Three pitchers the Blue Jays should target as minor league depth

Eric Lauer

Lefty Eric Lauer is still only 28, but was originally drafted as a high schooler by Toronto in the 17th round of the 2013 amateur draft; he didn’t sign with the Blue Jays, and the Padres later made him the 25th overall pick in the 2016 amateur draft. He was hyped along with Cal Quantrill, MacKenzie Gore and Joey Lucchesi as the future rotation in San Diego, and made his major league debut for the Padres back in 2018.

He was the first player from his first round draft class to make the big leagues, but was traded to Milwaukee after the 2019 season along with young infielder Luis Arias for starter Zach Davies and CF Trent Grisham.

Lauer elected minor league free agency after last season after being outrighted from the Brewers 40-man roster. He struggled in 2023, suffering an impingement in his non-throwing shoulder that sent him to the IL in late May.

Statcast shows that he lost velocity on his four-seam fastball, which averaged 90.8 mph in 2023 versus 93.3 mph in 2022. He also lost three mph on both his cutter and curveball, and told Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he’d battled inflammation in his throwing elbow and shoulder in addition to the right shoulder injury,

While his career 4.30 ERA over six seasons and 596.2 MLB innings doesn’t jump off the page, a number of stats are intriguing:

• He’s got a better ERA for his career in 57 starts versus teams over .500 at 4.20 than against teams with a losing record (4.41 in 55 starts);

• He’s 7-2 with a 2.63 ERA in 12 starts against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but 1-6 with a 7.58 ERA in 12 starts against the Colorado Rockies, including 0-6 with a 12.73 ERA in 7 starts at Coors Field;

• He’s 2-0 with a 1.74 ERA in 2 starts and 10.1 innings against the Jays’ AL East rival New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, but 0-1 with an 8.33 ERA in 4 starts and 16.2 innings against Tampa Bay and Baltimore; and,

• In 2021 and 2022, Lauer combined for a 3.47 ERA with a 23.8% strikeout rate in 277.1 innings over those two seasons with Milwaukee, and also started a playoff game against Atlanta in the 2021 NLDS.

Given his age, Lauer seems like a prototypical bounce back candidate if he can recover from his injuries and get to work in the Blue Jays state-of-the-art pitching lab.

Matthew Boyd

The Blue Jays drafted southpaw Matt Boyd in the 6th round of the 2013 amateur draft out of Oregon State University. He’s perhaps best known by Toronto fans as part of the trade package, along with Jairo Labourt and Daniel Norris, used by then GM Alek Anthopoulos to acquire David Price for the 2015 AL pennant drive.

In 9 MLB seasons, including 8 with Detroit, he’s pitched to a 4.94 ERA over 868.2 innings, including 160 starts. Given he turns 33 next month, he’s likely reached the depth signing stage of his career, especially given he won’t be available until after the All-Star break this year as he continues his recovery from Tommy John surgery last summer.

As Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press wrote after his injury, “Boyd underwent left flexor tendon surgery in September 2021, so this marks his second arm surgery within the last two years. He hasn't pitched more than 78.2 innings (in 2021) since the 2019 season.”

Which makes him cheap and a rebound candidate from his recent arm troubles. Again, Boyd feels like a potential candidate to rework his mechanics and delivery at the Jays’ pitching lab in Dunedin as he recovers from Tommy John. If he can continue to rework his slider, perhaps he can follow the same path as Ryu and Chad Green did last year, and potentially provide pitching depth in the 2H of 2024?

Shintaro Fujinami

While a 7.18 ERA across 79 innings as an MLB rookie in 2023 doesn’t scream depth, both Oakland and Baltimore saw something in 29-year old Shintaro Fujinami’s 4-seam fastball that averaged 98.4 mph. Coupled with a 92.8 mph split finger and 88.2 mph cutter, there are certainly some raw tools there to work with. He struck out a slightly above-MLB average 23.2% of the batters he faced in 2023 against a poor walk rate of 12.6%.

Over 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers, Fujinami did enjoy success in Nippon Professional Baseball, with a 3.41 ERA over 994.1 innings. He went first overall in the NPB draft in 2012, the same year Shohei Ohtani was drafted after him only because scouts thought Ohtani might go directly to MLB.

If he can harness his control and get closer to what Statcast sees as an expected ERA of 4.80, he’s certainly an intriguing pitcher. FanGraphs projects that he’ll get that strikeout rate above 25% in 2024, with a walk rate below 11%, and sees that driving an ERA of 4.05 over 65 innings as a reliever.