George Springer is back to doing damage for the Blue Jays

The now 35-year-old is enjoying a renaissance season, leading the team (amongst qualified hitters) in home runs, OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ heading into tonight’s game against the Yankees. Springer has been an absolute revelation this season; all of his batted ball metrics have skyrocketed, his walk rate has jumped, and his strikeout rate (while higher than last year) is still comfortably below league average. The Connecticut native is barreling baseballs at a 92nd percentile rate, his expected slugging% has jumped .137 points from last year and sits in the 91st percentile, and he’s done all of this while maintaining an elite chase rate of just 20.2% (92nd percentile). This is the profile of an elite hitter, and it’s no surprise that Springer’s wRC+ on the season currently holds at a pristine 141.

Springer’s ideology at the plate has shifted from trying to get on base to trying to hit the ball hard and do damage, using his ‘A-swing’. Dan Shulman was on the JD Bunkis Podcast on Tuesday and shared that he had had a conversation with Springer in spring training last year before to the season and asked George what his goals were for the season. Springer had said, “Get on base for Vladdy”. This year, Shulman once again asked the veteran outfielder what he wanted to accomplish for the season, and Springer’s answer was radically different: “hit the ball out of the ballpark”. So far this season, he’s done exactly that, and one of the main reasons for his success has been his success against breaking balls, something that gave the right-handed bat a lot of problems in 2024. Once again, the name of the game for Springer has been slug, he is simply slugging the crap out of the ball this season and that’s *his* game. This is not a contact-oriented bat who’s looking to spray the ball around the diamond and rack up a bunch of hits; this is a damage bat who’s looking for the ball in a certain quadrant of the strike zone and doing significant damage when he gets it.

There may not have been a better demonstration of this than what Springer did on Canada Day against Yankees ace Max Fried. The Yankees’ southpaw was locked in a six-pitch battle with the Blue Jays’ DH. The pitch sequencing had gone as follows: 92 MPH sinker, 80 MPH sweeper, 86 MPH changeup, 96 MPH fastball, 96 MPH fastball. Springer had whiffed on the sweeper and the changeup, taken the first fastball and fouled off the second. At this point, it was a 2-2 count, and Fried decided to go to his curveball for the first time in the at bat, a pitch that had produced a .206 average and .312 slugging against thus far this season. Springer kept his front hip in check from flaring out, waited back on the 77 MPH offering on the outside corner and hooked it into the left centerfield bleachers with basically a one-handed swing. An unbelievably impressive ending to an even more impressive plate appearance against one of the best pitchers in all of baseball.

Springer is just one of many Blue Jays enjoying a major bounceback/breakout campaign. They’ve shown an uncanny resilience to them that hasn’t been the case for a very long time.

The ability to get punched in the mouth and immediately punch back has been a part of their DNA all season. It’s an incredibly fun brand of baseball to watch day in and day out, especially on the offensive side of things. That is a testament to the work David Popkins, Lou Iannotti, and Hunter Mense have done with the position players who have walked into that clubhouse this season.

Coaching matters. Philosophy matters. Players buying into what you’re trying to sell matters. No single individual player best embodies this mindset better than this season’s version of George Springer.