Autopsy of a Lost Season — What Went Wrong for the Blue Jays in 2026
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This is the way the season ends.
Not with a bang but with a whimper.
The Blue Jays were eliminated Wednesday afternoon after losing 4-2 to the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles' winning pitcher was old friend Chris Bassitt.
The losing pitcher was 42-year-old Max Scherzer, somehow the only member of the team's opening rotation to reach the finish line on the Blue Jays' active roster.
And if you missed the last six months, the loss could serve as the season's SparkNotes: a woeful offense, an injury-riddled pitching staff, and a frustrated team that never recaptured 2025's magic.
The good vibes of '25 turned into the wrong mix in '26.
While recognizing the body is still warm, consider this an autopsy on the most disappointing season in the 50-year history of the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Offense Rests, Your Honor
The offense was the biggest letdown. The Blue Jays fell from 4th in MLB in runs per game in 2025 to dead last in 2026, down nearly a full run per game (from 4.93 to 4.00).
Toronto has not finished last in the Major Leagues in runs since 1981.
Even if you only include the American League, since the NL had no DH for most of that period, only one other time since 1981 has Toronto finished last in the AL in runs scored (2017)
What made it so surprising was how good the offense was in 2025.
In 2025, Toronto scored 11% more runs than the average American League team. In 2026, the Blue Jays have scored 8% fewer runs than the American League average. The 19% drop versus the league average ties for the 16th-largest decline of any American League team in the last 50 years (excluding shortened seasons).
Just A Little Patience and Even Less Power
Much has been written about the Blue Jays' drop-off in power, and we'll get there, but an equally important story is their inability to get on base.
In 2025, Toronto led baseball with a .333 OBP. This year, the Blue Jays rank 26th with a .310 OBP.
As a team, their batting average dropped from a league-best. 265 to.248, but the latter still ranked 8th in the Majors. The Blue Jays are also on track to finish 2nd again in fewest strikeouts as a team. But they are also on track to finish with the 2nd fewest walks.
Where Have You Gone Scott Hatteberg doesn't have the same ring as Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio, but the OBP part of Moneyball still plays.
A nation turned its lonely eyes to the Blue Jays, only to watch them chase pitches off the plate.
Let's turn to the power outage now. The headliner all season has been Vladdy and his lack of power, especially at home, but the one thing he got right in his ill-advised comments is that the Blue Jays aren't paying him to hit 40 home runs each year.
The only time he topped 40 home runs in his career was in 2021, when the vagabond Blue Jays played in minor league parks in Dunedin and Buffalo. But they likely expected at least 30, given he averaged 29 between 2022 and 2024 and was entering his prime years when he signed his half-billion-dollar contract in the spring of 2025.
They were probably also expecting something along the lines of the 138 OPS+ (38% better than league average) he posted in those same three years, or even the 132 OPS+ from last year. They certainly weren't paying half a billion for a hitter with a 92 OPS+ (8% worse than a league-average hitter).
But it wasn't just Guerrero. George Springer lost his map to the fountain of youth. Addison Barger was hurt all year. Daulton Varsho regressed and has regressed even further since being dealt. Toronto outfielders are tied for the Major League worst with 41 home runs.
Even the feel-good stories faded.
Ernie Clement, the postseason hero who played for Team USA in the WBC and led the American League with over 2M All-Star votes, ranked 161st out of 162 qualifying hitters in OPS after the All-Star break.
Beyond the home runs, the contact quality has been poor. Toronto ranks dead last in average exit velocity (87.5 mph), 29th in line-drive percentage (18.5%), and 28th in barrel percentage ( a paltry 5.7%. The Blue Jays' isolated power of .134 also ranked last in baseball (ISO is SLG% - BA).
They also hit the 6th most ground balls of any team.
Few walks, weak contact, and a heavy dose of ground balls are what make an offense fall on its face.
Starting Pitching Injuries
According to SportTrac's Injury Tracker, Toronto led baseball in days missed due to starting pitcher injuries, with 1,060 cumulative days. Detroit was 2nd with 846 days missed, more than 200 fewer. They also led baseball with 15 separate IL stints for starting pitchers. Detroit was the only other team that reached double figures.
In terms of dollars lost to starting pitcher injuries, only Arizona lost more, and the vast majority of that loss was Corbin Burnes.
Cody Ponce, we hardly knew ya.
Jose Berrios and Bowden Francis were lost for the entire season.
Scherzer and Bieber were repeat visitors to the Injured List, as fans might have expected.
Trey Yesavage missed nearly half the season and never regained the electricity he had in October
The band-aids and bubble gum options like Patrick Corbin and Jameson Taillon were also injured. Spencer Arrighetti, too, when he wasn't busy tossing meatballs.
Remember the talk about how much starting-pitching depth Toronto had accumulated over the winter? Remember the talk in spring training about how they would fit everyone into the rotation?
Get outta here, and gone.
Not The Same Vibes
The sports version of the chicken-and-egg debate is which comes first: winning or team chemistry. In the Blue Jays' case, the 2025 team was a close-knit group that hung together through a rough start before going on a run that ended just inches short of a World Series championship.
In 2026, the Blue Jays never found that same vibe or rhythm. The longest winning streak all year was four games. All year, it was one step forward and one bigger step back.
Kevin Gausman said on a podcast that the Blue Jays were "not nearly as close-knit as last year," partly because they lost players like Chris Bassitt and Bo Bichette. He alluded to players being frustrated with each other, and Myles Straw noted that players hung out less off the field than they did in 2025.
For the 2026 Blue Jays, injuries and slumps made the team less cohesive. Players are human, and most of us don't want to hang out with our colleagues after a lousy day at work.
Guerrero had a brutal year. The pressure he felt to live up to his contract turned a slump into an avalanche. His comments to Veronica Batista for Noticias Telemicro were both tone-deaf and misguided, since teams pay for future performance, not past performance.
If they paid for past performance, George Springer and Max Scherzer - if he plays next year - would get huge contracts this offseason. They won't.
Lost in the discussion of him being paid for past performance, though, was his talk about dealing with depression and anxiety as the contract weighed on him. By all accounts, he tried to stay enthusiastic and bring the same energy to the clubhouse; he cares, but he was too caught up in his own head, and that is a tough place to be as a team leader, no matter what number is on your paycheck.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. talks about the expectations he has for himself and the pressure that comes with a large contract.
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) September 23, 2026
(H/T: @KeeganMatheson) pic.twitter.com/TgsHwAl7ET
A Missed Opportunity
There were some positive developments in 2026, which we detail in a future article, but overall, given the opportunity for a barely over-.500 team to make the playoffs, the Blue Jays missed an opportunity.
2025 was a magical season and the Blue Jays lost by a whisker.
2026 was a hollow season, and the Blue Jays went out with a whisper.
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Adam Steinmetz writes about the Toronto Blue Jays for On SI. Adam is also the editor and publisher of the Boston Sunday Sports Section, a weekly digital publication covering the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. A two-time winner of the Best Collegiate Sports Writer award in Philadelphia, he began his career with freelance work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Palm Beach Post before building a successful career outside of journalism. He returned to sports writing last year, contributing to Pitcher List—including coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays—before launching Authorenticity on Substack, where he explores the human stories within baseball. The Boston Sunday Sports Section is his most ambitious project — the thinking fan’s modern Sunday Sports Section focused on the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.