Blue Jays' bullpen wants to anchor a playoff team, not sink its chances

DUNEDIN, Fla. - For a brief period last April, Julian Merryweather looked like the reliever version of Jacob deGrom.

In two appearances during the season-opening series at Yankee Stadium, the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander dotted 98-mph fastballs to both sides of the plate and compelled batters to swing and miss over the top of a slider that flirted with 90 mph. He also threw changeups and a curveball. The combination of stuff, command, and pitch offerings seemed to be too good to be true.

Last year, it was, although he struck out five of the first six batters he faced in those two outings in New York and threw two more shutout innings in the club's first home series against the Los Angeles Angels in Dunedin, Florida. On April 13 against the Yankees at TD Ballpark, he was summoned to pitch with two outs in the eighth, a save situation. He appeared to wince after a pitch, something bothering him on his left side. As he walked to the dugout after the third out, he covered his mouth with his glove.

Merryweather had suffered an oblique strain and later endured a setback during his recovery. He didn't return to a major-league mound until Sept. 10. What could have been if Merryweather remained healthy was one of the season's great what-ifs.

"It was tough to be sidelined," Merryweather said. "I had a hot hand. My mechanics, everything, was in such a dialed-in spot. That was the most frustrating thing because I felt so good on the field."

The Blue Jays' bullpen struggled for much of the season. Part of it was tied to injuries, but part was underperformance. In May, Toronto relievers combined for a 4.54 ERA, 18th in the majors; blew six saves (tied for third most); and were underwater in win probability added (WPA), which measures the change in win expectancy from one plate appearance to the next.

In June, they ranked 26th in WPA - costing the team a full win, according to the metric - to go along with a 4.74 ERA. For the season, the group ranked average or below in any number of measures. The relief corps was a key reason why the Blue Jays, despite enjoying the game's fifth-best run differential, missed the playoffs by a single game and went 15-15 in one-run games.

As the Blue Jays enter the 2022 season with their elite lineup - now with improved defensive capabilities - and a talented starting rotation, the bullpen is again perhaps the big question in regard to a playoff berth, a division title, and potentially a deep run in October. But what if Toronto's bullpen isn't just better, but a strength in its own right? There are a few reasons to believe it can be just that.

1. Better health

Merryweather was hardly alone last year when it came to Blue Jays bullpen arms missing time. Kirby Yates missed the full season. David Phelps missed most of it. Jordan Romano spent time on the IL, as did Tim Mayza and Nate Pearson, among others. The team used 33 pitchers in relief appearances.

Merryweather, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018, is particularly tired of being sidelined.

At the end of last season, he vowed to find a way to be able to stay on the field. He's trained at the Cressey Performance center the last three offseasons, but he spent more time there than ever this winter because of the lockout. Over four months, he re-examined his entire training regimen.

"If I continue to do the same things and expect different results, it's kind of a form of insanity," Merryweather told theScore.

He observed and spoke with pitchers with long track records of health, such as Max Scherzer, who also trains at Cressey Performance. Eric Cressey, the founder, now leads the New York Yankees' performance staff.

Merryweather wanted to understand what he could improve, what was going wrong, and what new training methods were available.

"It just kind of opened my eyes to things I could do better, which I thought I was possibly doing the best at before," Merryweather said. "We have got to make this work, so whatever it takes."

If it does work, the Jays will enjoy an arm that was talented enough to keep Romano, one of the game's best closers, out of that role for manager Charlie Montoyo early last season.

In the Dunedin clubhouse last week, Merryweather discussed his new daily routine. The element he describes as "the main thing" is a kettlebell exercise called a Turkish get-up.

The full-body exercise is part of an effort to "activate" - ramping up his heart rate and energy levels hours before taking the mound - to better prepare his body for actual game stress.

"It's just attacking the prep stuff from different angles," Merryweather said. "I think the strength has always been there. The physical mechanics are in a good spot, so, OK, what is the missing link here to make it all come together?"

