Yesavage the start of vital restocking period for Blue Jays

TORONTO — There is no easy blueprint when it comes to drafting and developing in baseball.

The best teams are able to churn out talent consistently, but they also do it with a great amount of agility, learning to adapt on the fly, finding new ways of doing things, and maybe most importantly, figuring out quickly what isn’t working for them.

When Mark Shapiro’s regime took over the Toronto Blue Jays almost nine years ago, he pointed to turning the organization into a drafting and developing machine, a metamorphosis that would allow his vision of not just winning, but sustainable winning over a course of a long period to come to fruition.

The Blue Jays have been anything but, especially recently.

Their drafting track record has been lacklustre at best, offset by a sublime year one pick of Bo Bichette that came via a split camp of supporters, and a handful of other low-key developmental wins in the years since.

As the Jays have turned into a winner on the field, pushing for or making the postseason in every year since 2020 until this year’s disappointing regression, it’s become clear that Shapiro’s vision hasn’t exactly unfolded the way he envisioned.

Their inability to develop starting pitching has become an obvious flaw, while the farm system overall is as thin as it's been since the Jays were making runs to the ALCS almost a decade ago.

There have been a handful of nice late-round finds and developmental success stories on the position player side — Davis Schneider and Spencer Horwitz — but it’s a bottom of the barrel system as the trade deadline approaches.

There’s an opportunity to restock via trade over the next two weeks, an important route to rebuilding the farm system with, hopefully, upper-level talent that can contribute in 2025.

Down the road a little further, Sunday night was another opportunity, as the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft came and went, with the Blue Jays going back to the college pitching well, one that worked very well for them last time with Alek Manoah back in 2019.

Enter 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher Trey Yesavage, who slid slightly to the Jays at pick No. 20 as a consensus top-five NCAA arm available.

While many expected the Jays to go with a bat, potentially a power-hitting outfielder, this was a clear best player available scenario, combined with the fact you can never have too much pitching.

Shane Farrell, who’s now overseeing his fifth draft as the Blue Jays director of amateur scouting, gave his take on the newest arm in the system shortly after the selection.

The scouting report on the East Carolina product read like that of most big-bodied college arms going in the first round.

“Big, physical right-handed starter with three above-average pitches,” Farrell said. “He’s proven to be durable and held good workloads through his time at East Carolina and he’s shown the secondary pitches and fastball quality are really strong and we’re thrilled to be able to add him.”

The allure is a riding fastball and an out-pitch splitter headlining a fairly advanced mix for someone who was in the bullpen a couple years ago.

“The size and physicality and the ability work north and south and pitch at the top and bottom of the zones,” Farrell said of his starter traits. “The fastball has really good carry from a high release point and the splitter working off that and a good slider as well. He tunnels his pitches very well, has good deception and has thrown a solid amount of strikes.”

From here, it’s typical development stuff for Yesavage as he begins his journey to the big leagues, which ideally has him as a rotation mainstay heading into the 2027 season. Maybe sooner if things go Manoah.

Build innings, get used to the five-day pro schedule and — this has been a problem for a lot of Jays pitching prospects — stay healthy.

“Trey’s somebody we’ve liked for a couple years now dating back to his sophomore year where we got to see him pitch quite a bit as an underclassman and somebody we’ve followed closely,” Farrell remarked. “As our pick was getting closer and he remained on the board, it was a decision we were really happy to make.”

With the 2024 season now a wash, the future needs to be tended to carefully over the next two weeks.

By all accounts, Yesavage could be a very good start.