Here's a fun statistic about the Blue Jays' 2026 season. In the trade for Kevin Gausman, the Jays received Brett Bateman, who moved right into center field, hit .333 in 34 games, with 11 RBIs, an .828 OPS, and 46 hits. He currently has a 1.7 WAR in that time. Meanwhile, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who played 138 games this year and had a full year in the new contract to keep hitting in Toronto after the World Series run, is hitting .262 with 9 home runs, 56 RBIs and a .694 OPS.
You should not be able to get a guy who's stuck in Iowa, put him on your team for 2 months and get him to start playing better than Vlad Jr. has all season. That's not the point of any of this. The point is the Vlad to drag the sled, not for Brett Bateman to go from Iowa to dragging the sled while Vlad just rides in it. That's not how you win championships.
Despite that late rally and the continued gestation in the playoff picture, this was a big shrug of a follow-up from the 'team of uncommon men' in Toronto, mostly because most of the uncommon men didn't really show up. Addison Barger was hurt all year, Myles Straw backpedaled and is once again a subpar defensive sub, Davis Schneider's a .150 hitter, Tyler Heineman got dropped for a Buffalo catcher, Andres Gimenez bobbed around the replacement level, Ernie Clement stopped hitting after the ASG, and...I mean, Nathan Lukes is still hitting. He's 31 and down from the peak, but he's hitting .274 with 10 homers and 37 RBIs in 117 games. This is still a bench tier performance being made to start but he's doing a lot better than most of the actual Jays starters are. At the very least, this team has Kazuma Okamoto, hitting 33 homers and 88 RBIs and doing a great deal of the work for the lineup despite hitting .235, and this team has a second half Alejandro Kirk performance [.280, 10 homers, 41 RBIs and a .777 OPs in 72 games] that made the first half injury sort of worth it. But the depth and variety of 2025 was gone this year. No hiding that. Not with Josh Smith, not with Charles McAdoo, not with anything.
I am intrigued how this team will rebound next year, because they will have Trey Yesavage healthy again, they'll have Jose Berrios healthy again, they'll have a healthy Spencer Arrighetti, they'll possibly have Bowden Francis back, they could theoretically stretch out Ricky Tiedemann, and of course they'll have Cease and Soriano. That's already firmer ground, and more depth, than the 'we're out of options but at least we have 41-year-old Max Scherzer every fifth day' thing from this year. If they can build a better lineup behind that, of people who actually rise to the occasion, they can avoid the anticlimax of this season. If not...Vlad signing back here might be one of the missed opportunities of this era of the game.
Coming Tonight: Five years ago, he came to Washington as they rebuilt. Now they're rebuilding again...and he's kinda still here.
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