Blue Jays: The next wave of pitching prospects are full of huge potential

It’s widely expected that Nate Pearson will make his MLB debut sometime in 2020, but who are the arms that the Blue Jays have coming in the next wave of pitching prospects?

Whenever the Blue Jays’ rebuild gets talked about, one of the first discussion points usually surrounds the need for starting pitching. That definitely rings true for 2020 and likely the year after that, but the Blue Jays are actually in pretty decent shape when it comes to the state of their pitching prospect stables. It’s just that most of the help is at least a few years away.

Nate Pearson is undisputed top pitching prospect, and that’s with good reason after he dominated multiple levels in 2019, showing that he’s likely ready to pitch against big league hitters right now, even if he’s almost certainly destined to start the year in Triple-A. That’s mostly because he’ll need to build up his innings at a slower speed than the big leagues would allow, so starting the year in Buffalo makes sense, even if it would be fun to see him break camp with the Blue Jays.

For now, they’ll likely utilize a group that could include arms such as Trent Thornton, Ryan Borucki, Jacob Waguespack, Anthony Kay, T.J. Zeuch, and possibly others, and it’s also expected that Matt Shoemaker will return now that he’s recovered from a torn ACL. The Blue Jays are expected to pursue some help for the rotation through free agency and possibly in the trade market as well, so I’m sure they’ll cover 2020 one way or another, and hopefully with greater depth than they had this past season.

As far as the future is concerned, I’m actually quite optimistic about where the Blue Jays’ pitching staff could be in a few years. The game keeps getting younger all the time, and the Blue Jays have a lot of high-end pitching talent in the lower levels of their minor league system. Not all of those pitchers will turn into MLB stars, but don’t be surprised if the Blue Jays are using a talented homegrown rotation a few years from now.

Let’s have a look at who that could include.

Alek Manoah

The Blue Jays decided to select a college pitcher with their first-round pick in 2019, just as they had the previous year. This time they drafted and signed Alek Manoah with the 11th overall pick, and he’s already making them look good because of their decision.

The 6’6 right-hander is an imposing figure on the mound, and he impressed while in his junior year at West Virginia, finishing with a 9-4 record and a 2.08 ERA in 16 starts, striking out 144 in 108.1 innings. After being drafted, Manoah made six appearances for the Vancouver Canadians and posted a 2.65 ERA with 27 strikeouts in 17 innings pitched.

I’m sure that he showed enough that he’ll start the 2020 campaign in at least Low-A with the Lansing Lugnuts, and the hope is that he’ll be another college pitcher that can quickly move through the ranks, just as Nate Pearson has done. That’s not to say that Manoah is supposed to live up to Pearson’s hype, but there’s a good chance that his skills will prove to be fairly advanced in minor league baseball, and his ETA shouldn’t be that far from now.

Could that come as soon as 2020? My guess is likely not, for all the same reasons that we didn’t see Pearson make the jump last year. If the Blue Jays were contending late in the season and Manoah tore through the minor leagues then MAYBE, but that’s a lot of ifs that would have to line up, and I don’t think it’s in the cards.

That said, I think it’s entirely possible that Manoah could make the climb by the following season, depending on the state of the Blue Jays’ rotation by then. If the options they currently have at the MLB level all develop then perhaps he’ll have to wait another season, but don’t be surprised if his power arm carries him into a big league rotation by 2021. He has plenty of developing yet to do, but I like the idea of pairing him with Pearson in the rotation as this rebuild continues, and I think Blue Jays fans are going to like him more and more as they get to know him in the future.

Adam Kloffenstein

The Blue Jays were very fortunate to get a talent like Adam Kloffenstein in the third round of the 2018 draft, and selecting one of his good friends in Jordan Groshans in the first round likely didn’t hurt. In fact, Groshans arguably took less than he could have gotten for a signing bonus so that the Blue Jays could afford to give Kloffenstein 2.4 million, and I’m thrilled they worked together on the proposition, if that’s how it went down.

The 6’5 right-hander is still just 19 years old, but he’s already showing Blue Jays fans why the organization was excited to get him under contract. He pitched with the Vancouver Canadians in Rookie Ball in 2019, and was very successful in his first real season as a professional. He finished the year with a 2.24 ERA over 13 starts and 64.1 innings, also posting a 1.088 WHIP.

It was also encouraging to see him strikeout 64 batters against 23 walks, also showing the ability to post fan a hitter per inning, and flashing decent control for a teenager. Chances are he’ll move up to at least Low-A Lansing in 2020 to start with, and if things go well he’ll likely even have a shot at moving up to High-A before the season is over. However, because of his young age and lack of innings on his talented right arm, I don’t think the Blue Jays will be in a big rush with Kloffenstein.

