The Toronto Blue Jays currently find themselves in a bind with the bullpen, and they’re only four games into the season. The club was dealt a few curveballs that they had to contend with, such as Erik Swanson and Ryan Burr starting the season on the IL, but the pivot for the club was puzzling, mostly because some of the players they opted to bring North had some pretty ugly showings this spring.

To round out the bullpen group, the Jays decided to bring Jacob Barnes and Richard Lovelady to Toronto, adding two veteran arms to the relief corps. The move itself was met with some pushback from the fanbase because not only did Barnes and Lovelady struggle this spring, but the club let Ryan Yarbrough walk, who not only put up better numbers in camp and added some depth as a long releiver, but also had some previous experience under his belt with the Jays that already curried favour. There is a chance that Yarbrough asked to not make the team in favour of an opportunity elsewhere – an answer we won’t be privy to – but the writing on the wall looks to be a split based on roster decisions from the Jays’ side until told differently.

On top of not selecting Yarbrough, the club also sent sotuhpaws Josh Walker and Mason Fluharty to triple-A to start the year. Again, both pitchers had better showings than what Barnes and Lovelady had to offer, but they still had to pack their bags for Buffalo. Even Tommy Nance had a better showing than these two, but he too was DFA’d (and passed through).

What followed was predictable in a sense. Barnes was brought in on Opening Day against the Orioles after Lovelady and allowed two earned runs and a walk, putting the game well out of reach by a score of 9-2. He then followed this outing with a four-hit, two-earned-run performance two days later, with his season ERA total now at 15.43. Lovelady fared no better, appearing in the same contests as Barnes and allowing four earned runs across a collective 1 2/3 innings while also hitting three batters with two additional walks. He faced 12 batters in total and either hit or walked 41.2% of them – a number that won’t cut it in the big leagues. Shortly after his March 29th outing, the Jays had the same idea and DFA’d him from the roster, opting to bring back Fluharty.

The stats from the spring alone should have been reason enough not to bring Barnes or Lovelady onto the active roster, but now, four games into the season, the club is already making the switch with one pitcher who should have been ousted right from the get-go. Another rough outing from Barnes, and he likely gets his walking papers as well.

What makes all this even more frustrating is that the club knew Max Scherzer’s thumb wasn’t 100% and opted not to keep Yarbrough as additional backup behind Yariel Rodriguez, who struggled in his first outing while being asked to eat up innings but bounced back nicely yesterday in a setup role. Yarbrough has carved a name for himself as being a go-to long arm in the bullpen, and the Jays opted not to keep him around as depth, even with the rotation concerns.

Could Yarbrough have met the same fate as Barnes and Lovelady this past weekend? Perhaps, and we will never know that answer (although he threw a scoreless inning in his Yankees debut), but the spring training stats favoured keeping Yarbrough over either pitcher, and the club is already making a switch for Fluharty because Lovelady struggled in Toronto. There’s also no guarantee that Fluharty will replicate his success in triple-A or spring training into a big league career either, although it all comes back to taking the best pitchers on the active roster for Opening Day, and the Blue Jays didn’t do that. They did that with the roster in some regards, keeping Roden while optioning Barger and opting to keep Straw and Lukes instead (another questionable decision), but Barnes and Lovelady statistically should not have made the team – end of story.

There are likely other things in play when it comes to how the bullpen shook out, especially since Swanson and Burr aren’t supposed to be out for the long-term and Dillon Tate will likely get the call once his arm is game ready after signing late this spring, but the Jays didn’t fare well with the current plan and had to pivot already because of it. More moves will come as the season continues onward, but a repeat of the bullpen woes from 2024 is going to bring this team down in a hurry, especially if the starting depth gets tested if Scherzer is out for the long haul.

The Blue Jays should have brought the best arms to Toronto from the get-go, and after a lacklustre weekend from the bullpen, they are reaping the rewards. It’s early in the season, so things can easily turn around for the group, but things could have shaken up a bit differently this weekend if some different relievers were with the Jays.