Right-hander Shane Bieber will start for the Blue Jays on Friday. Manager John Schneider gave the news to reporters, including Mitch Bannon of The Athletic, prior to today’s game. Bieber is currently on the 60-day injured list and will need to be added to the roster before that start. The 40-man roster currently has a vacancy. If that is not filled before Friday, then only a corresponding active roster move will be required.
Bieber will be making his anticipated team debut in Miami as the Jays face the Marlins. The Jays just acquired Bieber at the deadline, even though he had not yet finished his recovery from 2024 Tommy John surgery.
The Jays are hoping that Bieber was their best bet for upgrading their playoff rotation. Their rotation otherwise features a group of solid mid-rotation type of guys. Max Scherzer has been an ace in the past but is now 41 years old and has been working around an ongoing thumb problem. Eric Lauer has an excellent 2.76 earned run average this year but he has middling velocity and he hardly pitched in the majors over the previous two years. Kevin Gausman, José Berríos and Chris Bassitt are reliable veterans but few would consider them to be aces.
The peak version of Bieber would jump to the front of the group, which is why the Jays were willing to give up prospect Khal Stephen to get him. Bieber won a Cy Young award back in 2020. He had a 1.63 ERA in that shortened season, striking out 41.1% of batters faced. No one would have expected him to maintain that level of production forever. His 2021 season was a drop from those heights but still very good. He had a 3.17 ERA and 31.1% strikeout rate, though a subscapularis strain knocked him out of action for about three months.
In 2022, he logged 200 innings with a 2.88 ERA but his strikeout rate dropped further to 25%. The following year, he only struck out 20.1% of batters faced as his ERA climbed to 3.80. The first warning signs of elbow trouble appeared that year, as inflammation put him on the IL for about two months. He began 2024 healthy but made just two starts before getting knocked to the surgeon’s table.
What version of Bieber shows up now is anyone’s guess. For what it’s worth, he has thrown 29 minor league innings this year while rehabbing with a 1.86 ERA and 34.6% strikeout rate. Though only the most recent three outings have been at the Triple-A level, with a 24.6% strikeout rate in those. He has been averaging 92.8 miles per hour on his fastball. He was at 94.1 mph back in 2020 but dropped to 92.7 in 2021 and then was in the 91-92 range after that.
The Jays don’t necessarily need Bieber to immediately be perfect right away. They are basically assured a playoff spot now and will likely be more concerned by what they can get out of Bieber in October. That gives them a bit more than a month to assess his stuff and results. The fact that his velo has come back in Triple-A is nice but that’s not going to be enough. Sandy Alcantara has basically got his velo to pre-surgery levels this year but has posted a 6.31 ERA on the season.
It’s unclear if the Jays will go with a six-man rotation or bump someone to a long relief role. They Jays start a series against the Pirates in Pittsburgh tonight, with Gausman, Scherzer and Bassitt the scheduled starters. They are off on Thursday. Schneider said today, per Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet, that Saturday’s and Sunday’s starters are to be determined.
While the coming weeks are obviously important for the Blue Jays, they will be huge for Bieber personally as well. At season’s end, he will be choosing between a $16MM player option for 2026 and a $4MM buyout. If healthy and in good form, he should have an easy choice to take the buyout. Though if he struggles or gets hurt again, the choice will get tougher.
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images
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