The Toronto Blue Jays are getting a huge, trade-deadline style addition in time of the final month of their season.
Ace starting pitcher Shane Bieber is reportedly scheduled to make his Blue Jays debut Friday against the Miami Marlins in South Florida.
Toronto acquired Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians for minor leaguer Khai Stephen on July 31. Bieber has not pitched since April 2, 2024 while he recovered from Tommy John surgery but has a long list of accolades over his seven-season major-league career.
What Are The Blue Jays Getting In Shane Bieber?
When healthy, Bieber is a dominant, ace-caliber starting pitcher who is one of the best starters at striking out batters in MLB. He averages 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings over his career, capped by his 14.2 strikeouts-per-nine rate in his Cy Young Award season in 2020.
“You can put him in the category of some pretty good pitchers where they can dominate areas with different pitches,â Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, according to MLB.com. âThat makes it kind of tough to sit on one pitch.”
Bieber’s 2020 season stats are impressive, but they only came in 77 1/3 innings over 12 starts — since there were only 60 games for each team that year. But Bieber was dominant in his first two starts last year before the injury effectively ended his career in Cleveland.
Plus, Schneider has seen his intangibles first hand.
“Heâs adjusting as heâs going, too, with what he sees from hitters,” Schneider said. “When you have a guy with good stuff who has really, really good awareness in real time, you get a Cy Young-caliber pitcher.”
Why Do The Blue Jays Need Shane Bieber Now?
Bieber can do more than just strike batters out, which is important for the Blue Jays, whose Achilles heel this season has been their starting rotation. Toronto starters rank 20th in the majors in ERA (4.35) and are 26th in the majors in FIP (4.62), which is a big reason why its Pythagorean win-loss record (68-58) is 10 games worse than its 73-53 record.
So you can forgive Schneider for being over the moon about Bieber donning a Jays uniform for the first time.
“You can allow yourself to get pretty excited when youâre adding a guy of that caliber,â Schneider said. âOnce you get to know him, heâs the definition of a pro. He fits right in with the guys that we have already in our rotation. Heâs really, really smart. He understands what heâs good at and what heâs trying to do. Heâs confident right now.â
But Bieber is going to join a crowded house in the Toronto starting rotation, which features a host of guys who pitch every fifth day — namely, Max Scherzer, Chris Bassitt, Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios.
Yet, this time of the year is the dog days, especially for starting pitchers, which is another reason why Bieber’s return is such a welcome sight, even if Schneider is keeping his expectations in check.
âWeâve been saying this whole time that up until Friday weâre just basing everything on workload and health to see how deep each starter goes in this series,” Schneider said. “Weâll see how [Bieber’s] outing unfolds on Friday and go from there.”
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