Blue Jays top-30 prospects #5: Sean Reid-Foley

We break into the Top-5 Blue Jays prospects with a hard throwing youngster with Sean Reid-Foley.

Hon. Mentions Part 1    Hon. Mentions Part 2    #30: Freddy Rodriguez
#29: Evan Smith    #28: Deiferson Barreto    #27: Chad Girodo
#26: Roemon Fields    #25:  Rodrigo Orozco    #24:  Reggie Pruitt
#23: Joe Biagini    #22:  Carl Wise    #21: Tom Robson
#20: Matt Dean    #19: Andy Burns    #18: Guadalupe Chavez   #17: Ryan Borucki
#16: Jose Espada    #15: Dan Jansen    #14: Dwight Smith Jr.    #13: D.J. Davis
#12: Mitch Nay    #11: Angel Perdomo #10: Clinton Hollon  #9: Max Pentecost
#8: Justin Maese    #7: Jon Harris #6: Richard Urena

Sean Reid-Foley was a 2nd round draft pick for the Jays in the 2014 draft and started to show off his talents in his first full season in the organization.  He has a cannon for an arm and has been clocked as high as 96 MPH.

The 20-year-old righty tends to sit in the 92-93MPH ballpark in his starts.  Reid-Foley’s secondary pitches are what could turn him into a solid everyday pitcher, though.  He already holds a decent slider and the changeup has been developing nicely.

Name: Sean Reid-Foley
Position: RHP         Age: 20
Height: 6’3”    Weight: 220 lbs.
Throws: Right            Bats: Right
Acquired: 2nd round of 2014 draft

Barely removed from receiving his High School Diploma from Sandalwood in Jacksonville, Florida, Reid-Foley was thrown right into the fire in the Rookie Gulf Coast league where, playing for the Bluefield Blue Jays, Reid-Foley got his first taste of professional baseball.

He made his way into 22.2 innings and started 6 games.  In that first taste he performed admirably with a 4.76 ERA and 25 strikeouts.  His longest outing was 4 innings long and he only allowed 2 hits while striking out 6 in that performance.

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This past season he started out with the Lansing Lugnuts and began to show off his talents.  As Reid-Foley continues to stretched out his arm to be an everyday starter he continued to get more and more consistent.

In 15 starts he only made it into the 5th inning 3 times.  It will be interesting to see that number increase as he enters his 2nd full season in pro baseball.  Reid-Foley did impress for the Lugnuts as he posted a 3.69 ERA over 63.1 innings.  The stat that shows off his talents the most is the 90 strike outs that he recorded over those 63.1 innings.  That gives him an incredible strikeout rate of 12.8 per nine innings.

This stellar performance led to a late season promotion to Dunedin were he got to start in 8 games where he got of to a great start in his debut outing.  He threw a five-inning two-hitter in his debut and many thought that was a sign of things to come.

Reid-Foley then began to look like the little fish in the big pond as his ERA began to climb.  Before being sent back to Lansing he would show off one more time with a 5.1 inning no-hitter with 6 strikeouts, though.  He finished the year in Lansing with two more starts and lost both outings.

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Reid-Foley has all the tools to become a great pitcher.  His fastball has the velocity to fly by hitters and his secondary pitches will keep them guessing.  His command is the issue at the moment and is a very typical issue with young pitchers.  As he progresses this will be the area he needs to work on.  His walk rate has been a down fall for him in his first full season in pro ball.  In 63.1 innings in Lansing he walked 43 batters.  This shows that many of the runs he surrenders could be self-inflicted.

Reid-Foley’s future is very bright with the amount of talent the now 20-year-old has.  He is still very young so no one should be looking at these mixed performances as early trends.  He will most likely start the season with the Dunedin Blue Jays at the Single A+ level.  There is a chance that he could land in Lansing to start the season but due to the lack of talented pitchers in the Jays system he might get a bump.  Look for Reid-Foley to come into this season working on his control and secondary pitches.  If he can work on those pieces it should make him stand out at any level and improve his top prospect ranking.