Blue Jays: Jose Berrios’s underlying numbers are a potential cause for concern
Jul 25, 2025, 08:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 25, 2025, 14:13 EDT
In Jose Berrios, nicknamed “La Makina”, we’ve come to expect consistently sound results. The numbers behind how the 10th-year starter suppresses runs are lower. For a third straight season, Berrios is outperforming his expected ERA by about one full run.
Expected ERA isn’t perfect. But it does consider pitchers’ strikeouts, walks and hit by pitches as well as the quality of contact they allow (exit velocity and launch angle) with the goal of crediting them for what they can control while removing the factors they can’t (weather, ballpark and defence).
Year | ERA | xERA |
2023 | 3.65 | 4.51 |
2024 | 3.60 | 4.74 |
2025 | 3.87 | 4.68 |
By this measure, Berrios has been markedly below average for four consecutive seasons. And while his actual results have been above average ever since an outlier 2022 season where he posted a 5.23 ERA, the process behind those results has been trending in the wrong direction. The right-hander has allowed more dangerous contact, while his ability to strike out opposing batters and limit walks has declined.
The quality of his stuff has decreased year-over-year in lockstep with the underlying numbers. Below is a chart showing the decline of Berrios’s stuff+, a metric which grades pitches on a sliding scale where 100 is league average based on their velocity, spin and break. His fastball velocity alone has decreased from 93.6 m.p.h. last season to 92.5 m.p.h. in 2025.
Year | 4-seam | Sinker | Slurve | Changeup | Overall |
2021 | 96 | 110 | 111 | 90 | 104 |
2022 | 92 | 105 | 107 | 88 | 99 |
2023 | 91 | 98 | 98 | 90 | 95 |
2024 | 89 | 94 | 100 | 87 | 94 |
2025 | 87 | 91 | 95 | 81 | 90 |
So, how has Berrios managed to pull off this high-wire act, throwing less effective pitches that don’t strike hitters out and often get hammered while getting off mostly scot-free on the other end?
It can be distilled down to three numbers: left on base percentage, batting average on balls in play, and defensive runs saved. All of which mostly come down to luck, except for DRS, which Berrios plays a minimal role in – to be fair, he does defend exceptionally well for a pitcher and has a Gold Glove to show for it.
Also, there are always intangible aspects of performance that are difficult to quantify, and as the popular saying goes, games are decided by real runs, not expected ones. Berrios has mostly gotten the job done, defying the numbers that say he shouldn’t be able to.
Yet in his recent starts, that elusive data-resisting quality has escaped him, and the results have been ugly. Throughout July, Berrios owns a 7.11 ERA and is averaging less than five innings over his four starts. His lone positive outing came against the lowly Chicago White Sox, as his inability to strike out hitters and limit hard contact may have caught up to him.
The first clue as to how Berrios has managed to avoid worse outcomes despite his risky process is his high strand rates. He had the second-highest LOB% among qualified pitchers last season, and it has been firmly above-average in each of the last three seasons. The last time it wasn’t, in 2022, he struggled. While one school of thought would dictate that working out of situations with runners on base requires guile and poise, strand rates are not sticky year-to-year.
Ronel Blanco led the majors in LOB% last season at 84% and that number has dropped below 74% this season. Berrios’s rotation mates, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt, have had their strand rates fluctuate between some of the best and worst in MLB throughout their careers.
Berrios has also run a .274 batting average on balls in play over the past three seasons, well below the league average of over .290. All the while, he has had average to below-average ground ball rates. So, how has a pitcher who allows a ton of hard contact in the air – Berrios has allowed 129 barrels over the last three seasons, the fifth-most in baseball – managed to avoid giving up more significant damage?
Toronto’s outstanding outfield defence is a differentiator here. Berrios has had 42 of those Barrels result in outs, also the fifth-most in baseball.
Thanks in large part to Daulton Varsho, Kevin Kiermaier before him and moving a career centre-fielder in George Springer to right (before this season), the Blue Jays lead the Majors with 104 DRS in the outfield from 2023 to 2025. They are 19 ahead of the second-placed Boston Red Sox. With Varsho having missed most of this season so far and Springer taking on more of a DH (or “offensive player”) role, Toronto has taken a slight hit here, ranking sixth in MLB with 11 DRS. Yet, Varsho, the 2024 Gold Glove winner and defensive runs saved leader, is set to return imminently and give the Blue Jays a boost here.
Kevin Gausman also allows a lot of hard contact – he’s seventh in barrels over the last three seasons. And he’s also been the beneficiary of good outfield defence, ranking one ahead of Berrios in barrels that have resulted in outs over the last three years. However, Gausman has the lower walk and higher strikeout rates that make this kind of contact less risky. If you aren’t putting runners on as much, more home runs are solo shots. The ability to strike batters out can neutralize the threat after extra-base hits.
Given Berrios’s profile, he can still be a valuable mid-rotation starter. But after initially leading the Blue Jays with a 3.26 ERA before July, some of his early-season shine has worn off, exposing glaring deficiencies. He is once again struggling with hard contact, allowing 39 barrels, sixth-most in the majors, and a 13th percentile barrel rate.
The prospect of Berrios being the third starter in a playoff series isn’t entirely bleak; he has been an effective playoff starter in the past. Yet given both his results and underlying process thus far, he is certainly a third option behind Gausman and Bassitt. And, if an additional top-end starter were to be acquired, pushing him further down the depth chart, it would be a welcome improvement for the first-placed Blue Jays.