Is any team ever truly satisfied with its bullpen? It seems like one area of the roster which can always be improved, especially entering the second half of the season.

The Toronto Blue Jays shopped around this past offseason to fortify their bullpen, but the only notable addition was signing Tyler Rogers to a three-year, $37 million contract. Aside from that, the team decided to run it back in the relief department, and the results have been surprisingly positive so far.

Aside from a few outliers like Jeff Hoffman and Brendon Little, the Blue Jays have a solid footing with their relief corps through the first quarter of the season. Their ERA of 4.18 ranks 18th in MLB, and their opponent batting average of .247 ranks 27th, but that doesn’t paint the full picture of the overall body of work the Jays have put forth to date.

Considering the increased workload (due to a vast number of injuries and early exits from starting pitchers), Toronto’s bullpen has amassed the sixth most innings in the majors. That gives their relievers the fifth highest fWAR in MLB at 1.8.

Blue Jays relievers also rank fifth in baseball with a 25.5% strikeout rate. Swing and miss cannot be understated enough when it comes to relief innings, and thanks to guys like Louis Varland, Jeff Hoffman, and Mason Fluharty, those strikeout totals are well above average for a crew of relievers.

Due to some catastrophic meltdowns this season, the Blue Jays have the 28th-ranked bullpen by Win Probability Added, but it’s encouraging to see their relief corps has the top-ranked bullpen by xFIP. It’s not as though their relievers have been torched badly by opposing hitters this year, which means things should stabilize over the duration of the campaign.

Varland has been a godsend for the Blue Jays’ bullpen the moment he arrived in the clubhouse after last year’s trade deadline. One of the best relievers in baseball this season, the Minnesota native has calmed the fears of Blue Jays fans by bringing some much-needed stability to high-pressure situations.

Varland is among the top 5 in baseball in strikeout rate, ERA, FIP, and WPA. He is unquestionably the Blue Jays reliever you want with the game on the line, whether the bases are loaded in a tied game, or there are no runners on base in a save situation.

Rogers has been exactly as advertised, yet somehow still underrated. Because of his astronomical 70.5% ground ball rate, he’s never really the ideal choice with runners on base, but he’s been a solid bridge to late inning situations for the Blue Jays, whether he’s being utilized in the seventh or eighth inning.

Guys like Braydon Fisher and Tommy Nance have picked up where they left off at the end of last year, thriving in their roles as mid-leverage relievers. The slight preference for John Schneider would be to hand the ball to Fisher, but Nance is less prone to walks and giving up free passes.

As much flak as Hoffman has received, and another rough outing on Friday night in Detroit, which led to a walk-off win by the Tigers, he is getting a tad bit unlucky, illustrated by his .510 BABIP on the season. The single off Spencer Torkelson’s bat had an expected batting average of .170, so Hoffman has been nickel and dimed to death, in addition to the free passes he’s given up.

Given his quality of stuff, Hoffman’s numbers will probably even out over a full season, but optically, he couldn’t stay in the closer’s position. Considering how well Varland was pitching and the urgency to lock down those high-leverage situations, it was a move that had to be made.

Spencer Miles is carving out his niche on this team, perhaps as this year’s version of Eric Lauer as the new swingman/spot starter for the Blue Jays. If his opener appearance last weekend against the Angels was his audition for the starting rotation, he passed the test with flying colours. The question is whether Miles has the stuff to make it a second time through the order and push his threshold to five innings.

And it remains to be seen whether Joe Mantiply is long for this roster, but continues to perform in low-leverage situations. It’s hard to believe at 35 years old, this career journeyman may have rediscovered the fountain of youth. I wouldn’t expect him to hold a sub-3.00 ERA for the rest of the year, but he hasn’t been a liability for the Blue Jays through one-quarter of the season.

The April Hoffman meltdowns and Little implosions aside, this has been a solid bullpen group for the Blue Jays. Adding someone like Yimi García off the injured list would only fortify their core, but as things are currently constructed, it’s not the bullpen costing the Blue Jays games as of late.