Better Know Your Blue Jays 40-man: Tim Mayza

Tim Mayza is a 32-year-old lefty reliever. He was our 12th-round pick in 2013, making him the longest-serving current Blue Jays player. Well, sort of a technicality, we picked Danny Jansen in the 16th round.

Tim made it up to the majors in 2017 and became an essential part of our bullpen in 2019, except for missing out on the 2020 season after Tommy John surgery.

In six seasons, he’s pitched in 317 games, which puts him tied for 11th, with Jimmy Key, on the team’s all-time list. 53 games will move him into the seventh spot. And he has 79 career holds, which, I think, puts him 3rd in team history, behind Paul Quantril (86) and Jason Frasor (83). He should be number 1 by the All-Star break.

Last year was his best season. He had a 1.52 ERA in 53.1 innings. Batters hit .251/.302/.342 against him. As usual, he was better against lefties (.246/.270/.291) than right-handers (.258/.340/.405). Unfortunately, the LOOGY no longer exists because a reliever has to face three batters.

In 2023, Mayza gave up far fewer home runs than in the past. He allowed 0.34 home runs per nine innings. His career number is 0.97. I don’t know if that is because of something he changed or if it is random luck, but I’ll hope for the former.

Over the last couple of seasons, he’s stopped throwing his four-seam fastball, going sinker (76.5% of the time last year) and slider (23.5%).

He’s under team control for the next two seasons so that he won’t be a free agent until his age-34 season. That hardly seems fair, but it is how baseball works. On the plus side, lefty relievers can stay in the majors til their 40s. Once you get that lefty union card, you can play for years.

John Schneider used him as a one-inning pitcher (though he got 4 or 5 outs 9 times), whereas John Gibbons would occasionally use him for 2 innings. I’m a fan of relievers going longer into games. I like the idea of staying with a hot hand, but that’s not how teams do things these days. I don’t particularly appreciate emptying the bullpen every game. I think the more guys you use a game, the more likely you are to find the guy who doesn’t have it.

PECOTA feels that Mayza will pitch in 46 games with a 2.71 ERA.

ZiPS says 70 games (seems high), 3.62 ERA.

Steamer 62 games, 3.43 ERA.