I’ll get back to reviewing the roster, but in the last couple of days Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus have both released their projected standings, and I thought that deserved a look.
Fangraphs’ version uses a blend of the ZiPS and Steamer projection systems to estimate winning percentage against average opposition, then simulates the season 20,000 times game by game to produce playoff odds. They have a whole primer here if you want the details.
The upshot is that the Jays project for 82 wins purely on talent. That’s last in the AL East, though only one game behind the Rays and Orioles (!) and two behind the Red Sox. The Yankees lead the way with 88. As always, the East is a monster.
On the other hand, no American League team looks dominant. The Yankees figure to be the most talented team on the junior circuit, while the National League boasts two teams (the Dodgers, forecast for 97 wins, and the Braves, 93) that tower over the competition. 10 of 15 AL clubs project for between 81 and 85 wins (again, before accounting for strength of schedule). The Jays rank 8th among that group, but really the takeaway should be that wildcard competition will be fierce and that they ought to be in the thick of it. Only Cleveland, LA, Sacramento and the hideous White Sox (projected to win 63, which has to be one of the worst marks ever preseason) are really on the outside looking in, and only New York really stands above the fray.
Once actual schedules are simulated, that all translates to a 37.6% chance that we have October baseball to look forward to. Again, that’s 11th in the league, but 9 of the 10 teams in front are within about a 20 percentage point band. 37.6%, not great, not terrible.
Baseball Prospectus has things in almost the opposite order, but with about the same implications. Their PECOTA system has the Yankees and Orioles in a dead heat at 89 wins, Toronto next at 85, then Tampa Bay at 82 and Boston at 78.
Again, across the AL no team projects to really separate itself from the pack but 10 teams round to .500 or better. The Jays fare a bit better, with a 49.9% chance of making the playoffs but New York, Houston and Seattle running ahead of them for wildcard berths.
The takeaway, I think, is that without having landed a top free agent they’re in a tough spot. Juan Soto or maybe Corbin Burnes or Roki Sasaki would have been enough to at least elbow them to the front of a very tight pack. Anthony Santander and Max Scherzer aren’t. On the other hand, subtract either and they’re probably either at the very back of the competitive pack or falling off the tail end. They’ve done enough to stay in the thick of things.
It’s the story of this whole competitive window, really. Over the past five seasons, their 378 wins rank fifth in the American League, only two behind Seattle for fourth and ahead of any team in the Central. Only five teams have bested their peak of 92 wins in that timeframe. You can’t say they haven’t been good. And yet they’ve also never broken out of the pack. They’ve never come closer than seven games out in the division, and haven’t won a playoff game. A combination of mistakes (bad drafts, the Springer contract), bad luck (missing the playoffs with 91 wins in 2022 when last year 86 was enough for the second wildcard), and worthwhile efforts falling just short (literally coming second for four of the five most important signings in the last two winters) have kept them hemmed in a tier below the real contenders.
This season they find themselves back in a familiar place, very much relevant but not the main story. Of course, luck changes. Last year’s perfect storm of injuries, bullpen collapse, and underperformance could as easily swing in the other direction this year. BP helpfully provides graphs of the distribution of wins from their simulation, and the curves cover a lot of ground. The Jays’ curve doesn’t have a lot of blue in the deep 90s win territory, but it doesn’t have none. That’s why they play the games.