The league is obsessed with swing and miss from the bullpen and it’s certainly become part of the Jays’ identity. Swing and miss when you throw 100+mph heaters is always going to be there. The Jays don’t have a guy who is completely known as a true fireballer - Varland, Hoffman, and Dominguez can all touch or get close to 100mph but they aren’t the Mason Miller or Aroldis Chapman types. As a result, the bullpen relies heavily on movement/secondary stuff to allow them to miss bats. The problem is those types of pitches can be particularly hard to control if you don’t have feel for it. They can also get completely crushed if they are hangers.
I’d like to see the Jays make a priority of focusing on fastball location rather than trying to get a swing and a miss. A well placed fastball, even if it is only 92-93 is still extremely difficult to make hard contact with. The focus should be on getting as many 0-1 counts from their bullpen arms as possible and the best way to do that is to locate the fastball. When a pitcher is ahead in the count, which pitches become more effective? All of them.
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