Rejuvenated George Springer Leading Blue Jays To Top Of AL East

On the day after Memorial Day, the Toronto Blue Jays stood at 26-28, eight games out of first place in the AL East. It looked like another slog of a season, and the front office and field management groups’ respective seats seemed to be getting a little warm. Things have, shall we say, changed just a little since then.

The Jays are on a 27-10 tear through Monday’s games, and now sit in first place. And it hasn’t been the usual suspects, the club’s typical top performers, who have led the way. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette have been solid, but not great. The starting pitching has been……ok? Recent budget addition Eric Lauer, along with Chris Bassitt, have been their best rotation members. Jeff Hoffman has a bunch of saves, but has a 4.46 ERA.

There have been a number of heroes, from Bassitt to Lauer to outfielder/infielder Addison Barger to reliever Brendon Little, but the Jays’ most valuable player has been George Springer, a real surprise after his steady decline over recent seasons.

The Jays inked Springer to a six-year, $150 million free agent deal after the 2020 season, hoping to insert an impact player in his prime into their everyday lineup. In the previous four seasons he had made three All Star teams, gotten MVP votes three times, finishing as high as 7th in 2019, and won a pair of Silver Slugger awards.

His time with the Jays got off to a rocky start, as he was limited to just 78 games in 2021 by oblique and quadricep injuries. He was fine when healthy that season, and did make the All Star team in 2022, putting up a total of 6.7 fWAR in those two campaigns combined. His age 33 and 34 seasons in 2023-24 did not go well, however, as he put up only 2.8 fWAR combined and appeared to simply be an aging, past his prime player.

Thus far in 2025, Springer has turned back the clock a bit, batting .276-.368-.503 through Monday’s games, putting 1.8 fWAR on the board in a little more than a half season. Has he made some changes? If so, can he make them stick over the last year and a half of his contract, and perhaps beyond that?

First and foremost, Springer has largely been healthy this season, as he had been in 2023-24. Secondly, the Jays are asking less of Springer defensively this season, and he seems to be responding well. He’s DHed 40 times, and has played 36 games in RF, 11 in CF and 4 in LF. The presence of Myles Straw and Daulton Varsho in center give them a pair of vastly superior defensive options. The emergence of Barger in right has given them another viable outfield candidate. Barger plays some 3B as well, and Springer can slide right back into his comfortable RF spot on those occasions.

Springer’s batted ball authority simply has not approached his Astro levels since his arrival in Toronto. He’s basically been an average ball striker with a declining average launch angle. He’s clearly begun focusing more on driving the ball in the air this season, and it has had positive short term benefits. His 37.5% fly ball rate is his highest since 2021, as is his 16.8 degree average launch angle. His 94.4 mph average fly ball exit speed is over a standard deviation above league average. This is his first time above the league average range in that category since 2019. His overall average exit speed of 89.9 mph is over a half standard deviation above league average, and is his best since 2016.

Now there are some corresponding negatives in his batted ball portfolio as well. His 93.4 mph average liner exit speed is only in the league average range, and is actually lower than his average fly ball exit speed. That’s a no-no, usually a sign of a player’s near term decline. His 84.0 mph average grounder exit speed is only fractionally better than last year’s career low, and is over a half standard deviation below league average range. He’s clearly selling out for power in the air with an uppercut swing, and to this point, the risk has been worth the reward.

A couple other factors help mitigate that risk. He’s become less of a grounder-puller as he has aged, after six of seven years as an extreme grounder-puller from 2016-22. He’s also tightened up his K/BB profile to a career best level, with materially better than average K (19.4%) and BB rates (12.4%). The remainder of his contract suddenly doesn’t appear to be potentially underwater, as it might have seemed only a year ago.

Overall, Springer’s batted ball profile largely supports his production to date – he “should be” hitting .260-.353-.495 for 139 “Tru” Production+, just below his 143 wRC+.

Honestly, I just don’t know whether the Jays’ recent surge is to be believed. Their47-44 Pythagorean record is six games worse than their actual mark, suggesting that they’re due for some regression. I’ll be keeping a close eye to see how the Jays fare in my upcoming Team True Talent series – a team-wide batted ball-based evaluation method – that will appear in this space after the All Star break. Their current 53-38 record is in the bank, however, and most projection methods give them an 80%+ chance to make the postseason. That makes this crew one of the best stories of the season’s first half, making Springer’s contributions all that much more notable.