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Jairo LaBourt will be Blue Jays lone representative at Futures Game

By Kyle Franzoni |

The Toronto Blue Jays made quite the statement during the 2014 All-Star Futures Game, sending three  prospects to represent the United States and World Squads. Ultimately, Daniel Norris and Dalton Pompey left their marks, with the former pitching a scoreless frame as the U.S. starter and the latter delivering two hits and scoring a run.

The 2015 representation will be a little more subdued.

The Blue Jays will send only one player to the 2015 All-Star Futures Game, with left-hander Jairo Labourt selected as a member of the World team. Ranked as the team’s 10th best prospect by MLB.com, sixth by Baseball Prospectus, and 11th by our team here at Jays Journal, LaBourt is an interesting prospect to say the least.

2015 ha been a big step forward for the 21-year-old Dominican, finally making the jump to full-season ball. The results thus far have been encouraging for a pitcher that is a little over two years younger than the competition. In 56.2 innings of work, LaBourt has pitched to a 3.65 ERA and struck out batters at a 7.9 K/9 clip. Even more encouraging is his ability to keep the ball in the yard, with only two home runs surrendered this season.

His control still continues to be an issue, with LaBourt working a 5.7 BB/9 ratio. That’s slightly higher than his 4.8 career rate and runs consistent with the scouting reports on LaBourt. Those same reports also note that the big lefty features a tremendous fastball that sits in the low-to-mid 90’s. However, his offspeed pitches remain a work in progress, with his slider slightly ahead of his change-up.

The Futures Game will be a nice challenge for the young prospect and give the Blue Jays a sense for how he responds to advanced prospects like Kyle Schwarber, Josh Bell, J.P. Crawford, Trey Turner, Michael Conforto, Aaron Judge, Brandon Nimmo, and Bradley Zimmer.

The Futures Game will be played on Sunday, July 12th.

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