Jeff Hoffman carried the weight of a pivotal slider that Miguel Rojas drove over the left-field wall to tie the game in the 11th inning of Game 7 of the World Series last year. The 33-year-old Blue Jays closer has been haunted by that moment throughout the off-season, blaming himself for the gut-wrenching 5-4 loss that kept Toronto from its first championship since 1993. Hoffman has committed to returning stronger as the Blue Jays prepare for the new season.
“I cost everybody in here a World Series ring,”
Hoffman candidly said, describing how replays of that pitch haunted him off the field. He acknowledged how difficult it was to avoid replaying the moment in his mind. Despite the outcome, Hoffman still believes the slider was the right pitch call for the 3-2 count and said he would throw the same pitch again nine times out of ten.
“It spun on me and, yeah, it wasn’t good,”
he admitted about the error. Hoffman understands the expectations that come with his role and accepts responsibility for the outcome of games when he closes.
“When I come in, the game is supposed to be over,”
he said in a recent interview at the Player Development Complex.
“There were a lot of times last year I felt the same exact (responsibility). But when I come into the game, that’s what they pay me to do, to shut it down and make sure we walk out of there with a win.”
Continuing as the Blue Jays’ Closer
Hoffman enters the upcoming season confident he will maintain his position as the Blue Jays’ closer. Last year marked his first time in this role full-time, during which he led Major League Baseball with 59 games finished and ranked fourth with 33 saves. Appearing in a career-high 71 games and pitching 68 innings—the most he’s thrown as a reliever—he also faced challenges, including seven blown saves and surrendering 15 home runs.
Despite those setbacks, he excelled in the postseason, allowing just two runs over 12.1 innings in 10 games. One run occurred in a clinching win against the Yankees, while the other was the costly home run by Rojas. Hoffman emphasized how much he enjoyed being the closer, embracing both the highs and lows of the role.
“Obviously the good times are the highest of the highs, and the bad times are the lowest of the lows,”
he said.
“I got more comfortable and I think that showed in the post-season when I was able to turn it back on and do what I had to do through most of the post-season. That season will teach me a lot moving forward and I’ll be a better pitcher for us this year.”
Blue Jays manager John Schneider reinforced Hoffman’s role during the team’s spring entrance meeting.
“We’re going to do the same thing that we did last year, I’m going to get the ball at the end of the game,”
Hoffman recalled Schneider telling him.
Team’s Offseason Moves Around Hoffman’s Role
Hoffman’s place as closer was not guaranteed coming into the off-season. The Blue Jays explored several options in the free-agent market, pursuing established closers such as Edwin Diaz, Ryan Helsley, Raisel Iglesias, and Emilio Pagan before ultimately signing set-up man Tyler Rogers. General manager Ross Atkins led the search with Hoffman’s input.
“I got a lot of calls from Ross about guys that we were targeting and what I thought about certain avenues we could go down and it was just very relieving to know that we were in on so many guys,”
Hoffman said.
He stressed his full support for any move that would strengthen the team’s chances.
“My message to Ross was like, ‘If it’s going to help us win, then yes, do it, no matter what the guy is, no matter what his role is going to be coming in.’ We didn’t necessarily end up getting one of those established closers that have been doing it for a long time, but we got a really, really good one in Tyler and a guy that can pitch in so many different ways for us.”
Alongside Rogers, Hoffman highlighted the depth of the bullpen, mentioning young arms like Louis Varland, Yimi Garcia when healthy, Mason Fluharty, and Braydon Fisher. He expressed enthusiasm about the group’s potential to improve further this year.
Adjustments to Pitching Strategy and Approach
The Blue Jays have collaborated with Hoffman to refine his pitch selection heading into the new season. Over the past three years, his use of fastballs and splitters increased while decreasing reliance on his slider, which dropped from nearly 48% usage in 2023 to just under 30% last year. The team now plans to reduce fastball usage somewhat to better balance all his pitches.
Advanced analytics show Hoffman’s slider and splitter generate significantly more swings and misses compared to his fastball, which was the pitch most often hit hard—10 of his 15 home runs came off fastballs last season. This vulnerability led to more in-depth reviews and adjustments.
“I think sometimes my aggressiveness in the zone can get me,”
Hoffman explained.
“Through the season, we realized what was happening and I started to try to take care of some of those pitches a little bit better. Whether it was throwing a ball on purpose or making sure that if I was trying to throw a strike, it was going to be the perfect strike or it was going to miss and I wasn’t going to get hurt by it. That was definitely part of my learning curve being a first-year closer full-time. … We’ll be able to combat that this year and it won’t happen again.”
He also plans to experiment with new grips on his splitter during spring training to optimize its movement, increasing vertical drop and reducing horizontal sweep, making it tougher for left-handed hitters to anticipate.
Managing Workload to Sustain Performance
The Blue Jays intend to manage Hoffman’s workload more carefully after last season’s heavy and inconsistent usage. He pitched on consecutive days 22 times but also appeared with longer rests, including some as long as six days. This uneven pattern may have impacted his rhythm and effectiveness.
“I’m not going to have five days off in a row because we’re blowing teams out or scores aren’t close,”
Hoffman said.
“We’re going to do a better job of getting me in there in non-save situations and allowing me to stay fresh from a pitching standpoint and knowing what my stuff is going to do and being able to feel the ball with a batter in the box, not just throwing bullpen sessions and all that.”
By maintaining a steadier usage, Hoffman aims to stay sharp and confident throughout the season.
Looking Back and Moving Forward After 2025
The memory of that crucial slider to Rojas remained vivid for weeks after the World Series ended, only beginning to fade as Hoffman returned to training and focused on the upcoming season. He recognizes that being part of a World Series run is rare, achieved by few players fortunate enough to reach that stage.
“We had all these moments throughout that series, like the Bo (Bichette) homer in Game 7, that should be a moment immortalized and capped off with a trophy. I had the opportunity to shut it down and just didn’t happen. You still see stuff on the media about that game and it brings back good and bad memories. You never know if you’re going to get that close again. It took me parts of 10 seasons to get to a World Series, been on some pretty good teams and it just doesn’t happen. You have to be really good and really lucky and it just didn’t happen for us last year. There’s a lot of what could I have done better, what could I have changed? Just thinking about that kind of stuff,”
Hoffman reflected.
He also expressed regret about how his debut season with the Blue Jays unfolded.
“In a perfect world, I would have loved to go out and had my best year as a Blue Jay in Year 1 and really excelled and did everything above and beyond that that I had in my head. It didn’t happen that way. Went through some growing pains. But I’m a learner and I’m super-competitive and I’m looking forward to get another crack at it.”
“And I think this year is going to go a lot different than it did last year,”
he added.
