Blue Jays top prospect Ricky Tiedemann’s story is turning into one of wasted potential

The most recent update of Baseball America’s (subscription required) well respected top 100 prospects ranking includes only one Blue Jay — infielder Orelvis Martinez at No. 78. He’s serving an 80-game PED suspension at present, so his progress to The Show has been stunted in what would have been a great year for the organisation to see what they potentially had in him.

Ditto that potential for former top prospect, southpaw Ricky Tiedemann, who no longer features in BA’s top 100. He’d ranked as Jays Journal’s top Blue Jays prospect as recently as July prior to undergoing Tommy John surgery. He’s been replaced in BA’s ranking by the likes of the oft-injured Kumar Rocker, so there’s hope for a comeback if he can ever just stay healthy, but that’s a big “if”.

Per Baseball America, after Tiedemann fell out of their ranking from No. 83 in their July update, “We may very well add Tiedemann back to the Top 100 once he’s healthy, much like we did with Kumar Rocker. However, Tiedemann’s Tommy John surgery will sideline him for much or all of 2025. For now, he’s sliding off the list.”

A run of poor drafting and poor player development by the Blue Jays organization has manifested itself in a bottom third farm system ranking for over three years now since they 2022 preseason. Even after the July amateur draft, international signings and trading for a haul of prospects at the July Trade Deadline, the rankings have not improved much, if at all.

That failure has serious implications for the Blue Jays current competitive window. All of their peers in their AL East have higher ranked farm systems; the Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox systems are all ranked top ten by Baseball America, MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs. Four American League teams have six plus top 100 prospects to Toronto’s one, complicating future Wild Card chases and MLB roster talent upgrades via trades.

Tiedemann’s story one of wasted potential?

Including a successful stint in the Arizona Fall League last year, the 22-year-old Tiedemann has only pitched 158 innings in the minors over his first three professional seasons. 2024 was essentially a write-off after a series of arm injuries before his surgery; he only pitched 17.1 innings over 8 minor league starts with a 5.19 ERA this year.

But the glimpses of talent he has show have been tantalising, striking out 27 batters in those 17.1 innings this year after 82 strikeouts in only 44 innings last year. Last fall, he was named the 2023 Arizona Fall League’s Pitcher of the Year after pitching to a 2.50 ERA in 4 starts and 18 innings against some of the top 22 ~ 23-year-old prospects in baseball.

Drafted in the 3rd round (91st overall) of the 2021 amateur draft, Tiedemann has made a steady rise up the prospect rankings, peaking as high as No. 22 on Baseball America’s 2024 preseason top 100. His stuff has been described as “electric”, with scouting grades of 65 for his fastball, and 60 for his slider and changeup, which is not something any organisation gives up on at age 22.

Baseball America’s scouting report says, “Tiedemann is a tall, strong-bodied lefthander with the build prototypical of workhorse starters. Despite his physical appearance, his health and durability have been major question marks. When healthy, Tiedemann has an outlier combination of velocity, movement and deception… His fastball sits 94-97 mph and touches 98 mph… His slider… generated whiffs at a rate of 39% in-zone in 2023 as well as a 49% rate of called-plus-swinging strikes.”

Wasted potential flashbacks to Carpenter, Drabek, Romero, McGuire, Norris and Pearson

Tiedemann isn't the first “can’t miss” prospect who’s struggled with the Blue Jays organisation. There’s been a long line of pitchers who were supposed to be the real deal , but either were ineffective for Toronto (Chris Carpenter, Kyle Drabek, Ricky Romero, Daniel Norris, Deck McGuire and Nate Pearson to name a few) or couldn’t stay healthy (Aaron Sanchez, Pearson, Julian Merryweather and now Tiedemann).

Daniel Norris and Nate Pearson come to mind as similar top prospects whose potential was wasted by Toronto. After posting a 12-2 record and 2.53 ERA over 26 games (25 starts) and 124.2 innings across three minor league levels in 2014, the left-handed Norris ranked as high as the No. 18 prospect on Baseball America’s preseason 2015 top 100, and made 5 starts for Toronto that year before being traded to the Detroit Tigers in the David Price trade.

Sure, the Jays went to the ALCS that season after Price went 9-1 with a 2.30 ERA over 11 starts and 74.1 innings, but he would leave as a free agent after the season when the Blue Jays were unable to extend him. Norris, who was 22-years-old at the time of the trade would go on to a middling 8 seasons in Detroit, pitching to a 4.52 ERA over 489.1 innings, never reaching the potential and promise that he was hyped to have.

Pearson is perhaps a more cautionary tale for Tiedemann believers: after peaking as high as the No. 7 overall prospect on Baseball America’s 2020 preseason top 100 ranking following an outstanding minor league season across three levels in 2019 (5-4 with a 2.30 ERA over 25 starts and 101.2 innings), the big righty would go on to pitch only 115.2 innings over parts of four seasons in Toronto before being dealt to the Chicago Cubs at the 2024 Trade Deadline.

He suffered a litany of injuries with the Blue Jays organisation, and didn’t pitch at all in the major leagues for Toronto 2022 after a bout of mononucleosis during spring training, followed by a season-ending lat strain in June. Off to a fresh start with the Cubs, the now 28-year-old Pearson has found some early success with his new organisation.

It’s interesting to note that Norris had far more minor league experience under his belt by his age-22 season. Norris pitched 372 innings with the Blue Jays organisation from 2012 to 2015, including 30 innings over 10 games (including 6 starts) with the big league club.

Including 20.1 innings in the Arizona Fall League in 2018, Pearson had only pitched 161.2 innings with the Blue Jays organisation through his age-22 season, but that included 18 major league innings over 5 games (4 starts) in the pandemic shortened 2020 season. That’s more comparable to the 158 professional innings under Tiedemann’s belt, and he will likely miss all of next year recovering from his surgery. He’s also yet to make his MLB debut.

So Blue Jays fans will likely have to wait until the 2026 season to see if Tiedemann can realise his potential, and avoid the same pitfalls as Norris and Pearson. Obviously there aren’t that many “can’t miss” prospects who live up to the hype like Roy Halladay eventually did, but let’s hope all that potential isn’t wasted.