Chapter 1: What recent challenges have the Blue Jays faced?
Welcome to At The Letters for April the 24th, 2026. Ben Nicholson-Smith here with you, along with Arden Swelling on this episode produced by Christian Ryan. Arden, it's barely been a couple days since we last spoke, but we do have some interesting stuff to get to here. How are you doing as we talk on this Blue Jays off day here?
I'm okay. It is, in fact, a Blue Jays off day. And considering the deluge of events that have befallen this team over the last nine days on the road, I'm sure they're happy to have it.
Yeah, they could use it. I mean, it was pretty clear in the late innings of the finale against the Angels. They were running on fumes a little bit when it came to their relievers, who was available. Even the guys who were on the mound weren't necessarily at full strength. And then
Lo and behold, the Angels scored a bunch of runs in the seventh inning, and the Blue Jays missed the chance to get a sweep, which really would have been huge. Instead, they lose the finale. Eric Lauer was pretty solid.
Chapter 2: How is Jeff Hoffman's job security being evaluated?
We talked a lot about Eric Lauer on the last episode of At the Letters, so we can probably leave that there. But before we move on to the main topic that we want to get to here in the first segment, Arden, anything that you wanted to get to in that Angels series finale, that 7-3 game on Wednesday?
The only thing I would say is that typically as a manager, you would like your fifth starter to be very low maintenance, to be rarely seen or heard from, to just be set and forget. go out there, five and dive, thank you very much, see you in six days.
And the fact that you and I have had as many conversations as we've had about Eric Lauer to this point sort of suggests that he hasn't been filling that role for the Blue Jays. So I do think that that is an interesting point of conflict for this club right now.
Well, the Blue Jays know a thing or two about high maintenance starters. And I say that with all due respect to Max Scherzer. But, you know, this is this is someone who and Chris Bassett, too. I mean, these are these are guys that, you know, are pretty involved. They care a lot about the details. And that's a different thing than what's happening here with Eric Lauer.
But this is part of the job description for John Schneider. It's not his favorite part of the job description. And I agree with you that I can definitely see the frustration.
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Chapter 3: What alternative approaches to the closer role are being considered?
You don't want to have to be answering questions about, you know, what's going on here or the communication or why is he wearing that tape and did you know about it? It's not ideal. But end of the day, you need results. And I will say Lauer was reasonably effective against the Angels in that game. So that's something.
It's kind of like the last guy on your bench, like your Miles Straws of the world for the Blue Jays, where it's, hey, when I need you to pinch hit, when I need you to pinch run, and when I need you to start the outfield, just be ready to go and do the job as asked, and that's about it.
It's like the end of your bullpen with a Spencer Miles, where it's, hey, I might need you to come in and mop up for a couple of innings in the third because something went awry,
Chapter 4: What impact do player uniforms have on team identity?
Or I might just call on you to pitch in very low leverage in the seventh or eighth because the game is out of hand. Go out, do the job. And other than that, I don't even really want to see your face. I don't even want to even know you're in the clubhouse. For Eric Lauer, I think as a number five starter, you want to be rather Patrick Corbin-esque, where right now he's just going out.
every turn of the rotation and throw in five innings. And sometimes those five innings might surrender four runs. Sometimes they might surrender only one. It almost just matters most that they are five innings. And Patrick Corbin the other day pitched really, really well through like 64 pitches and was lifted when really he could have continued.
And maybe if he had a bigger ego about it, he would have made a stink about not continuing. But he said, hey, yep, did my job. That's that. I'm going to go get ready for my next one. So that's kind of what you want out of your fifth starter.
Chapter 5: How does Juan Soto's absence affect the Mets?
And there really just hasn't been an Eric Lauer outing this year where there hasn't been some sort of extraneous thing that we are focused on other than the fact that he went out and threw five innings in the loud between one and three runs. Right.
