Blue Jays 40-man Roster Review: Nick Sandlin features a nasty splitter that will be useful in middle relief

Reliever Nick Sandlin already seems to be a forgotten piece of December’s Andrés Giménez trade.

This is Blue Jays Nation’s annual 40-man Roster Review, where we look at the players on the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster. We’ll look at how the player performed in 2024, his season projections for the 2025 season, and any storylines heading into this coming season. In this article, we’ll look at Nick Sandlin.

Sandlin was drafted in the second round of the 2018 draft by the Cleveland Guardians and made his debut in 2021. That season, the right-handed pitcher had a 2.94 ERA and a 2.96 FIP in 33.2 innings pitched with a 34 K% and a 12.1 BB%. Sandlin followed that up with a career year in 2022, as the 28-year-old has a 2.25 ERA and a 3.68 FIP in 44 innings pitched with a 22.8 K% and a 13.3 BB%.

In the last two seasons of his Guardians career, Sandlin became a regular. He posted an identical 3.75 ERA in 2023 and 204, with a 4.96 FIP in 60 innings pitched in 2023 and a 5.23 FIP in 2024. Funnily enough, he also had a 27.6 K% in both seasons, with a 10 BB% in 2023 and an 11 BB% in 2024.

According to his Fangraphs projections, Sandlin is set to have a 4.05 ERA and a 4.20 FIP in 59 innings pitched by Steamer. His OOPSY predictions have him authoring a 3.86 ERA and a 4.25 FIP in 59 innings pitched. Both projection models have his K% dropping by quite a bit, as Steamer has it at 24.4% and OOPSY has it at 25.1%.

Sandlin averages 92.7 mph with the four-seam fastball and features a slider and splitter. The splitter was fantastic in particular, generating a 9 Run Value, which sat in the 97th percentile. However, the fastball and slider aren’t great, both were in the minuses. Either way, there’s something in Sandlin and hopefully the Blue Jays can unlock it in 2025 as he’ll pitch in middle relief.