Buying or Selling Early Season Jays Performances

Am I a fake fan? I barely watched the Raptors final game of the season yesterday, something I rarely miss, once I saw Jamison Battle had 22 first half points I knew nothing that was happening was real, shout out Jamison Battle though. Anyway, the Jays are 16 games in, about 1/10th of the season, and at a perfect place to overreact (or underreact) to some early season performances. We won't be going over every player on the roster, just some of the guys that are outperforming or underperforming expectations so far. I'm either going to be buying that this is who the player will be all season, or selling which is to say this player is not going to perform this way all year. As a nice side note, I'll be at the game tonight for the first time this year so maybe tomorrow I'll report back with sights and sounds at Rogers center 2025. Although tomorrow is also the first of the play-in games and the content writes itself at this point, so who knows. Only way to find out is to tune back in tomorrow! Anyway, lets get into it:

Buying: Bo Bichette's Hot Start

The AL leader in hits so far with 22 is Bo Bichette, a stat he lead the league in in 2021 and 2022. Last season every time Bo started to find his footing he got sidelined with a new freak injury that tore down all progress. As a result, Bo's 2024 was lackluster and his expectations for 2025 were at an all time low. Bo's thrown all of that out the window with his hot start to the year and I am buying all the Bo Bichette stock I can get my hands on (to steal a reference from the great Zach Lowe who's back on the NBA podcasting scene). Baseball Savant has so many cool nerdy stats, and one of those is xBA which tracks a hitters expected batting average based on all the balls they've hit in a season. For Bo, who's already hitting a scorching .314, his xBA is .370, meaning he's actually been unlucky early in the season with some hard hit balls finding gloves. Bo is hitting the ball as hard as he did in 2021 and 2022, the two seasons he lead the league in hits, and so far he's striking out less often than those seasons as well. Bo hasn't hit a home run yet on the year and that should be a more encouraging sign than anything else, once the power comes things are going to look scary. I don't doubt that Bo will have a cold streak or two this season but I am willing to bet most stretches will be closer to this Bo than the Bo we saw last year, and that's worth buying into. 

Selling: Anthony Santander's Cold Start

It is quite amazing that the Jays are 9-7 with their every night #3 hitter posting a .552 OPS. I am here to tell you not to buy the Santander slow start, the hits are going to come. For his career in April/March, in 129 games, Anthony Santander is slashing: .210/.291/.359. In May Santander for his career has slashed: .263/.337/.488. This is to say that for whatever reason, every season of Santander's career he gets off to a slow start in April then really gets it going in May. I am not so sure that he's going to get back to the career high 44 HRs he hit a season ago, but I am pretty certain that his slow start is just par for the course in his career. Along with Bo and Vladdy not hitting long balls yet, Anthony Santander's slow start is a thing I am most encouraged by. If he can hit the ground running in May, which he historically has, the Jays offense is going to get a huge boost, especially in power hitting, which should help take pressure off the bullpen and Vladdy hitting in front of him. 

Buying: Easton Lucas' Hot Start

Ok even I barely believe what I am saying here, but screw it I wanna go all in on a Cinderella story damn it and Easton Lucas is that guy. When Scherzer went down in the first game of the season, the Jays starting pitching depth had to be tested early. Well the guy who got the call is Easton Lucas and in 2 starts he answered the bell perfectly. In 2 starts Lucas has gone 10.1 innings of scoreless baseball, striking out 11 and only allowing 7 baserunners total. Lucas is a 28 year old with a career MLB ERA of 6.28, but none of that matters because he is now a superstar ace of the Toronto Blue Jays. In all seriousness, you can't expect Lucas to continue along with a 0.00 ERA, but you have to be encouraged with what you've seen so far. Lucas' xERA, which similar to xBA is just the expected ERA based on the balls that have been hit so far, is just 1.83. His xBA is just .187. Lucas isn't just lucking his way into these good starts, he's actually pitching really well. This happens a lot in baseball where a guy gets off to a hot start before there's a lot of film on him, then the book comes out and he gets rocked. I wanted to take a risk with one of these because my other takes on this article are frankly pretty vanilla, so I am choosing to believe that Easton Lucas is going to carry this on. There's always tons of work available if you're the 6th starter on an MLB team. Easton Lucas so far has taken that job and ran away with it.

Selling: George Springer's Hot Start

It's not a Lohensports post unless there's at least 1 negative take, that is of course unless we're talking about a 30 win basketball team, in that case only positives, why am I like this? One of the major reasons the Jays have been winning games this year is George Springer is off to a scorching hot start. Even his baseball savant page is all bright red when you open it, he's hitting the ball hard and often in the early season. I still can't buy all the way into this, even though it's what Jays fans universally wanted to see. George is 35, turning 36 this season and we've seen his production decline in every year since 2021. The MLB season is a grind and I have a hard time believing that a 35 year old will be able to hold up throughout 162 games. That being said, the numbers love what George is doing right now, maybe he did find the fountain of youth and is back to 2021 George Springer form, if he did the Jays lineup just got way deeper. I am having trouble believing it and for that reason I am selling the early season George Springer performance. 

That's that! I am not sure how much Jays content will be coming from me the next couple months with the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing, but I'll probably check in on them here and there. This is also a post I could make into a mini series for those days when I am feeling lazy for ideas, but who knows if I'll do that. Anyway, go Jays!