Blue Jays by the numbers: What David Price means to Toronto's playoff chances

The Toronto Blue Jays made their big trade for David Price last week to get exactly what they saw Monday at the Rogers Centre.

Price pitched eight innings in first start for Toronto as the Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins 5-1, giving up just one run on three hits, striking out 11, and walking two. Including his dominant debut, a typical Price outing this season looks something like this: 7 IP, 2 ER, 6-7 SO, 1-2 BB, 0-1 HR allowed.

That's good for a 2.45 ERA and 2.99 FIP, and by FanGraphs' version of Wins Above Replacement he's been the sixth-best pitcher in the American League. Compared to what Toronto was throwing out there before, the 29-year-old left-hander is obviously a dramatic improvement and gives them the ace at the top of their rotation they so badly needed.

If all goes according to plan, Price should make 12 more regular season starts for the Blue Jays. Four of those starts are scheduled to be against the team they're chasing in the AL East, the New York Yankees.

Over those 12 starts, Price is somewhere close to 20 runs better than a replacement level pitcher, which comes out to over 1.5 runs per game. How do we get that number? Through 22 starts in 2015, Price has been worth 3.7 fWAR. 0.1 fWAR comes out to about one run. So at his current pace over the course of 12 starts, he'll be worth 2.2 fWAR or in run form 22 runs. Divide 22 by 12 and you get 1.8 runs per game.

That's a significant upgrade. The Blue Jays' intimidating offence – an offence that got even better with the addition of Troy Tulowitzki to the top of the lineup and Ben Revere to the bottom – can now get away with a bit of a down performance and still come out with a win.

What about when the team's other starting pitchers take the mound? Well, having Price helps there too.

There's no statistic to quantify it, but Price's presence in the rotation also helps on the days he's not pitching. Given that he goes deeper into games than your average starter, the relievers get more rest and in turn can be more effective and manager John Gibbons can be more judicious pulling starters not named David Price earlier in games knowing he has fresh arms in the bullpen.

Jeff Sullivan wrote a post for FanGraphs noting that no team that's acquired an ace at the trade deadline has won the World Series that same year in the wild-card era. Before the Blue Jays worry about that though, they have to put themselves in a playoff spot first.

Heading into Tuesday's action, Toronto is in a three-way tie for the second wild-card spot in the AL with the Twins and the Baltimore Orioles and 5 1/2 games back of the Yankees in the division.

The Blue Jays still have work to do, but they're sure as heck in a lot better position to make it happen than they were less than a week ago. If they they do get to the postseason, Price will have undoubtedly played a huge part in getting them there.

These next few weeks of Blue Jays baseball are going to be fun.

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Israel Fehr is a writer for Yahoo Canada Sports. Email him at israelfehr@yahoo.ca or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr