I don't really see any arguments to play Heineman more over Valenzuela unless the coaches think he can win more games for them in the present.

Heineman was nice found money last year. But he's 34, has little future in the league beyond maybe a swan song as a backup or a second-division starter on the cheap. His 2025 career year offense had great timing. But it also mostly came early in the year before he got concussed.

Valenzuela is 25, has a lot more projection and is theoretically your backup of the foreseeable future.

Unless his defense is unplayable or your pitching staff tells you they hate throwing to him, it makes more sense to give Valenzuela the larger share of the catching duties until he plays himself out of a tryout.

Commenters have speculated that Hoffman requires a Goldilocks level of usage to be at his best - not overused, but also not allowed to sit for a week at a time.

If Hoffman goes back into general circulation by losing the closer job, he's going to see his workload increase to pitching whenever his arm isn't falling off like Varland, Fisher, Rogers & Fluharty currently are.

The Jays rotation currently can't reliably make it through 5, they have no long man and they are embarking on a month's worth of consecutive games.

I shudder to think what "Jeff Hoffman, setup man" 's performance could deteriorate to without thd current kid gloves treatment he's already getting.

That's interesting that Hoffman has seen so much work so far in an absolute nightmare of an opening month with few wins.

But looking at his Gamelogs, there's not much atypical usage.

He's only pitched on consecutive days twice. No outings longer than an inning. And no appearances before the 9th.

There was one questionable 4-run win Game Finishing appearance, which is probably the only quibble against Schneider.

The point still stands that Hoffman gets the predictability in the Proven Closer role that none of his other colleagues in the bullpen enjoy.

He does pitch almost exclusively at high leverage. But his workload is almost completely dependent on the team's performance & close and late situations.

He knows he will never get called upon before the 8th inning. So he can do his pregame rituals much like a starter would.

And he'll hardly ever/never be asked to pitch 3 games in a row even if the team goes on a run.