Though strong pitching had kept the Toronto Blue Jays hovering around the .500 mark, the story from the first month of the 2025 season has been their eye-opening power outage.
The Blue Jays rank just 29th in Major League Baseball with 15 home runs and have scored fewer runs than all but three clubs. Much of the attention will focus on $500 million man Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and former All-Star shortstop Bo Bichette, who have combined for just two longballs through the team’s first 28 games, but they are far from the main culprits. Guerrero has at least gotten on base at a .372 clip and posted a robust 121 OPS+, while Bichette is second on the team with a .292 batting average.
The biggest issue for the Blue Jays, in fact, is actually the guy hitting behind them. Fresh off a 44 home-run season with the Baltimore Orioles, Anthony Santander inked a five-year, $92.5 million deal with the Blue Jays to add some more thump to the middle of the order, but his big bat has yet to make the trip up north. The 30-year-old is currently hitting just .179 with three home runs while seeing his expected slugging and barrel rates plummet from a season ago. Santander has not come close to replicating his 2024 performance, which is why Bleacher Reports Kerry Miller identified him as one of baseball’s biggest disappointments thus far.
“With the exception of a big three-run homer off Spencer Schwellenbach two weeks ago, though, Santander hasn't delivered in the slightest,” wrote Miller.
On the bright side, Miller noted that Santander has a history of starting out slow, as his career April OPS of .640 is his lowest of any month. Add in the adjustment of playing on a new team after eight years of Baltimore, and it makes sense why Santander has struggled so mightily this month. Perhaps his home run on Sunday against the New York Yankees is a sign of better things to come.
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