No, there's been a lot of discussion about Eric Lauer. Now, I... Seeing him in Chicago, I'm giving him a full pass for being sick. He was sick as a dog. But since then, there's been stuff going on. As things stand now, Corbin and Lauer are both slated to start against the Red Sox, a team that has struggled a lot against left-handed pitching this year.
So we'll see if that unfolds as per the schedule. The Blue Jays could throw an opener ahead of someone like an Eric Lauer. They also could bring back Trey Savage. As we record this right now on Thursday, they are likely discussing the next steps for Trey Savage and what that looks like. But as things stand right now, Corbin and Lauer would line up against the Red Sox.
Yeah you could even throw an opener in front of you Savage if he isn't fully stretched out like it's possible he's only got 80 pitches for his next outing just because his last two haven't been ideal from like a volume and a workload standpoint and maybe that kind of makes some sense to like throw a Mason Fluharty in the first inning to face Roman Anthony and Masataki Yoshida and
willier bray you and then you bring in trey savage after them although trey savage uh can be a bit of a reverse splits guy because of his splitter so there would be some interesting things to be weighed there i think the most likely scenario is that savage probably throws one more minor league outing just because he hasn't had a really ideal one to platform off of to return to the big leagues and the blue jays don't have like a super pressing need right now but if eric lauer is going through something with whatever led to him
wearing the kin tape during his outing yeah maybe it is you savage um the stuff looks fine he just hasn't been putting it where he needs to if he's going to be most effective and he's been walking too many hitters so you would ideally like him to to refine that fastball command before he returns but blue jays are in a good spot right now where they have options uh it appears and another one on the way in jose barrios
And look, a big part of what Yosavage needs to have going for him when he does eventually debut is the command. And he just didn't have that in his most recent AAA outing.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the Yankees changing their uniforms?
So there might be a case to be made for just letting him figure that out a little bit more and building up the pitch count beyond 64, which is where it sat. And John Schneider indicated that he wanted that pitch count a little higher, ideally. So that might mean a little bit more time for both Corbin and Lauer, but
As we said, Jay's likely discussing that right now and mulling over those next steps.
Yeah, and then he could just kick the decision a little bit further down the road when who knows what you're dealing with at that point. If you've got an injury or just like another reason why that, There could be an opening in your rotation or a reason to do something differently. As I mentioned, like Jose Barrios also on the way.
So there's going to be we're going to go through this process again, probably about two more starts from now for Barrios. Got the 55 pitches with Dunedin on Wednesday and actually looked pretty good. Like if you I didn't watch the entire outing, but just based off of like the data located 51 percent of his pitches in the zone.
four seamers 93 and a half two seamers 93 uh you look at the pitch plot it looked really good he stayed off the heart of the plate looked like he was locating to the edges there weren't any significant misses looked like he worked ahead of a lot of hitters and obviously the results were there as well didn't allow a run over four innings so having thrown 55 pitches in that outing i mean he could get up to 70 maybe for buffalo his next time out and then maybe one more for buffalo after that and then he's likely ready to return to the big leagues
Yeah, so they have some reinforcements coming there as we've been discussing for weeks here. But I think we can leave the Wednesday game there and that part of the Angels series there. But right after we recorded on Tuesday... Blue Jays won that game, of course, which was their third win in a row and a much-needed series win for the first time since March.
But within that game, Jeff Hoffman comes in and struggles. And this is where we want to spend some time talking about the Blue Jays – Closer? Question mark?
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Chapter 7: How do players feel about wearing jewelry during games?
We'll see. But Jeff Hoffman came in with the Blue Jays leading, gets a strikeout, which we've seen a lot of from Hoffman this year, followed by a single, hit by pitch, hit by pitch, then another single, Then in comes Louis Varland, one pitch, ground ball, double play, game over.
So the worst case scenario was avoided in the sense that the Blue Jays won the game and Louis Varland bailed everyone out. But at the same time, Jeff Hoffman's struggles have really been in the spotlight here early on this season. So...
