Toronto Blue Jays: Who is the odd man out in the bullpen?

With the Toronto Blue Jays nearing full health, their eight — and sometimes nine or 10 — man bullpen is more than likely about to shrink.

With J.A. Happ and Francisco Liriano set to return to the Toronto Blue Jays this week, the team will more than likely have to pull the plug on carrying extra relievers in their bullpen.

Thanks to a combination of injuries and starters not going deep into games, the Blue Jays have been carrying eight relievers for most of the season, and have even carried nine or 10 at some points. Unless you’re a team like the Cincinnati Reds where your strategy is to lean on your bullpen and try to maximize high-strikeout pitchers on an inning-to-inning basis, carrying eight relievers on a 25-man roster is difficult to do.

The problem for the Blue Jays now is deciding on who to cut from the bullpen. The three most likely candidates on the chopping block are Dominic Leone, J.P. Howell and Jason Grilli.

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Out of these three relievers I would say Grilli is the least likely to be cut. Yes, he has had his struggles this month, which mostly stems from his fastball command and obscenely high 23.8 percent HR/FB (home run/fly ball rate), but he’s allowed just one run over his last eight appearances and boasts a 10.69 K/9 (strikeout per nine innings rate). His recent success, and ability to generate whiffs, more than likely means he will remain in the bullpen.

As for Howell and Leone; this is where it gets interesting. The Blue Jays signed Howell to a one-year deal worth $3 million this offseason and were expecting him to the fill the lefty specialist role Brett Cecil regularly held down. Although he threw a scoreless inning on Monday, Howell has not pitched well this season and has only made six appearances in May. On top of his diminished workload, it’s clear manager John Gibbons doesn’t trust him in many situations, let alone high-leverage ones. The problem, however, is the Jays lack left-handed options out of the bullpen and Howell has held lefties to a .233/.307/.293 slash line over the past three seasons, meaning the 33-year-old likely still has something left in the tank.

If the Blue Jays feel otherwise, though, Leone might not be a bad option. The 25-year-old righty has posted nearly identical stat lines against lefties and righties this year, holding left-handed hitters to a .219/.297/.469 slash line over 32 at bats, and right-handed hitters to a .250/.305/.462 line over 52 at bats. When you stretch out his sample size to over three years, however, you’ll quickly notice that lefties have hit Leone to the tune of a .300/.399/.476 slash line over 170 at bats. It’s a small sample size, but there are reasons for concern, especially when you consider his 37:25 strikeout-to-walk ratio against lefties, too.

Add in the fact Leone still has options remaining on his contract and it seems very likely the Blue Jays will once again send him to triple-A Buffalo. So unless the team decides to do something drastic, like release utilityman Chris Coghlan, Toronto will need to remove a reliever from their bullpen, and that reliever will more than likely be Leone.

Next: Blue Jays have interesting decision to make with No. 5 starter

Who do you think the Toronto Blue Jays should remove from their bullpen? Or do you think they should carry an extra reliever and release a positional player? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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