Is 2025 too soon for top prospects’ debut?

As 40-year-old Max Scherzer returned to the mound for the Toronto Blue Jays this week, a player 19-years younger than him could also, conceivably, find his way to wearing a Blue Jays uniform in 2025.

21-year-old Trey Yesavage has been turning heads this year in the Blue Jays system, flying through the minor league rankings. He began his year with the Single-A Florida State League Dunedin Blue Jays and within two months has already pitched at the Double-A level with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. All this after being selected in the first round of the MLB draft less than a year ago.

Is 2025 too soon for top prospects’ debut?

Player Development Director Joe Scalfini told Mitch Bannon of the Athletic last week that Yesavage is on pace to potentially toe the rubber for the big league club as early as this season.
"If he continues to dominate performance-wise, in tandem with consistent routines and progress with his priority goals, then it's not out of the question," Sclafani said. "It's our group's job to think long term and put him in the best position to succeed, but Trey will ultimately be the driver of those decisions."

Five other players from last years draft have already made their MLB debuts, including the second overall pick Chase Burns who shocked the Yankees in his first major league start earlier this week. The other four players are all position players who have seen varying degrees of success.

Yesavage has appeared in three games at the Double-A level and finally met some adversity in his pro-ball career as his first two outings with the Fisher Cats didn't go as smoothly for the young right hander. He gave up five earned runs in just 6.2 IP on four hits, and seven walks, although he did rack up eight strikeouts over that time. It’s not so much the hits that were a concern for Yesavage, it was his control. While he no doubt has incredible swing and miss stuff – mowing down 88 batters in 50.2 innings pitched in the A-ball levels, he also allowed 19 walks over that time.

Following those two outings, Yesavage showed off his ability to adapt to his new environment and fired an absolute gem of a ball game on Wednesday evening when he threw five innings of one hit ball. He walked one, and struck out eight of the Hartford Yardgoats.

Having outings like these prove Yesavage is on the right path toward another promotion, however a detriment to getting to the big leagues is his innings limit. The Blue Jays have been very strict about how many innings their young pitchers throw in any given season. The front office would likely cap him at 120-130 innings across his entire year and so far in 2025, Yesavage has hit 62 innings pitched. That is still lots of runway in terms of this season, but he made need all of that runway to get through Double-A and Triple-A.

While it is exciting to hear someone inside the Blue Jays have as high praise for Yesavage as Scalfini has, it could take an epic run from the youngster to get to Toronto in 2025, however with other players in his draft year getting to 'The Show' it's not the most outrageous suggestion to think he too can get there. The good news though is that this rapid succession this season should give Yesavage an inside track to make a case for himself in the Blue Jays 2026 rotation.