The optimism and the pride of the nations only baseball team has certainly carried over to the 2026 season. The crowd is electric every single home stand, the conversation, the social media feeds are all equally electric in tandem. If you time travelled right from the World Series game into the half way point of the season, you would think we had a winning record. Or if not that we won the World Series. We all wanted to hold on to the hope that the Blue Jays, were not just a fluke, as so many Yankee fans tell me when I visit the state of New York but that we were a dynasty. Kirk is an all star catcher, Vladdy is a generational talent, Springer a future hall of famer and Barger on the edge of a breakout season. Of course baseball, perhaps distinctively, is extremely random, and that’s says a lot through the spectrum of sports. Now Vladdy is in the midst of one of the worse home run slumps of his career, Springer is looking like he is battling father time at last, Kirk is catching 2 of 3 games due to Valenzuela’s emergence after being out most to be fair the blue jays have been PLAGUED with injuries. But injuries, as we soon are learning, doesn’t explain why we keep on losing all these close games. As of Monday, the Jays have played 56 games that were decided by two runs or fewer. And it looks eerily similar to, dare I even say, 2024. Close games, decided by a terrible average with runners in scoring position.  Good enough pitching but just not timely hitting. They ranked 20th with hitters in scoring position. It’s not as simple as being clutch, maybe it is, that’s for you to decide. But in baseball, there is usually more than meets the eye. And it’s about having good at bats with hitters in scoring position. Not chasing, remaining calm and taking what the defence gives you.

It just feels like, and maybe it’s the pressure of the World Series, that the Jays are just forcing things with hitters in position. They ranked 23rd in chase rate in 2024 and now in 2026 their chase rate has jumped from around 30 percent to 35 percent. Not as bad as 2024 but explains the margin, especially in playing so many close games where the margin is so small. 

Having good plate appearances with runners in scoring position, is the difference for the jays being 14 games under 500 like in 2024 or 14 games over. When Jays are in high leverage situations they chase even more than the already increased 35 percent, being at about 38 percent. That 3 percent jump is huge. This looks like the 2024 form where they did the same but still only chased 30-31 percent with RISP whereas it’s the highest it’s ever been in the last three years. 

We would really be lying to ourselves though if we said that ABS challenges had nothing to do with this. They change the internal dynamics and the overall framework of the at bat. It puts into play something that feels very useful and can be leveraged but can rarely ever be used. Kind of like  a 7 foot basketball player that is really bad at basketball. The Jays whiff rate with hitters in position is very interconnected to their failure to use the ABS challenge properly. 

Coming into the season we thought there would be so many guys so good at using the ABS challenge system, guys like Vladdy, Lukes, Springer. But what it has really revealed is how the those guys are more thinking about the losing record when using ABS challenges than the actually strike zone. It also reflects that hitters with good discipline, shouldn’t always be counted on to make the best game time decisions, similar to the pitchers not using them because they are too tied up in the game. Sure these guys have been whiffing a lot too and that has a lot to do with it. You ‘re swinging and missing a bit so you wanna be called out looking less and then you get called out looking and you wanna swing. And the ABS challenge is at the centre of this for the Blue Jays. Overall, this league wide transformation has not been positive for them. Granted, they are middle of the pack in ABS challenges but considering they lost series to many of the top ten(diamondbacks, Cubs, Rangers, Dodgers), it’s hurting them in the close games more than helping. Especially with them whiffing, the ABS challenge’s need to be stronger. 

The solution is really only let Kirk, Vladdy or Schneider challenge, maybe Valenzuela. Springer, is so shit at challenging. And the solution for hitting better with RISP is better plate appearances- however there are other internal issues with that such as lacking a power threat to keep pitchers honest. But to conclude, the Jays NEED to have better at bats with hitters in position if they want to look more like that 2025 team and less like the 2024 team. If they do so, the hits will come.