With a farm system needing young arms, the Toronto Blue Jays selected college right-handed pitcher Trey Yesavage from East Carolina with the No. 20 pick in the first round of this year’s MLB Draft.
“We’re really excited to add Trey to the organization,” Blue Jays amateur scouting director Shane Farrell said. “Big, physical right-hand starter with three above-average pitches. 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. We’re thrilled to be able to add him.”
The moment every kid dreams of 💙
Trey Yesavage hears his name called in the #MLBDraft 🤗 pic.twitter.com/GpuipYzLfS
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) July 15, 2024
The 20-year-old Yesavage was ranked 13th on The Athletic’s Keith Law’s final pre-2024 MLB Draft top-100 prospect ranking.
“Trey’s somebody we’ve liked for a couple of years now dating back to his sophomore year, where we got to see him pitch quite a bit as an underclassman and somebody we followed closely,” Farrell said. “As our pick was getting closer and he remained on the board, it was a decision that we were really, really happy to make.”
GO DEEPER
Get to know Blue Jays’ first-round pick Trey Yesavage, the most polished starter in the class
At 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, Yesavage has a starter’s frame and was injury-free this year, except for a collapsed lung resulting from an accident during a dry needling session. He missed the AAC tournament while recovering, but returned in time to pitch in the NCAA Regionals.
The Blue Jays did their due diligence on the incident and Farrell said it was not a concern.
“It didn’t really factor into the decision-making at all,” the club’s scouting director said. “It’s part of his routine and normal recovery prep and there was a small incident where he ended up missing a start and came back and pitched shortly thereafter, so no issues coming back from that.”
Yesavage throws a lot of strikes and has four pitches, including a four-seam fastball that averages mid-90s and can reach 98, a breaking ball, a split-finger fastball and a curveball. Law wrote that “Yesavage has a super-short arm action but makes it work” and that he can succeed as a primary fastball/splitter guy if he stays healthy.
Farrell identified Yesavage’s splitter and breaking ball (Yesavage told The Athletic’s Melissa Lockard that he calls it a cutter, but it acts more like a slider) as weapons.
“The unique thing about Trey is from his release height and (arm) his slot, he tunnels his pitches extremely well, and there’s some added deception to his mix,” Farrell said.
Among the college pitchers in the 2024 class, Yesavage may be the closest to major-league-ready, according to Law.
Yesavage told Lockard that he would welcome the pressure that comes with that. “It’d be amazing,” he said of possibly being the first in his class to reach the big leagues.
The Blue Jays, however, aren’t putting an accelerated timeline on Yesavage’s development.
“It’d be unfair to put a timeline on him right now without getting to know him better and getting him into the organization and learning more about him as a person and an athlete and understanding his routines and how he likes to work and things like that,” Farrell said. “We feel like we got a pitcher that is advanced and comes equipped with good pitches and has some built-in workload already. We’re feeling like we have a good foundation in place.”
Amid a disappointing season on the field, this year’s draft is an important chance for the Blue Jays to begin restocking a farm system that has steadily dropped in the rankings in recent years and isn’t regarded highly at the moment. Ahead of the 2024 season, the Blue Jays farm system ranked 20th per Keith Law, but developments from within Toronto’s prospect pool this season have been mixed.
Top prospect Ricky Tiedemann has spent most of the season dealing with a nerve injury and recently the 21-year-old left-hander exited his first start back in Triple A with left forearm tightness. Only days after making his MLB debut, top-hitting prospect Orelvis Martinez received an 80-game suspension from MLB for violating their PED policy. Meanwhile, left-handed pitcher Brandon Barriera, their first-round pick from 2022, underwent Tommy John surgery in April.
There have been success stories, however. Since he was recalled from Triple A in June, Spencer Horwitz has been among the Blue Jays’ best hitters, slashing .324/.421/.490 in 32 games. Leo Jiménez, who ranked fourth among Toronto’s prospects before the season, made his big-league debut earlier this month and is hitting .364/.481/.455 in eight games.
This year, the Blue Jays have a draft signing pool of $8,987,000. Their picks include a compensation-round pick for losing free agent Matt Chapman. It will be the 136th overall pick, coming between the fourth and fifth rounds.
Last year, the Blue Jays also owned the 20th overall pick in the first round and selected high school shortstop Arjun Nimmala, who ranked 59th on Law’s top 100 MLB prospects earlier this year. Nimmala is playing with the Low-A Dunedin Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays have traded away most of their recent first-round picks including Jordan Groshans (2018), Austin Martin (2020) and Gunnar Hoglund (2021) in moves to acquire MLB talent.
(Photo: LM Otero / Associated Press)