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The lack of postseason-worthy impact in the Toronto Blue Jays’ rotation is likely to be addressed via the trade market this summer, but Alek Manoah’s strong spring is showing there may be internal hope on the horizon, too.

No matter how you have them ordered, Manoah and Simeon Woods Richardson are the club’s top two pitching prospects not named Nate Pearson, and both are a stone’s throw and a little bit of development time away from the major leagues, potentially starting alongside each other in Double-A when the minor league campaign is scheduled to begin in May.

But Manoah’s performance in Grapefruit League action has been eye-opening, especially on Sunday.

“His two outings have been just outstanding,” manager Charlie Montoyo said of the 2019 11th overall pick. “He seems in control. He’s not nervous. He’s ready to attack the hitters and it’s one of those where his line shows what he did. It wasn’t just luck. He dominated today and he did the other day, too.

“I’m not surprised. We picked him high for a reason. What he’s done, it’s been great for me to see. Not only me, the whole coaching staff. We get excited when we see something like that because, you know, pitching is the name of the game.”

The mid-90s fastball and wipeout slider look ready to play at the major-league level, but it’s the development of his changeup and command of all three offerings that were on display Sunday in a dominant three-inning effort against a New York Yankees lineup that featured veteran bats Mike Tauchman, Luke Voit, Jay Bruce and Clint Frazier as the first four hitters.

Manoah, who pitches exclusively out of the stretch, navigated three perfect frames, striking out seven Yanks in total and getting an elite nine swings and misses, including five on eight sliders alone.

It’s important to remember that it’s only mid-March and hitters all across baseball are still trying to find their timing, but Manoah’s stuff is legit and his confidence is building.

“It’s been pretty good for me just to kind of understand that the stuff plays,” Manoah said Sunday afternoon. “Kind of just go out there and be yourself. Just go out there and stay level-headed and let the game take care of the rest, just do everything that I can control.”

Manoah and catcher Reese McGuire had New York bats off-balance from the get-go, with the 6-foot-6, 260-pounder dialing it up to a max of 96.6 mph with his heater.

“Just getting kind of some late swings or some off-balance swings tells me they’re trying to gear up for the fastball and that was kind of me and Reese’s plan coming in: “Hey, we threw a lot of fastballs down in Tampa when we played against them last time, so let’s try and give them a taste of that and then keep them off balance once we get ahead,’” Manoah said.
McGuire said the big right-hander’s changeup was the best he’s seen it this spring.

“We were mainly using that heater/slider, mixed in some changeups to some of the lefties, even a couple to the righties,” McGuire said. “He was throwing everything for a strike, which makes it easy back there as a catcher. You feel confident in calling any pitch and he was on a roll, for sure.

“Everyone can see how good he is,” the catcher added.

While Manoah has shown off his power arsenal this spring in two outings — both against the Yankees as the Jays try to hide their veteran arms from a division rival that they’ll see opening day — striking out 11 across five innings and allowing just one hit, he still has just 17 pro innings of short-season ball on his resume.

This is where the mystery of a lost minor league season in 2020 and how much developmental stock is put into a player’s time at the alternate site in Rochester last summer comes into play.
Even the Blue Jays are trying to figure out where a lot of prospects are this spring as they face real opponents for the first time in a long time.

Manoah is definitely doing what he can to prove he’s not all that far off from the majors, and the first half of the minor league season in May through July will provide more important evidence of where he’s at.

If anything, the fastball/slider combination and how he’s looked this spring would seem to indicate that he could play a bullpen weapon role in the second half if that’s where the Jays want to take his development.

That’s not to say he couldn’t prove to be a rotation candidate, either, if the need arises.
While that may be a tad aggressive, he will without a doubt be an option in 2022.

“I trust my stuff, I trust my abilities and I trust my work ethic,” Manoah said of testing himself at the alternate site last year against the most advance hitters he had ever faced. “Going out there and competing against really good hitters and stuff like that was extremely fun. Those guys, they know how to take those sliders in the dirt, they know how to extend those at-bats and they know how to work hard and they know how to have good approaches. As long as I can stay within myself and trust my stuff and make my pitches, I really think that I can compete at any level.”
The key to Manoah’s development, in addition to simply getting some innings under his belt and pitching deep into games as a starter, is the development of that third pitch, his changeup.
Across 44 pitches Sunday, Manoah threw four of them. The most impressive was a cambio he got Derek Dietrich to swing through for a K in the second inning.

“Everybody at this level can hit a 98-mph fastball,” Manoah said recently of the steps he’s taken since his debut in 2019. “Being able to mix in all the other stuff, it doesn’t matter the count or the hitter, is what’s separating me right now.”

The alternate site setting gave Manoah a chance to work on that pitch in a stress-free environment, and tinker with not only some of the technology at his disposal but to get on-the-spot feedback from hitters in order to create a better feel for what works and what doesn’t.

“Just being able to get a really good feel and a really good understanding for when the pitch is good and when it’s bad, and being able to adjust when it’s bad I think is the biggest difference,” Manoah said. “In college, I had a really good changeup, but being able to adjust pitch to pitch, I wasn’t there yet.”

With the Jays in win-now mode, the organization will look to the minor leagues more and more for help from their top prospects if they are pushing their way into the conversation with their performance.

Manoah could do just that this year. As could Woods Richardson, who has made an impression, as well, following Manoah with three scoreless innings Sunday, running his blank frame streak to five innings this spring with four strikeouts.

Manoah feels ready for a big summer.

“I’m a big guy, I’m a horse, and I train really hard and I’m built for the long run,” he said. “Whether it’s 100 innings, 150 or 200, whatever it is, I’m ready to go.”​