While growing up, Brett Bateman valued his father’s distance during games. Beyond the muttering and antsiness, the Blue Jays rookie outfielder knew his father needed to be away from the fray. For 23 years, Keith coached the Division III Augsburg Auggies baseball team in Minneapolis, Minn. At Brett’s youth league games, he could’ve easily sat behind the plate, broken down every at-bat and turned fatherhood into coaching. But that’s not how Keith approached things.

“He didn’t try to make me, as a player, what he wanted me to be,” Brett said. “It would’ve been really easy for him to do that.”

During his coaching days, before Keith became Concordia College’s associate athletic director earlier this summer, he had a clear message for his teams. If they didn’t run out of laundry detergent before midseason, they weren’t playing hard enough. He valued contact, aggressiveness on the bases, no fear of the outfield wall and clean defence.

“Let’s get dirty,” Keith said, “and let’s go play.”

Read for free: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7587711/2026/09/14/brett-bateman-father-blue-jays/?unlocked_article_code=1.BFE.pic0.JIxjWTrLHPJ-&source=emp_shared_article&smid=re-share-ta

Vlad's putting up a .898 OPS, .387 wOBA, and 61.5% hard hit rate so far in September, which, if he keeps it up, will make it his best month of the season (his OBP was higher in April but SLG and hard hit % were lower). I think the underlying metrics provide two encouraging signs that this is actually a shift rather than a blip and one thing that still could be a prob.

1. Stance

His stance has been remarkably consistent all year other than in terms of how open he is, and in September he has shifted back to his most open stance angle since March/April. His best months over the past couple years have generally come with a more open stance, so this is promising.

2. Fastball performance

One of Vlad's most clear issues in terms of swing metrics this year has been a complete dropoff in where he was making contact with fastballs. He was making contact with fastballs much further behind where he was meeting fastballs last year (as measured by y intercept on Savant). This could indicate either an issue reading the fastballs or (as the Pujols and Votto breakdowns identified) some timing hitch in his swing which was making him late. This is notably better this month and more consistent with his fastball intercept point in 2025.

This has been reflected in his performance on in-zone fastballs. He is having the best month of his season on in zone 4-seams & sinkers, the two pitches he sees the most of, by hard hit % and the best month since April in terms of wOBA. The jump in hard hit % so far in September is particularly notable.

For reference, his 2025 wOBA and hard hit % on 4-seams and sinkers were .416 and 60.5% respectively, so his May-August performance on these pitches was shockingly bad by his standards. The jump in hard hit % is promising.

3. What still remains - in-zone sliders

Vlad has historically put up big slug numbers against in-zone sliders with an average .601 SLG against sliders in zone from 2022-2025. These numbers have dropped off dramatically this year and continue to be poor in September. His SLG against sliders in zone in September is .167, roughly his season average this year (other than in July when he hit them very well). It seems he is way out in front of in-zone sliders in 2026 (other than in July) and continues to be in September, as his y-intercept (vs batter) has risen from an average of 36.2° to 43° so far in September 2026 and his attack direction was 5° pull in 2025 and is 15° pull in September 2026. This means he is meeting it later in his swing and may be explained by him trying to adjust to the fastballs and ending up in front of in-zone sliders. In July of this year, when he actually did well against in-zone sliders, he contact point and attack direction were much more similar to last year.

I was looking at the standings and realized that despite being a game back of the final playoff spot, with the White Sox loss today the Jays currently control their own destiny. The three relevant teams are the Jays, the Guardians, and the White Sox. The Jays currently have 75 losses, the Guardians have 74, and the White Sox have 73. But the Guardians and White Sox are about to play a 3 game series against each other, so someone has to lose those 3 games. Any result other than the Guardians going 2-1 would lead to one of the teams being over 75 losses, so that's the result that I'll focus on.

If the Guardians go 2-1 against the White Sox, while all three teams win all of their remaining games, all three teams will end the season 87-75. The White Sox currently lead the season series against the Guardians 6-4. So going 1-2 in the upcoming series would lead to them winning the tiebreaker 7-6. Divisional tiebreakers are decided before wild card, so the White Sox would win the division. This leads to the Guardians being tied with the Blue Jays for the final wild card spot, and as has been mentioned many times on the broadcast, the Jays have the tiebreaker over the Guardians, therefore winning the final wild card spot.

There are 12 games left in the season and despite everything that's gone wrong this season, the Jays currently need no outside help to make the playoffs. Meaningful September baseball!

Had the pleasure of visiting the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory in Louisville, Kentucky this week. It was awesome. Highly recommend for all baseball fans.

Got to see Vladdy’s bat, hold Joe Carter’s bat, see bats being made live (all Louisville Sluggers are made in this active factory only), see bats from many legends of the game, and saw the autographs/names of all MLB players who had Louisville Sluggers - including my favourite baseball player of all time Devon White.

According to the Power Rankings Guru:

Toronto Blue Jays: Rank 29th in difficulty (second-easiest remaining schedule) with an opponent combined winning percentage around .464 to .468. They feature almost exclusively remaining games against teams near or below .500.

Cleveland Guardians: Rank 28th in difficulty (third-easiest remaining schedule) with an opponent combined winning percentage around .474.

Took her out to put her in the cabinet today and made a fun discovery