Bowden Francis

Francis' 2024 season truly had it all. He made the club out of camp but was sent back to Triple-A after allowing 14 earned runs in 14.2 innings of work for the Jays. Francis came back to the club in June and worked out of the pen, but still allowed more hits than innings pitched around meddling results. He was once again sent back to Triple-A, but came back at the end of July and was a completely different guy. Francis made 10 starts to close out the season and allowed 31 hits and struck out 58 batters in 65 innings of work. He held the league to a .140 batting average, and his 1.80 ERA would have been lower if not for nine homers he allowed in that timeframe. Three times in the late summer, he pulled off Dave Steib tributes, taking no-hitters into the later stages of the game only to be foiled each time. Francis is now looking more like Kevin Gausman these days, as the splitter he picked up in the offseason became his preferred secondary weapon when his effective 2023 curveball abandoned him in 2024. Part of that late-summer push was the addition of a sinker to his pitch mix, and the league struggled to adjust to a two-fastball approach complemented by the splitter. The .211 BABIP is tough to overlook, but he has now pitched to a .208 BABIP over his last 140 big-league innings. The Jays are still a spiraling franchise, but this upside is enticing as long as you don't have to reach for it. Read Past Outlooks