Blue Jays really need to catch a break with their newest pitching phenom

The Toronto Blue Jays drafted 6-foot-4 Trey Yesavage with the 20th overall pick in the July amateur draft this year and agreed to terms with a $4.1775M signing bonus. The 21-year-old has yet to throw a pitch professionally but already debuted at No. 94 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospect rankings with the September update.

That offered some solace to Blue Jays fans who were disappointed when the midseason farm system ranking updates from Baseball America and MLB Pipeline were unkind to Blue Jays prospects. Not a single Toronto pitcher could be found in those Top 100 prospect rankings, which only added insult to injury with Toronto’s farm ranking mired in the bottom third and arguably MLB’s worst bullpen, with a league-low -2.5 fWAR and 4.84 FIP.

Injuries decimated the pitching prospect ranks this year, with Ricky Tiedemann, Brandon Barriera, Chad Dallas, Landen Maroudis, Nolan Perry and Carson Pierce all going under the knife for reconstructive elbow surgeries. Big league starter Alek Manoah also had UCL surgery, which only shone a brighter spotlight on the lack of organizational pitching depth.

Blue Jays really need to catch a break with their newest pitching phenom Trey Yesavage

Enter the big righty out of East Carolina, where he starred for the Pirates with a 19-2 win-loss record and 2.58 ERA, with 295 strikeouts over 195.1 innings in his three college seasons. As a starter over his sophomore and junior seasons, he went 18-2 with a 2.29 ERA over 169.1 innings with 250 strikeouts. He finished off his college career with a flourish, dominating with a 2.03 ERA and a 40.4% strikeout rate against an 8.9% walk rate over 93.1 innings this year.

The Pipeline's scouting report says he features a 60-grade fastball that sits comfortably in the 93-95 mph range and tops out at 98 mph when he needs it, with a 60-grade splitter he uses against left-handed hitters and a 60-grade slider he’ll use as an offspeed pitch against righties.

He also experienced a significant medical scare in May this year when he was hospitalized with a partially collapsed lung. As Steve Adams of MLBTR noted, “[he] remarkably was cleared to return to the mound just a couple weeks later and made his final start of the season opposite eventual No. 2 overall [MLB draft] pick Chase Burns and Wake Forest.”

In Baseball America’s 2024 Draft Report Card (subscription required), they rate Yesavage’s fastball as the best amongst the Blue Jays’ picks and see him as the closest of this year’s picks to the majors. Carlos Collazo notes, “he’s already been back on the field since [the collapsed lung] and had perhaps the best combination of now stuff, a diverse pitch mix, advanced command and an extensive starter track record at the college level in the class. He should move quickly.”

The Blue Jays hosted Yesavage in Toronto in early August, and he both sounds and looks like he’s ready to take advantage of the opportunity to move quickly through the system.

With so many pitching prospects ahead of him rehabbing through next season from UCL surgeries, plus new minor-league pitching coordinator Justin Lehr to help guide him, let’s hope the team can catch a break and finally produce another homegrown starter.

Manoah is the last Toronto top draft pick to earn a promotion to the big league roster, but that was back in May 2021. If Yesavage can stay healthy and develop quickly, he would provide a huge boost for an organization starved for a feel-good pitcher development story outside of Bowden Francis, as well as more depth for a starting rotation that remains thin beyond their big three.