis Martinez, once a beloved ZiPS projectee, has seen his projection drop to .210/.275/.403 with mildly below-average defense. The computer does project decent dead cat bounces from Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk, which will be important to helping Jays fans forget the 88 losses the team tallied last year. Even with the unexciting third base projections, the Blue Jays have a very solid infield.

The outfield and DH are more problematic. While none of the outfield spots project as absolute black holes, ZiPS is unimpressed with the left field combo of Joey Loperfido ‘n’ Friends and sees imminent oblivion (immblivion?) for George Springer, who is clearly well on the downslope of his career. DH looks mainly like a “day off” position, unless Will Wagner‘s offense is so good that they just let him roll with the job or convince Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that concentrating on his bat might be beneficial. Daulton Varsho’s glove makes him a solid starter, but it’d be even better if his power from a few years ago returned.

Wagner’s comps, which include Edgar Martinez, compel me to re-issue my occasional reminder that these are similar players at similar points in their careers; this isn’t projecting that Wagner will have a Hall of Fame career. But since his offensive breakout in the high minors, he does hit enough to at least be interesting. A .270/.350/.400 hitter who isn’t merely cosplaying as a second baseman is a fascinating guy to have around, so the wild comparison to Edgar is slightly less wild than other wild comparisons to Edgar, if that sentence makes any sense.

The Blue Jays’ biggest problem right now is that time is just plain running out. Guerrero and Bichette will be free agents after this season, while Kirk, Varsho, and Kevin Gausman all will be after 2026. Add in Springer’s already obvious decline, and there just isn’t a whole lot of clock left to win with this core group of players. ZiPS likes some of Toronto’s prospects, like Leo Jiménez and Charles McAdoo (the latter of whom came over in the Isiah Kiner-Falefa trade), but it sees most of them as having fairly low ceilings. The Blue Jays should be aggressive in going after guys like Anthony Santander (who they have reportedly at least given a four-year offer to). This team could be the obvious basement favorite in a few years.

And yes, I know Joey Votto retired. I wrote about it, after all.

Pitchers

ZiPS has long liked Gausman, but it’s only projecting him to bounce back to a 114 ERA+ in 2025, and that’s the best pitching projection on the team. Shedding nearly a third of your strikeout rate in a single year is typically a Really Bad Sign, and a worse contact-against rate and declining velocity are hardly mitigating factors. Gausman being a solid number-two starter rather than a clear ace has real consequences, as the rest of the rotation projects as merely adequate. And while it’s nice that José Berríos, Chris Bassitt, Bowden Francis, and Yariel Rodríguez all project somewhere around league average, and that ZiPS still has very slight faith in Alek Manoah, there’s just not much upside here. ZiPS isn’t a fan of the next names on the depth chart — Jake Bloss, Adam Macko, and Andrew Bash — at all, and forecasts that the Jays would swiftly fall out contention with just a couple of key injuries.

There aren’t a lot of big names in the bullpen, but ZiPS sees Toronto’s relief corps as being a lot better than in 2024, when they finished last in baseball in WAR and combined for a 4.82 ERA. Ryan Burr projects as the best reliever, but Chad Green, Yimi García, Erik Swanson, Josh Walker, and Brandon Eisert all project as average or better. Simply being the 15th-best bullpen last year rather than the worst one would have been enough to add a shocking six wins to the team’s overall tally. Toronto could probably stand to add another arm or two to the ‘pen, especially a lefty, but I’m not sure it’s the absolute priority, even with how lousy the unit was last year.

If you ignore my direct threats of violence and add up the WAR on the depth chart, you get around 87-88 wins. But with the team’s depth, especially the starting pitching, ZiPS gives the Jays something more along the lines of 84 or 85 wins right now. That’s a really awkward spot for a team that might be in its last season with two of its best players. While it’s nice that the team did make a real effort to go after Shohei Ohtani last year and Juan Soto last month, the job involves closing deals rather than simply offering them. Most of the very best players are already off the free agent market — it’s getting close to midnight for these Toronto Blue Jays.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by 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 that 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. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.