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What happens to Patrick Corbin when other starters return to the Blue Jays?
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Photo credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
Ian Hunter
May 18, 2026, 13:00 EDTUpdated: May 18, 2026, 12:46 EDT
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The MLB season is more than a quarter-way complete, and the Toronto Blue Jays are leaning on veteran starter Patrick Corbin to chew up innings. Yes, Patrick Corbin. Did anyone else have that on their bingo card to start the season?
Not only has Corbin been a much-needed staple in Toronto’s rotation, but he’s also giving them decent starts for someone who was thrown into the fire a week into the season. With the third-most starts of any pitcher on the team, the 14-year vet has been the fourth-most valuable starting pitcher on the Blue Jays to date. 
For a starting rotation that briefly had Jose Berrios, Cody Ponce, and Eric Lauer in the picture, it’s quite shocking Corbin has held up this well thus far, with the caveat being we’re only a quarter-way through the season.
With Berrios likely done for the rest of the season once he undergoes his elbow surgery this week, Shane Bieber set to face live hitters soon, and Max Scherzer attempting to get his free sub with every cortisone shot, Corbin’s spot in the starting rotation seems stable for the time being.
But what happens if a veteran like Bieber reclaims his spot in the starting five? Corbin and whoever occupies the fifth spot (Spencer Miles, for the time being) would be the odd one out, but there’s still ample time for this to be figured out.
The Blue Jays have been fortunate that the Corbin experiment has worked out much better than expected. Toronto tried this last year with poor results by signing Spencer Turnbull to make a few spot starts, and his Blue Jays career lasted all of 10 days before he was designated for assignment.
But Corbin has been anything but Turnbull-esque for the Blue Jays, now with 0.4 fWAR and 0.7 bWAR on the season. Just like his contemporaries like Jose Quintana or Sonny Gray, Corbin posts game after game, even at 36-years-old.
Aside from Corbin’s rocky debut against the Twins on April 10 (who had one rehab start in Dunedin before joining the Jays, by the way), he’s been solid in that fifth starter spot, but actually behaving more like a number three or four starter.
The New York native faces arguably his toughest task of the season: trying to shut down a potent Bronx Bombers lineup at Yankee Stadium. If ever Corbin was going to turn into a pumpkin, this feels like the start where things could go severely sideways, or maybe he continues to keep the ball in the yard and limit damage against these AL East rivals.
He has yet to make it further than 5 2/3 innings in a game, but Corbin has given his team a shot at winning in six of his seven starts thus far. Armed with one of the slowest average fastballs in baseball and sporting an expected ERA of 6.08, it seems like disaster may be on the horizon.
Baseball Savant
Among starting pitchers, Corbin has the seventh-largest difference between his actual ERA and expected ERA at -2.15, so at some point, he is likely to turn into a pumpkin. If the Blue Jays could somehow time Bieber’s potential return with shifting Corbin into the bullpen, that would be the smoothest transition.
But when has anything ever been easy for the Blue Jays, especially this 2026 iteration, which has been especially unlucky in the injury department? Any sort of setback for Bieber and Corbin’s spot in the rotation stays rock solid until another option comes along, but that may not be until the trade deadline if the Blue Jays decide to shop for another starter.
The more likely scenario is that Corbin may get bumped out of the rotation and take over the role previously occupied by Eric Lauer, as the spot starter/long relief man. Due to the lack of velocity and strikeout ability, Corbin isn’t an ideal candidate for high-leverage situations, which means he’ll be relegated to mop-up duty in the event he moves into the bullpen.
Given the importance of every single roster spot on the 26-man, it feels like a DFA waiting to happen if Corbin gets bumped from the starting rotation. His stuff does not play up as a reliever, and he’s been lucky to get by with a diminished fastball, but a decent sinker, slider, and changeup in his toolbox.
This isn’t exactly the Baseball Savant page of a reliever who strikes fear into an opposing lineup.
Baseball Savant
However, it’s a bit of a small miracle that Corbin has skated by with stuff that’s less than average, but he’s someone who doesn’t walk a ton of batters (he has a 6.8% walk rate this season, his lowest since 2020 with the Nationals), and his 0.79 HR/9 rate is his lowest since 2018 with the Diamondbacks. 
Considering how much in flux Toronto’s starting rotation has been through the first 46 games, the Blue Jays would be wise to stash Corbin in their back pocket in the event of another injury to a starting pitcher or a setback to someone like Bieber or Scherzer.
Corbin has essentially picked up the innings that Scherzer was supposed to tally, except Corbin has yet to run into a blowup start, and he doesn’t have trouble navigating the first inning, which was Scherzer’s fatal flaw upon his return to the rotation in the second half last season.
If Scherzer ever returns to the Blue Jays’ rotation, it’s wild to think the Blue Jays will have employed the number two, four and six active leaders in games started with Scherzer (2), Corbin (4) and Kevin Gausman (6) in the same season.
Had Berrios stayed healthy, the Blue Jays also would’ve had four starters in their starting rotation at the same time who posted 30-plus starts for the last five consecutive seasons. That list included Berrios, Corbin, Gausman, and Dylan Cease. The Blue Jays clearly have a type.
Unlike earlier in spring training, this doesn’t feel like a collision course where a decision on starting pitchers needs to be made right away. Until Corbin becomes a liability in the starting rotation, he’ll continue to take the ball every fifth game.
The Blue Jays still have an uphill battle ahead of them to leap into a playoff position, but one can only wonder how much further back they’d be if not for the unsung contributions of a 14-year veteran like Corbin, signed as an emergency starter barely a week into the season.

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