The club signed Yimi Garcia prior to the lockout to provide insurance against last season's rash of injuries, but much of the Blue Jays' bullpen is made of returnees. That means the bulk of any improvement the group achieves - in performance and the ability to stay on the field - will come from within.

2. Different looks

The Blue Jays' bullpen turnaround requires health, but the team is also trying to improve its run-prevention capabilities by collecting different types of pitchers. That effort conspicuously started at the trade deadline last season with the addition of submarine-style hurler Adam Cimber.

Cimber adopted his unusual motion when he was 14.

"I didn't throw hard," he said. "A bunch of other kids were way bigger than me. My dad was like, 'If you want to make the high school team, you should try and do something different.'"

Growing up as a Seattle Mariners fan, Cimber was fascinated by watching Oakland submarine-style pitcher Brad Ziegler. So in the family's Puyallup, Washington, driveway, Cimber tried to be different by emulating the Athletics reliever.

No coach or private tutor taught Cimber the motion. His home-brewed approach took him to the University of San Francisco and later the University of Washington, where he further honed the skill while working with the softball coaches. That's where he learned the principle of keeping his arm closer, or more connected, to his body as he began his delivery. It's not unlike the contemporary concept of shorter arm action, which has been applied by pitchers including Lucas Giolito, Shane Bieber, and Jameson Taillon.

Cimber became a ninth-round pick of the San Diego Padres in 2013, and the Blue Jays acquired him from the Miami Marlins at the deadline last year.

Cimber posted a 1.69 ERA in 39 games with Toronto.

While the Tampa Bay Rays have become well-known for employing a variety of different arm angles to give opponents different looks during the course of a game or series, the Blue Jays have gotten into the business, too.

After the lockout ended, the Blue Jays signed free-agent lefty reliever Andrew Vasquez, who brings a lower arm slot from the left side.

If you visualize all potential right- and left-handed arm slots as something of a clockwise sweep from 8 o'clock to 4 o'clock, the Jays now have options that fill many of the hours on that spectrum, none more dramatic than Cimber.

"I don't think it's something that you can measure," Cimber said of the different arm angles in the 2022 bullpen, "but ask the hitters and they're seeing arm slots that are a few feet apart every other inning, and I gotta believe that has an effect."

Said Merryweather: "We just don’t have seven, eight guys that are the same. We are not rolling out run-of-the-mill guys."

While it's difficult to measure the effectiveness of deploying different types of arm slots, the 2021 Rays - who employed the same myriad of bullpen arm angles the Jays aim to use this season - led the AL with the lowest opponent OPS (.657) for relief pitchers in their first time through the order. The Jays (.703) ranked seventh in the AL and 11th in MLB.

"I think we are playing with a little bit of a chip on our shoulders, and that's a good spot to be in," Cimber said. "I'd take this bullpen over anybody's."

3. Different pitches

Mayza throws a sinker from the left side and was nearly unhittable down the stretch, limiting opponents to a .151 batting average in the second half. Pearson and Romano have bat-missing sliders and, along with Merryweather, all averaged better than 97 mph with four-seam fastballs last season.

Trevor Richards and swingman Ross Stripling throw changeups more than 20% of the time.

Vasquez is not only another left-handed option to balance the bullpen, but one who also throws the game's en vogue breaking ball: the sweeper, essentially a big-breaking, horizontal curveball.

Vasquez could begin the season in the minors but may become a key late-game matchup option later this season. In 48 Triple-A innings last year, the 28-year-old struck out 79 batters with his sweeper. It features elite horizontal movement, similar to Rich Hill's curveball from the left side.

The Jays hope it's another plus pitch the bullpen can rely on.

"Trevor has one of the best changeups in the game. We're not all the same throwing 98 with a slider - we have a lot of different looks," Romano said. "In the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, we might have four different looks for the hitters, and that's going to be really tough on them."

Different looks and pitch types can be particularly important in the postseason: Batters typically perform better against a pitcher the more times they face them in a game and in a series. And a postseason series is where the Blue Jays and their end-game pitchers expect to be this October.

"There's no reason we can't be one of the top bullpens in the game," Romano said.

Travis Sawchik is theScore's senior baseball writer.