Blue Jays’ WBC discovery takes next step with promotion to Single-A

It has been an impressive few months for Giaconino Lasaracina. The Venezuelan-Italian who was signed by the Toronto Blue Jays just before the 2026 World Baseball Classic has been promoted to Single-A Dunedin. The 22-year-old catcher / infielder was playing Italian Serie A baseball for the last three years and put up some eye popping numbers. Now that he has arrived stateside it may be early, but it's also fair to say, that those numbers might not be a mirage.

Between his age 18-20 season's Lasaracina produced a .374/.451/.579 slash line with six home runs and a 1.03 OPS in 91 games. The Blue Jays signed him on Mar. 4 making him the first unsigned player from a tournament roster to put his name on the dotted line. Since joining the Blue Jays organization, Lasaracina has posted a .365/.441/.788 slash line, hitting six home runs in 14 games with the Rookie-ball Blue Jays.

He's also driven in 20 runs on 19 hits while he's scored 13 times. He's played four games at first, seven at catcher and has been the team's designated hitter three times. Behind the plate he's posted a perfect fielding percentage, while he's made one error in 31 chances at third base.

While we have to take all of this with a grain of salt as Lasaracina is playing against players who are, on average, almost three years younger than him. However, he's never played against this level of competition and by having this kind of early success it can make the front office feel good about their investment.

Lasaracina providing a bit of catching depth the Blue Jays were said to be lacking

The Blue Jays were said to be thin when it came to their catching depth going into the season. After Alejandro Kirk and Tyler Heineman, many felt that there wasn't much in the system beyond them.

But after an injury to Kirk early in the season, Brandon Valenzuela has proven that to not be the case. The rookie catcher came up to the big leagues immediately solidified himself as a more-than-capable big league catcher. He's posted a .261/.340/.457 slash line with seven home runs in 49 games played.

Lasaracina is not close to being available to being on the radar of the big league roster but his success, along with Valenzuela's, is likely proving a lot of those experts wrong about the depth in Toronto's system. It could be the way they are preparing these catchers for life at the big league level, or finding those intangibles that really help these players succeed. Whatever it is, the rise of Lasaracina is a nod to Toronto's scouting staff in being able to find another potential diamond in the rough.

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