Gone, in this instance, was the power that defined Springer’s game and the dynamism that made him a four-time All-Star. The quest to find them tested Springer’s fortitude and made the 2025 season that much more fulfilling. Because along with his swing, Springer found purpose. The former World Series MVP wanted to take the Blue Jays back to the playoffs, win another championship — and to ride a Royal Canadian Mounted Police horse through the streets of Toronto.
Saturday starts the endgame of that journey. At 4 p.m. ET, the top-seeded Blue Jays will host the New York Yankees in the first of their best-of-five American League Division Series at Rogers Centre. The 36-year-old Springer will bat leadoff, serve as designated hitter and try to carry over his best season in more than half a decade to the time of year that makes him want to dance more than any.
“A lot of people wrote off George Springer, said he’s passed his prime, thought the Houston George that I knew and I hated and I played against was gone,” Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt said. “People thought that was a thing in the past. I’m just proud of George being kind of who he is and never really just being OK with being average.”
“He was very, very passive at times, and he was very defensive, especially hitting-wise,” Bassitt said. “And this year they have him locked into ‘No matter the count, it’s just aggressive.’ He always feels like he’s on the attack and in control of the bat, and then you make a mistake and he’s ready for it.”
“His baserunning has been contagious,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “That has set a standard for our team and helped us astronomically.”
“It doesn’t matter who you’re playing,” Springer said. “You’ve most likely already played them. You’ve most likely faced a guy on the mound before you’ve played in these environments. The biggest difference is the overall atmosphere is much more intense.”
With more than 40,000 people packed into Rogers Centre, there are scant few baseball environments more intense than Toronto. And it infuses in Springer all the more energy to fulfill his goal. He wants to celebrate a title by serving as an honorary Mountie for one day, high atop his steed, strolling down a packed-to-the-gills Bremner Boulevard.
The Toronto Police Mounted Unit is happy to oblige. In a recent video, a police officer offered Springer a deal: Win the World Series, and the coolest pony ride this side of HorseCapades is his. The love of these Blue Jays, picked to finish last in the AL East, is endless, and the least the city can do for their most productive player is offer him a ride.
So he’ll step into the batter’s box today against Luis Gills and try to make this October as memorable as April through September. Unleashing his A-swing. Fighting the good fight against Father Time. And dancing all the way.
Even in the most trying moments, when it looked like his career had migrated north to never to return, George Springer refused to lose sense of who he is. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the fearsomeness that had defined Springer’s career vanished. And yet he balked at the idea that numbers would define him. He still believed greatness existed within, and any hope at a resurgence necessitated him being his truest self. Which is why every day when the music in the Toronto Blue Jays’ clubhouse thumped through the speakers, Springer would start to dance.
For all of the excellence Vladimir Guerrero Jr. offers, the power Daulton Varsho provides, the timely hitting Bo Bichette brings, nobody mattered more to the 2025 Blue Jays than Springer. His .309 batting average ranked fourth in Major League Baseball, his .399 on-base percentage second, his .560 slugging percentage fifth. Only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani finished with a higher weighted on-base average than Springer’s .408 mark. It harkened back to Springer’s time with the Houston Astros, when his prolific regular-season performances were capped annually by Octobers worth remembering.
Playing for a Toronto team swept out of the wild-card round in 2022 and 2023 before finishing in last place in the AL East in 2024 whittled away at that reputation as well as his numbers. It prompted him to embrace the suggestions of Toronto’s hitting coaches — David Popkins and Lou Iannotti joined Hunter Mense — that he prioritizes getting off what they called his “A-swing” more often. Springer’s capacity to swing at high speeds had evaporated in 2024, and it would have been easy to chalk that up to age.
The path to his return was not linear. In spring training, Springer hit .108 in 37 at-bats. He went hitless on Opening Day. Toronto’s staff did not waver in its support. Springer’s body remained pliable and explosive, and Toronto’s coaches were convinced that in time the results would match the quality of his swings. The Blue Jays’ hitting coaches, Springer said, have “done everything they can to make sure that I stay in the right headspace. That even if I hit a ball hard and I’m out, it’s OK. It’s to focus on the process and not the result.”
On-field Springer, teammates said, is exceeded only by his off-field version. He is beloved in the Blue Jays’ clubhouse, where he serves as the wise man to a batch of 20-somethings. When Varsho spent two months on the injured list with a strained hamstring, the only thing he could guarantee every day was that his phone would ring and he would see Springer trying to FaceTime him. Springer’s support buoyed Varsho through the doldrums of waiting for an injury to heal — and served as lesson time, too.