Blue Jays Spotlight: Merryweather’s Role in 2022

Coming to the Blue Jays with all kinds of promise and talent, Julian Merryweather finds himself needing to stay healthy to have a role on the roster

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The Toronto Blue Jays traded Josh Donaldson to Cleveland for a player to be named later late in the summer of 2018. In October of that year, the player was named and it was Julian Merryweather. At the time, he was coming off Tommy John surgery and it wasn’t overly clear what the Blue Jays would or could expect from him. Fast forward to the upcoming 2022 season and that question has still not been answered definitively.

Now 30 yrs old, Merryweather has one option remaining and no defined role on the Blue Jays’ roster. The first major hurdle for him was proving that he was finally healthy. In the three plus years he has been in Toronto’s organization, he has managed to toss just 37 innings while he battled elbow tendinitis, a bad back and an oblique injury. At one point, he was tabbed as a starting pitcher, but his injury history pulled the plug on that idea. He’ll be used out of the bullpen moving forward. But, how?

His 70 grade fastball is his bread and butter, averaging 97.5 mph last season. He combines that with a change, slider and curve. Obviously, having a 97 mph fastball out of the bullpen to go with Jordan Romano is very tantalising. Looking at it a bit further, using Statcast, one has to like what one sees. Statcast measures Active Spin, which is the spin of a pitch that contributes to its movement. In Merryweather’s case, he saw 94% Active Spin on his fastball, 96% on his change and 89% on his curve. His slider saw just 17% Active Spin. The result was 18.8″ of total movement on his fastball, 14.7″ on his change, 22.2″ on his curve and just 2.9″ on his slider, which is the only offering to see a decrease in movement over 2020. He would often rely on the slider or curve to finish off at bats as evidenced by the 20% value for each in PutAway%. His fastball saw 17.5% and his change saw 9.1%.

Obviously, these numbers shouldn’t be taken as gospel since he only tossed 13 big league innings in 2021. However, with his injury history and the weapons he brings to the mound, the numbers do give you reason to think he could be a very powerful weapon for Charlie Montoyo late in games. Merryweather did pick up 2 saves last year, so he could very well be a backup for Romano, should a night off be needed. We all remember when he opened the 2021 season by striking out the Yankees rather impressively. He started the 10th inning with a runner on second and dominated Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres for the team’s first win and his first save. The last pitch was 99 mph, just one of many he threw that day. If he can recapture that, the Blue Jays have a rather dominant back end of their bullpen.

While the rumour mill will likely suggest that the Blue Jays could look to secure a veteran arm for their bullpen once the lockout ends, there is reason to think that the need for an established closer type arm is not necessary for this club. Julian Merryweather certainly has the tools to be a shut down reliever. Without getting carried away, images of Duane Ward and Tom Henke come to mind if you allow yourself to think about what the Merryweather/Romano tandem could be.

While the Blue Jays have said that Merryweather was to be a starter, we should all be hoping that they have abandoned that notion. The fact that he only saw an inning at a time last year probably tells you they have. Sure, it could be just to make sure he can pitch healthily, but it says here that his future needs to be as a late inning reliever. Perhaps, a better way to say that is he should be a high leverage arm at some point. Perhaps, it would behoove the club to start him off in softer situations, but if he is 100% healthy, let him go crazy. Let him toss 99 mph and pile up the strike outs. The team will be stronger for it.