Last season, the Toronto Blue Jays boasted one of Major League Baseball’s top rotations. The club used just eight pitchers to start games and was led by a core group of four veterans – Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Yusei Kikuchi, and Chris Bassitt.
This quartet made 30+ starts each for the Blue Jays and collectively, the rotation arms ranked second in strikeouts (922), third in ERA (3.85), and fifth in innings pitched (894 2/3) while having some of these stats impacted by inconsistency in the fifth rotation spot.
Alek Manoah was the Opening Day starter and the fifth rotation member to begin the year although the 6-foot-6 right-hander struggled to find his 2022 Cy Young finalist form on the mound.
The Florida product posted a 5.87 ERA through 19 starts and struggled mightily with his command, eventually finding himself being optioned to the minors on two separate occasions.
The first instance was a month-long midseason drop to the Florida Complex League where he worked in the organization’s pitching lab at the newly renovated Player Development Complex.
The second was towards the end of the season when Manoah was optioned mid-August to triple-A and spent the rest of the campaign off the mound, instead receiving injections in his arm, ending his season.
Rotation options if Alek Manoah is not ready for Opening Day
Entering the 2024 season, Manoah was not guaranteed a spot in the Blue Jays rotation but had a leg up on the competition in the eyes of the front office. That is until the right-hander started experiencing some shoulder soreness in early March which has him limited to just 1 2/3 innings so far this spring. While imagining confirmed no further structural damage, Manoah is behind the rest of the group when it comes to getting ready for the long haul of the regular season.
Considering Opening Day for the Blue Jays is just roughly two and a half weeks away, the coaching staff may need to consider another option if the former first-round pick either needs to start the year on the IL or head down in Triple-A to get some innings under his belt.
First Option: Bowden Francis
Acquired by the Blue Jays back in 2021, right-hander Bowden Francis has set himself up nicely to be a regular contributor at the big league level this season.
The biggest question mark coming into this campaign was how the Jays would utilize the 27-year-old, as Francis has worked in both a starting and relief capacity throughout his professional career.
In the Minors, he has 107 starts on his resume while the Blue Jays have strictly used him in a relief role at the big-league level. Francis rode the options bus for the team last year and put up solid numbers, pitching to a 1.73 ERA through 36 1/3 innings while authoring a 8.7 K/9, a 2.0 BB/9 and a 0.826 WHIP in 20 appearances.
So far this spring, he continues to impress on the diamond, as he has made three appearances (two starts) for the Blue Jays. Through eight innings, the Florida product has allowed three earned runs and just two walks while striking out ten batters, authoring a 3.38 ERA.
