The 2025 Toronto Blue Jays could not have won an AL East division title, dispatched the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, or come within two outs of winning a World Series title without the herculean efforts by everyone on the 40-man roster.

There were so many feel-good stories up and down the roster that it took a village to lift that team to within inches of baseball’s pinnacle. Now comes the unenviable task of trying to do that team one better.

One of the main reasons the squad got so far in the first place was the unexpected performances by key players who either had no expectations placed on them or experienced a significant bounce-back. There will be more unexpected Cinderella stories this year, but there will also be some tales of disappointment.

Similar to the 2026 bounce-back candidates list, I averaged out which Blue Jays players have the largest gaps in Steamer and ZiPS projections. I guess it’s a case of prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and pray the projection models are wrong on certain players.

It feels unfair to put Ernie Clement on this list, not only because he exceeded expectations during the regular season in 2025 by outperforming his projections (he had a 1.4 fWAR Steamer projection, but posted a 4.2 fWAR season), he was also unreal during the postseason, setting a new single postseason record for total hits.

He exceeded expectations in every way imaginable as the Blue Jays’ super utility man, which means he only has one way left to go, according to ZiPS and Steamer projection models: down. On average, he’s forecasted to have a -1.1 fWAR drop year-over-year.

However, for the first time in his Blue Jays career, Clement actually has a path to full-time at-bats as their starting second baseman heading into 2026. In other years, he had to carve out a niche either as a backup third baseman, shortstop, or second baseman.

With 157 regular-season games played last year (the most of any Blue Jay), there’s runway for Clement to have even more playing time in 2026 with his new defined role on the club. Wherever he plays on the diamond, Clement brings value to the Blue Jays, so the fact that he doesn’t have great splits against right-handed pitching isn’t a giant red flag.

But to expect him to post another 4+ fWAR season this year might be overshooting, as Steamer and ZiPS put Clement in the 1.7 to 2.5 fWAR range.

Did any player have a larger swing in fate from one year to another than Myles Straw? In 2024 with the Cleveland Guardians, the outfielder played the first six months of the season at Triple-A, only to get called up midway through September and play seven games for the Major League club.

Then, he was one of the Straws that stirred the drink for the 2025 Blue Jays? The Guardians couldn’t get rid of Straw’s contract fast enough, and it looked like the Blue Jays might be the laughingstock of baseball after seemingly eating Straw’s salary to offer Roki Sasaki more international bonus pool money.

Straw had the last laugh, proving to be an invaluable member of the Blue Jays’ outfield depth chart last year. His 1.8 fWAR in 137 games played with the Blue Jays was his highest WAR total since his career-high 3.1 fWAR season in 2021, split between the Houston Astros and the Guardians.

But similar to Clement, we have a case where Straw may have been punching above his weight last year, and thus is the reason for his projected 1.15 fWAR decline in 2026. Had it not been for the Anthony Santander injury, Straw might be fighting for playing time this year, but he has a clear path to a semi-starting job in the outfield.

Another instance where it feels unfair to have someone so instrumental to the 2025 Blue Jays’ success on this list, but a combined 38 starts and 223.2 innings may have taken a toll on Kevin Gausman last year. He was a beast from start to finish last year, but projections average him to take a 1.2 fWAR step backward in 2026.

A year older at age-35 and somehow only just getting his first Opening Day nod with the Blue Jays, Gausman could face an uphill battle to replicate the 3.59 ERA and 189 regular-season strikeouts he posted last year. If this ends up being the end of his Blue Jays tenure, Gausman could finish this season with a top-10 franchise ranking in many key pitching categories.

In 2024, he had a shortened Spring Training lead-up, and it felt like Gausman was playing catch-up the rest of the year. But with a much more methodical build-up last year, the veteran had his best season as a Blue Jay since the early days of his $125 million contract in 2022 and 2023.

If Gausman saw a slight regression in 2026, I don’t think the masses would be surprised, but he’s one of the few stable pieces in Toronto’s rotation dating back to 2022. If you can’t depend on Gausman, who can you?

Plenty of MLB teams are lucky to get 1.5 fWAR out of their starting catcher in a season, let alone their backup catcher. Tyler Heineman might have had the Blue Jays’ backup campaign for the ages in 2025, one which saw him hit .300 until the last few weeks of the regular season and post a 120 wRC+.

Alejandro Kirk caught a career-high 118 games in 2025, which meant Heineman had to produce on both sides of the ball in a limited capacity, but the “magic man” wasted no opportunity to prove his value by pulling a rabbit out of his hat last season.

There’s an extremely wide variance between projected games played by Steamer and ZiPS (25 for Steamer, but 61 for ZiPS), but regardless of how much playing time Heineman sees this year, he would have to play out of his mind to even come close to the 2.5 fWAR he earned in 2025.

No disrespect to George Springer, because without him, the Blue Jays may not have even made it to the World Series. But Father Time comes for us all, including 36-year-old outfielders/designated hitters.

2025 was the second-best year of Springer’s career, one that virtually nobody saw coming after his subpar season in 2024, his abysmal Spring Training performance, and his declining bat speed. But Springer proved us all wrong as he rediscovered the fountain of youth, outperforming his projections by 3.5 fWAR.

Incredibly, there’s a steep 3 fWAR drop-off predicted for Springer in 2026. But on the other hand, he’s among one of the highest projected players who is 36-years-old or older this year, with Freddie Freeman being the highest. If you had said a few years ago, Springer was on track for 25 home runs and a 2-ish fWAR year in his age-36 season, most would gladly take that.

It all makes sense statistically, but for Blue Jays fans’ sake, they’re hoping there’s a little magic left in Springer’s bat for a few more signature moments in the last year of his current contract with the team.

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