Heading into the 2026 season, the Toronto Blue Jays are one of the favorites to get back to the World Series in the American League.

Though they lost Bo Bichette this offseason, Toronto added Kazuma Okamoto and Jesus Sanchez to the offensive attack while bringing in Cody Ponce, Max Scherzer, Dylan Cease and Tyler Rogers to an already-talented pitching staff.

That said, there are some early questions about whether or not the Toronto pitching staff has enough firepower to win in 2026.

Take a look at this note from Mike Petriello of MLB.com. The Blue Jays have the lowest average fastball velocity of any team this spring, by a decent margin. Toronto's fastballs average 92.6 mph, while the next-slowest is 93.1.

1) To Petriello's point, a handful of soft tossers can bring down this velocity significantly. Tyler Rogers, who has thrown seven innings this spring, only averages 83.5 mph, which is in the first percentile, according to Baseball Savant. Eric Lauer only averaged 91.7 mph in 2025. He's thrown 8.1 innings.

2) On the flip side, because of the deep playoff run in 2025, the Jays are slow-playing some of their highest velocity pitchers. Trey Yesavage hasn't appeared in a game yet. Kevin Gausman has thrown only 4.1 innings entering play on Thursday. The newly-signed Dylan Cease has thrown only 4.2. Each of those three would drastically up those numbers.

3) While he's not necessarily going to be a big part of the team's plans in 2026, Yariel Rodriguez has a fastball that hits between 94-96 mph. He's been gone most of the Grapefruit League season while pitching for Team Cuba in the World Baseball Classic. With Cuba eliminated, he's set to return to camp this weekend.

--Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Team Dominican Republic are moving onto the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals. They'll be back in action on Friday night against the team from Korea, which went 2-2 in pool play. Guerrero was part of an electric moment on Wednesday night, hitting a mammoth home run off Eduard Bazardo of the Seattle Mariners, who was pitching for Venezuela.

--Guerrero isn't the only member of the Blue Jays to move on in the WBC. Ernie Clement (USA) and Kazuma Okamoto (Japan) are also moving on. Japan will play Venezuela on Saturday while the US will take on Canada on Friday night at 8 p.m. ET.

Remember to join our BLUE JAYS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Blue Jays fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!