He’s one of a few that will be part of the next wave of pitching talent that comes after the Pearson’s and Pardinho’s, and I don’t know that we’ll see him in the big leagues until 2022, or maybe even later. Keep in mind that he just turned 19 in August, and he was finishing high school a little over a year ago.

However, when the time comes that he’s ready I think the Blue Jays are going to be in great hands. Especially because he’s not alone.

Eric Pardinho

When we started the 2019 season, one of the most hyped prospects in the Blue Jays’ system was Eric Pardinho, who just turned 18 in January of this year. He quietly put together a very encouraging campaign with the Lansing Lugnuts, and now that the Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s, Bo Bichette‘s and others of the organization have arrived, don’t be surprised if the Pardinho chatter starts picking up sooner than later.

That sounds a little absurd when we’re talking about someone who has yet to turn 19, but Pardino is another young talent that will making an MLB impact in his early 20’s. I don’t think he’ll have a chance to make his debut as a teenager, as he’s got a lot of development yet to do in the minor leagues before he’ll be ready, even if his talent will carry him a long way.

In 2019 he made seven appearances with Lansing, posting a 2.41 ERA, a 1.248 WHIP, and striking out 30 hitters against 13 walks in 33.2 innings. As far as the performance on the field was concerned, he checked off any boxes they could ask of him at this stage of his career.

Unfortunately Pardinho experienced what is all too common for pitchers as they work toward their MLB dream, hitting the sidelines with tightness in his elbow. There was a real fear that Pardinho would have to go under the knife to make things right, but thankfully some rest and rehab took care of the problem and he should be good to go when next season rolls around. Because of his age and the extra caution they’ll likely employ with the injury scare, I think the earliest we could expect Pardinho to debut would be in late 2021, and more likely in 2022. He’ll still only be 20-21 years old though, so it’s not like that will be a disappointing delay.

It looks like the Brazilian-born talented dodged a bullet this time with with elbow, but it is a good reminder that injuries play a very real part in any pitchers development, and in their ultimate ceiling as big leaguers. Hopefully Pardinho and all of the rest of the names I’m discussing in this article can have healthy careers and his their fullest potential. If they can come even close, the Blue Jays are going to be in great shape.

Simeon Woods Richardson

The last pitching prospect I’m going to cover for now is Simeon Woods Richardson, and there is potential that he could be the best of the lot.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know much about him when the Blue Jays acquired him from New York this past July, as he came over with Anthony Kay in exchange for Marcus Stroman. At the time, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with the return, but’s mostly because I was unfamiliar with the potential of the pair. It turns out they’re both pretty good, and Woods Richardson has a chance to be great.

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He hasn’t appeared on any top 100 prospects lists just yet, but that will likely change within the year, if not sooner. The 19-year-old was drafted by the Mets in the second round in 2018, and really impressed after the Blue Jays acquired him. He was assigned to pitch with in High-A with the Dunedin Blue Jays and posted a 2.54 ERA and a 0.882 WHIP in six appearances totalling 28.1 innings. The then-18-year-old struck out 29 batters against just seven walks, and finished with a record of 3-2.

One thing that gave me comfort after the Stroman trade was reading comments on Twitter from Mets fans that were upset about giving up Woods Richardson, and it turns out there was good reason for their frustration. I’m sure they’ll ultimately be pleased with what Stroman provides in 2020, but the Mets didn’t give up chump change to get the Blue Jays’ best starter, as it appeared to many of us at the time of the deal.

My guess is that Woods Richardson will start the year back in Dunedin with the opportunity to quickly move up to Double-A if he performs well. He managed to throw 106.2 innings between his time with the Mets and Blue Jays’ organizations last year, so building up his innings limit won’t be the same issue for him as it will be for others we’ve already discussed. With that in mind, I think Woods Richardson may also be slightly ahead of guys like Kloffeinstein, Pardinho, and Williams, even if he’s only 19 as well. That said, don’t expect him to make his big league debut next season either, as a timeline of late 2021 or even 2022 is probably more realistic.

Although the Blue Jays may be a little thin in their starting pitching stables for the immediate future, I would argue that their starting staff has the chance to be very strong in a few years. Not everyone is going to stay healthy, hit their highest potential, or even fit on the roster, but there should be enough talent around to put together a pretty formidable group. It’ll require some patience, but it’s yet another reason for Blue Jays fans to be excited about the future of baseball in Toronto.