{"id":474930,"date":"2026-02-14T18:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/474930\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T18:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:06:07","slug":"blue-jays-confident-bassitts-impact-still-lingering-around-clubhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/474930\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays confident Bassitt’s impact still ‘lingering around’ clubhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUNEDIN, Fla. \u2013 Kevin Gausman<\/a> held on to the possibility that the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> would re-sign Chris Bassitt right up until Wednesday afternoon, when a text from his close friend popped up saying he was headed to the Baltimore Orioles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest, it wasn’t really up to him \u2013 he wanted to come back, but we obviously added a couple of other guys,\u201d Gausman said after word of Bassitt\u2019s $18.5-million, one-year agreement broke. \u201cI’m not going to speak too much for him, but at a certain point in time, there was still hope there, but don’t know if it ever got that close to him coming back here. Obviously, I wish him the best. What a character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bassitt\u2019s contract was finalized Friday evening, officially ending a productive three-year run with the Blue Jays, during which he logged 541.1 innings over 96 games, all but one a start, and then added another 8.2 frames over seven relief appearances during last fall\u2019s post-season run, when he allowed just a single run.<\/p>\n

Beyond the on-field performance, the soon-to-be 37-year-old \u2013 his birthday is Feb. 22 \u2013 was a central part of Blue Jays life and integral in developing a culture his now ex-teammates believe will persist in his absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was really good at having a relationship with every single guy in here \u2026 and his locker was in a prime spot in the clubhouse for that,\u201d said Gausman. \u201cHe was literally in the middle of the clubhouse, you can’t really miss him, and he’s kind of an open book. When we traded for Shane (Bieber), they put him right next to Bass, there was a reason for that. \u2026 The big thing we’ll miss with him is just the pro way he goes about his business, the same way every five days, takes every start as serious as he could, while also not being too serious, if that makes sense. He’s a true competitor and doesn’t want to give anything away, always wants to make people better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Bassitt and Max Scherzer, who remains a free agent, were constantly pushing the people around to seek improvements, spending hours with coaches or analytics staff \u201cbecause they just always had information for everybody \u2026 talking about alignment, what do we think they’re going to do here, talking to the hitters,\u201d said Gausman, recalling the way they\u2019d say, \u201cwe’re facing this starter today, I think he’s going to pitch you like this; or first time through the order going to some of these young guys to say, I think you can sit on this one pitch. It takes time in the game to be open enough and for people to be able to trust you. That’ll be missed for sure. But what he left here will definitely continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manager John Schneider pointed to the way Bassitt, along with Gausman and Jose Berrios, helped take \u201cthe cohesiveness of the starters \u2026 to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe accountability part is a big piece of it, the competitiveness is a big piece of it, too,\u201d he continued. \u201cHe’s a guy that just immediately gets respect when he walks into a clubhouse because he’s selfless, he’s prepared, he’s professional, he’s intelligent and he can hold intelligent conversations and not afraid to poke some fun at people, too. There’s a reason why he’s got a lot of friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

“His competitive competitiveness on the mound has rubbed off on a lot of guys,\u201d said Ernie Clement<\/a>. \u201cHis preparation is amazing. He’s always available. He’s always willing to do whatever the team needs. He’s totally helped build the culture here, and his presence will be missed, but it’s still lingering around here in many ways. So we’re sad to see him go but excited for his new opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the Blue Jays are less excited about is that Bassitt ended up with an American League East rival, part of Baltimore\u2019s roster renovation highlighted by the additions of slugger Pete Alonso, closer Ryan Helsley, outfielder Taylor Ward and righty Shane Baz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted him to get the heck out of here \u2014 he just made that team a lot better,\u201d said Clement. \u201cWe’re going to have to really prepare and get ready to go because he’s so tricky out there. It’ll be fun to play against him, but not fun at the same time because he’s so damn good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider joked that he hopes Bassitt, \u201chas a great, great season, and that we score 10 runs off of him whenever we face him,\u201d while Myles Straw<\/a>, who has a signed red Canada Day jersey from Bassitt inscribed with his career .813 OPS vs the right-hander, is aiming to avoid a downward update on that number.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know if I’m going to face him this year or not, but if the number changes, I’ll have him put it on the jersey,\u201d said Straw. \u201cHe’s a great example of what you want on your team. He’s going to make you laugh. He’s going to keep you in a good headspace, and as you know, baseball can be tough sometimes. I feel like whenever you see Bass, he brings a light to the clubhouse and there’s never really a bad day around the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gausman said his preference would be not to \u201csee him 12 times a year,\u201d even though they became \u201csuper close” during their time with the Blue Jays, being at similar points in their career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can relate on a lot of things,\u201d he said. \u201cI was there when he had his second child. There’s a part of talking about being a dad that adds to the friendship, not just the baseball side. I would have loved for him to not be in our division, but that’s also because I know how good he is and how good he can be. But I’m also excited to watch him. He knows these hitters really well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he pitches great against us, because he knows all these guys’ strengths and weaknesses. I hope we win the game, but I’m always going to root for him. Especially if you know a guy, you always want them to do well, but you want the bullpen to blow it later in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUNEDIN, Fla. \u2013 Kevin Gausman held on to the possibility that the Toronto Blue Jays would re-sign Chris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-474930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}