Better Know Your Blue Jays 40-Man: Tim Mayza

Next up Tim Mayza.

I’ll admit, Mayza first caught my attention, back a number of years ago, when he was a highly rated prospect in OOTP Baseball. Five-star relievers are worth a lot in that game. It got me following him in real life a little closer.

Tim has spent the last five seasons with the Jays, minus 2020, which he missed after Tommy John surgery. For his career, he’s got a 4.24 ERA in 185 games, 157 innings, with 57 walks and 179 strikeouts. But last year is when he came into his own. A 3.40 ERA in 61 games, holding batters to a .206/.263/.309 batting line. He earned 19 holds, leading the team (number 2 was Tyler Chatwood at 11).

As always he was better vs. LHB (.181/.224/.222) than RHB (.221/.286/.361), but he was very good against both.

Charlie generally used Tim for an inning or less, he went more than an inning just seven times and never completed 2 innings in a game.

He threw his sinker 70.5% of the time last year, averaging 93.9 MLB with a slider making up the rest of his pitches.

No matter how the roster shakes out, Tim looks to be the number one lefties in the pen and likely will pitch in the seventh or eighth inning most of the time.

PECOTA has Mayza pitching in 56 games, 48.1 innings, with a 3.39 ERA. I don’t have any argument with those numbers.

Tim is #33 on our all-time games pitched list at 185 games. If he throws 52 games this year he’ll be 20th. He’d need 78 to get to 19th, so not this year I’m sure. He is 30 this year and can’t be a free agent until 2026, so he has time to climb up the list before the team has to decide if it wants to play him at full market value.