LHP Mayza will be key part of Toronto's 'pen

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- What a difference a year has made for Tim Mayza, the veteran left-hander who enters the season as one of the Blue Jays’ most important relievers.

Last spring, Mayza was working back from Tommy John surgery, and each conversation about him opened with a question about his left elbow. He was without a 40-man roster spot, too, and had to compete for a job in camp against Francisco Liriano and others, a job he eventually earned against the odds and ahead of schedule.

Mayza pitched to a 3.40 ERA in 61 games last season, giving the Blue Jays a power arm from the left side, and manager Charlie Montoyo will need even more from the 30-year-old in 2022. Mayza isn’t the type of reliever who’s trying to fool anyone -- he hammers away with an impressive fastball-slider combo -- but his focus this spring has been on creating a layer of deception.

“The whole goal is to get my slider to pair with the fastball as best as possible,” Mayza explained. “To do that, we just have to throw it a lot. I’m probably throwing a lot more sliders now than I will during the season, but I’m trying to get a feel for it and get a feel for strike-to-ball sliders getting swings and misses. I’d really like it to be an action pitch for me where there’s not many takes, but I’m getting swings.”

Mayza views his two-seamer as having better-than-average depth, and he wants to better pair it with the vertical depth of his slider. Part of this solution will also be spotting his fastball on both sides of the plate. If you can’t make a hitter guess which pitch you’re throwing, you can at least leave them guessing about the location.

Last season, Mayza leaned on his fastball more than ever before, throwing it 71 percent of the time. It worked, but going forward, Mayza has some different ideas.

“There’s times I get in trouble,” Mayza said. “The situation and hitter, it’s all going to depend on what my usage looks like. There were times last year where I was too much into heavy fastball usage, not mixing it up and not getting guys off balance. I wasn’t getting in leverage counts to use the stuff I want to use.”

Beyond closer Jordan Romano, Mayza will have plenty of opportunities in the seventh and eighth innings alongside Yimi García, David Phelps, Adam Cimber, Trevor Richards and Julian Merryweather. It’s a crowded group by design, but the Blue Jays hope that one or two arms step forward to fully seize the No. 2 job behind Romano.

Mayza can handles hitters from both sides well enough to be trusted in any spot, but he was particularly sharp against lefties in 2021. They hit just .181 with a .446 OPS off Mayza, so look for Montoyo to find some targeted spots for Mayza.

This is a complicated bullpen picture for the Blue Jays, especially considering Ross Stripling and potentially Nate Pearson could occupy bulk or hybrid roles. Toronto has built up better 40-man roster depth, though, and Mayza has loved what he’s seen from the group’s ability to work together in camp.

“It’s a very close-knit group,” Mayza said. “There’s a lot of ideas that bounce around, and it doesn’t matter what that pitcher looks like or what their repertoire looks like. It’s a tight-knit group that’s always going to be in constant communication about what they’re seeing. It’s great to have a bunch of guys to bounce ideas off of.”

Toronto’s relievers ranked 16th in MLB with a 4.08 ERA last season, and the Blue Jays fell just shy of the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. With expectations this high entering 2022, Mayza and the rest of the bullpen could be handed some major moments in late September and October.