Blue Jays’ top prospects over the last decade

2012-13- Travis d’Arnaud

Once thought of as the Blue Jays’ catcher of the future, Travis d’Arnaud‘s career has had a lot of ups and downs since then. He of course never played a game in a Blue Jays’ uniform, and was a part of the trade that brought R.A. Dickey to Toronto prior to the 2013 season.

d’Arnaud was the starting catcher for the New York Mets last season, and finally put together a reasonably healthy campaign. He played 112 games and hit .244/.293/.443 with 16 home runs and 57 RBI, with the power categories being new career highs.

He’s mostly struggled to stay healthy as a big leaguer with the Mets, but last season he showed more of the promise that made him a key prospect in the Blue Jays/Mets’ systems a few years ago.

2011- Kyle Drabek

Speaking of players from big trades, Travis d’Arnaud was involved in another of the bigger deals the Blue Jays have made over the last decade. He was acquired alongside a starting pitcher named Kyle Drabek in the infamous Roy Halladay deal. That trade sent the future Hall of Famer to the Philadelphia Philles, and also had Michael Taylor sent to Toronto as well, who was eventually flipped in another trade.

Drabek is the son of former big leaguer Doug Drabek, and was once thought of as a prospect who could develop into an ace-level performer. Unfortunately he’s battled a lot of injuries throughout his career and things just didn’t develop the way everyone hoped they would. In fact, his last big league appearance was in 2016 was the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he threw just 2.0 innings that year. What was once a promising career just didn’t or hasn’t panned out that way for Drabek, and unfortunately it’s a common tale with prospects, regardless of how talented they are.