Arden Zwelling

That was very obvious even when he was struggling in the big leagues.

There was just bizarre stuff happening, like giving up two homers, two lefties, and outing.

Just as it's bizarre when Jeff Hoffman hits two hitters in a row with arm side sinkers that get away.

These are just things that you don't see from these guys when they're right.

So you turn down the leverage on them a little bit, as the Blue Jays did with Little.

Lo and behold, now he's struck out like half the dudes he's faced in seven outings at AAA.

Just struck out the side again on Wednesday.

So something similar could happen with Hoffman.

I'm not saying he should be sent to AAA.

I'm just saying he turned down the leverage in the majors.

But ultimately...

The best version of the Blue Jays' bullpen has Jeff Hoffman in the 9th, and it has Louis Varlin setting up for him, and it has Brendan Little facing a pocket of lefties, and it has Jimmy Garcia available.

The biggest issue right now and why you can't, in my opinion, just name Louis Varlin the closer is because you don't have enough options.

You're down two.

You're down Garcia and Little.

If you had those guys at the height of their abilities available every night, I think you could say, all right, Louis Varlin is going to be our closer.

We're going to save him for the 9th.

And then we're going to attack different pockets with a Hoffman and a Rogers and a little and a Garcia to set things up for him.

But as it goes right now, like when you think about like really trusted late game leverage relievers, it's really just Rogers and Varland in that bullpen right now and flew Hardy against the right matchups.

I mean, they put Fisher in on, on Wednesday and that was pretty high leverage.