The Blue Jays, again, on this off day, off day for the players, certainly not an off day for John Schneider and Ross Atkins and Pete Walker as they're talking through some of this stuff. They plan to discuss what is next for Jeff Hoffman. And so we're kind of doing that in parallel. Obviously, our discussion is public. There's very much not so.
But what do you make of this, Arden, as far as where Hoffman's at and how the Blue Jays proceed?
And both conversations just as consequential as well. You forgot to mention that. I think that now is the time to just lessen the leverage for Jeff Hoffman. And I don't think that that means that he isn't going to throw in the ninth inning again. Because I think just with the way this bullpen is set up, he's going to have to be. I don't think you can...
shield him from the ninth inning long term but i do think that this is an opportunity uh to shift to more of a committee approach in the ninth and i think that means that louis varlin gets opportunities in the ninth and i think that means tyler rogers and against the right pocket of lefties mason fluarty and maybe on certain days braden fisher and
I think there's an opportunity here just to operate the bullpen a bit more progressively and to call all of the above into John Schneider's office ahead of Friday's game and tell them, hey, you all need to be ready to go anytime from the sixth inning on. and we're going to throw you wherever the best matchup for you presents itself.
And that could be in the seventh, that could be in the eighth, that could be in the ninth. We are no longer working with a capital C closer. It could be anyone, including Jeff Hoffman. It could be Jeff Hoffman in the ninth, but I think that
Um, John Schneider, Pete Walker are just going to have an easier time navigating the end of this ball game and they're going to have to deal with fewer landmines if they just have the flexibility to potentially use Jeff Hoffman earlier, um, in, in a game in a different leverage spot.
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Chapter 8: What are the future expectations for the Blue Jays' bullpen?
It is early in the season and. There might be some people who would say you have to be more patient and point to some of the positives from Hoffman. I'm not going to be that person. And the reason for that is that I'm going to point to some of the numbers here with Jeff Hoffman so far. You look at the walks. The walk rate is high. He's walking over five per nine.
That doesn't even include the hip batters, right? That's also... Those are base runners that are a product of having spotty command, having bad command. So his command just hasn't been there. You look at the amount of time that he's in the strike zone, that's down. You look at his first pitch strike percentage, that's down. So we're talking about a pitcher who...
just has not been able to locate the ball where he wants to. And in the short term, because for now, we're just having a short-term conversation about what the Blue Jays do in the next 10 days. We're not trying to project into August, obviously. Those answers will reveal themselves over time. But for now, you want...
the pitchers who are in those most important late inning situations to be able to locate the ball. And so that might mean Tyler Rogers or, or Louie Varland, because they're just pitching better right now. And I think that that's a prudent thing to do. Now you could also say, all right, Jeff Hoffman has been a bit unlucky. And I think that's true. When you look at a BABIP,
of over 600 there's clearly been some bad luck but this is one of those situations where it's like you have a lot of things going on at once yes he has been a little bit unlucky but he also hasn't been very effective and so when you look at the effectiveness you look at what he's doing set aside the defenders set aside where the balls are dropping what he's doing needs to be better and
We can get into this, but there's a lot of reason to believe it can get better. But in the short term, I do think it makes sense to take him out of those highest of high leverage positions.
It's just been such a season of extremes for him because it's either he's walking guys and giving up like these maddening dinks and dunks and giving up homers or he's striking everybody out and there's just nothing in between. And that's why you get some of these stats that you're referring to, right?
Like despite the high walk rate and the amount of batters that he's walked, he still has a 31.6% strikeout minus walk rate. which is eighth highest among qualified relievers. And that is a very predictive statistic. That's because the strikeout rate is over 40%, which is wild. You mentioned the BABIP. I mean, nobody's going to have a higher BABIP than that this season. That's just absurd.
over 600 like it's just this just unfathomable um he's got a 1.68 xfip talking about stats that tend to be predictive going forward i mean that's sixth highest among qualified relievers 40% whiff rate 40% chase rate he's allowed only two barrels in 12 appearances like there's lots of stats you can point to that suggests to your point um
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