The 2023 MLB regular season is officially over and the playoffs are just about set to get underway, with the Toronto Blue Jays facing the Minnesota Twins after a solid regular season north of the border.

The Blue Jays are -115 to win their Wild-Card series against the Minnesota Twins, while they are +700 to claim the American League title and +1500 to win the World Series.

Here we give you a complete review of the Blue Jays’ regular season, including where they finished in their division and in the American League, their top batters and top pitchers.

American League and AL East finish

After a grueling 162-game season, the Blue Jays finished third in the American League East division at 89-73.

They just so happened to play in one of, if not the best, divisions in baseball with the Baltimore Orioles winning it at 101-61, while the Tampa Bay Rays were right behind them at 99-63.

Luckily for the Blue Jays, they did finish as the final Wild-Card team in the American League, beating out the Seattle Mariners by one-game for the final playoff spot.

Hitting for average helps Toronto

The Blue Jays had plenty of standout players this season and below we will discuss some of the top players on the team for some of the main stats:

Starting with batting average and only including the players who played the majority of the games this season, Bo Bichette led the team with a .306 average, behind him were Whit Merrifield at .272, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at .264, George Springer at .258, and Matt Chapman at .240.

As for home runs, the Blue Jays were led by Guerrero Jr. with 26 on the season. Following him were Springer at 21, Daulton Varsho and Bichette at 20, and Brandon Belt at 19.

For RBI’s, Guerrero Jr. was by far the team leader at 94. Second on the team was Bichette with 73, third was Springer with 72, fourth was Merrifield with 67, fifth was Varsho with 61, and rounding out the top six was Chapman with 54.

The Blue Jays were one of the best teams at the plate this season, finishing seventh in the league in total hits with 1,423, and seventh in on-base percentage at .329. They were eighth in the league in collective batting average at .256.

Toronto players walked 550 times in the regular season, beating the league's team average of 527 walks on the year.

The team's health has been a big plus, as the Jays have only used 46 players this season which is good for the third-fewest in the league behind only the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies.

Star-quality pitching sets the tone

Same as the batter stats, below we have listed and discussed the top pitchers on the Blue Jays and how they fared in each category:

Starting with Earned Run Average (ERA) among the Blue Jays’ starters, Kevin Gausman led the way with a 3.16. Behind him were Chris Bassitt with an ERA of 3.60, Jose Berrios with an ERA of 3.65, and Yusei Kikuchi with an ERA of 3.86.

As far as wins go, Bassitt posted the most with 16. Behind him was Gausman with 12 wins, while Kikuchi and Berrios both had 11 wins.

Gausman led the team in strikeouts with 237. Bassitt was second on the team with 186, Berrios had 184 strikeouts and Kikuchi had 181 strikeouts.

Jordan Romano led the team with 36 saves on the season.

League-wide, the Blue Jays posted the fourth-lowest ERA at 3.74, with only the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres posting lower team ERAs.

The Jays also kept the joint-third-most shutouts in the league with 15.

Only nine teams walked fewer batters than the Blue Jays, who walked 488 batters during the 2023 regular season meaning that they did not let opponents reach base easily.

Toronto's pitching staff finished second in the league in strikeouts with 1,528.

Review

If the Blue Jays are going to make a deep run in the postseason, they need their bats to get hot.

Their pitching looks elite but if their offense cannot provide the necessary run support, their postseason run could be cut short in the Wild-Card round.

Belt and Springer - the two Blue Jays with World Series wins under their belts with former teams - should look to step up and lead the way in familiar territory.