Blue Jays’ George Springer named American League Player of the Week

This past week, Springer slashed .429/.500/.964 with five home runs in 33 plate appearances for a 302 wRC+. The Blue Jays won all seven of those games, as they went from three games below the Yankees to three games ahead of the Bronx Bombers.

For the season, Springer is now slashing .281/.374/.512 with 16 home runs in 335 plate appearances for a 148 wRC+. His .886 OPS is third-best among players still in the American League, behind just Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh. Somehow, Springer didn’t make the All-Star Game.

This is the first time since August 2024 that a Blue Jay has won the AL Player of the Week award. The last Blue Jay to do so was Bowden Francis, as he threw 14 innings with just one run allowed. Funnily enough, Francis didn’t win another one after that, despite throwing three no-hitters into the sixth inning in four games, two of which were broken up in the bottom of the ninth.

Along with Francis, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. won the AL Player of the Week twice in 2024, once two weeks before Francis and once toward the end of June. Somehow, he didn’t win a Player of the Month, despite being one of the best hitters in 2024.

The last time a Blue Jay won the Player of the Month was in the first month of 2023, as Matt Chapman got off to a quick start in March/April. He also won a Player of the Week that month, the only one a Blue Jay won in 2023.

In 2022, three different players: Bo Bichette, Kevin Gausman, and Guerrero Jr. won the Player of the Week award. The season before that, four different players won it, including Springer three separate times. Two of those times came during a three-week stretch where only Blue Jays players won the Player of the Month.

Hopefully, other Jays’ players can do enough to warrant a Player of the Week award.