Three pitchers the Blue Jays should target as minor league depth

With reports Toronto has signed Cuban right-hander Yariel Rodríguez to a four-year, $32M deal that has yet to be officially announced, the pitching staff for the Blue Jays’ 26-man MLB roster looks pretty much set for the 2024 season. Gone from the 2023 staff is starter Hyun Jin Ryu, along with relievers Jordan Hicks, Jay Jackson and Adam Cimber.

Starting pitching depth on the 40-man roster currently includes Mitch White, Wes Parsons and Bowden Francis, who could be stretched back out after tossing 36.1 innings of relief for Toronto last year. He also made 7 starts for Triple-A Buffalo in 2023, with a 2.67 ERA over 27 innings.

Top prospect Ricky Tiedemann should start the year with the Buffalo Bisons as well, but after only pitching 62 innings combined last year in the minors and the Arizona Fall League, the Jays won’t be in any rush to promote their 21-year old stud.

No. 13 prospect Chad Dallas should also see a promotion to Buffalo this year after making 18 starts covering 96.2 innings at Double-A New Hampshire in 2023, and being named the Jays’ right-handed pitcher organizational All-Star by MiLB.com.

Relief pitching depth on the 40-man roster includes the aforementioned White and Francis, along with Nate Pearson, Zach Pop, Yosver Zulueta, Hagen Danner and lefty Brendon Little. White and Trevor Richards are both out of minor league options, so they would have to be made available to other clubs if they don’t make the 2024 MLB-roster.

One of those pitchers on the 40-man will also have to be traded or designated for assignment to make room for Rodríguez when his deal becomes official.

Pitchers Toronto could add as minor league pitching depth for 2024

With the departures of Zach Thompson (free agency), Casey Lawrence (released), Thomas Hatch (claimed off waivers by Pittsburgh) and Drew Hutchison (released), the organization needs to replace 54 starts at Buffalo. The trade of Double-A starters Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein to St. Louis for Jordan Hicks means 35 starts for New Hampshire in 2023 will need to be replaced.

Certainly internal options can be used to fill those gaps, but a few depth signings can’t hurt. As the adage goes, “You can’t have too much pitching.” Only five MLB starters, including Chris Bassitt of the Blue Jays, pitched 200 or more innings in 2023, down from 44 just twenty years ago in 2003.

On average, MLB teams used 28 pitchers over the course of the 2023 season; the Blue Jays were below average at only 26. But that figure includes an inning from utility infielder Ernie Clement, and just 0.1 innings from the hard luck Hagen Danner, who suffered an oblique strain in his major league debut. It’s reasonable to ask if they’ll enjoy such good health again from their pitching staff in 2024?

As the Blue Jays’ minor league pitching depth has been thinned out, there are also opportunities to try catching lightning in a bottle with minor league signings this offseason. Could they find someone like Joe Mantiply, who Arizona signed as a minor-league free agent from the Yankees in 2019?

As of early December last year, there were 284 minor league free agents from AL organizations and 289 from NL organizations in 2023, including former MLB All-Stars, regulars, utility players and top prospects.

Let's take a look at 3 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.

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.