Toronto Blue Jays Top 38 Prospects

The eighth overall pick in the 2025 draft, Parker looks like a well-rounded future contributor. After a solid, if unspectacular, start to his career in Dunedin, the Mississippi native tore the cover off the ball in June and soon after earned a promotion to High-A Vancouver. There, he hit .316/.443/.418 with almost as many walks as strikeouts, and was an energetic sparkplug down the stretch as he helped lead the Canadians to the Northwest League title.

Parker offers a little bit of everything at the plate. He has a lovely connected swing with above-average bat speed, and the way he’s able to rip his hands through the zone and get the barrel ahead of an inside pitch gives me confidence that he’ll be able to handle big league velocity without any trouble. His 43% hard-hit rate is great for any A-baller and fantastic for guy who played most of the season as a 19-year-old. Parker has average power already, and while he’s not overly projectable, there should be at least a little more coming. If there’s a nitpick here, it’s that he’s on the passive side: His swing rate was under 40% and his chase rate jumps when he has two strikes. Nobody’s perfect, though, and ultimately Parker’s blend of contact, power, and on-base skill justifies the lofty hit projections.

Defensively, Parker does a few things well at short. He has a reliable pair of hands, he gets the ball out quickly, and his instincts look pretty sharp on video. He has enough arm strength, and while he’ll occasionally misfire, I’m not too concerned about his accuracy either. He doesn’t have a ton of range, though, and he doesn’t have the lithe build that suggests he’s going to grow into more. You can see a fit as a reliability-over-range shortstop early in his career, but he’s already played a little at third, and I think that’s where he’ll ultimately wind up. Regardless, Parker is on the fast track. Whether he returns to Vancouver at the start of 2027 or not, he’s going to spend most of the year at the upper levels, and the 2028 ETA almost feels like a conservative projection.

King signed for second-round money in the 2024 draft to forgo his commitment to Miami. Similar to his pro debut, the lefty’s 2026 campaign was in many ways dominant (3.16 ERA, 30.5% strikeout rate, 0.68 HR/9, unhittable breaking ball), though again with more walks than you’d expect from a guy with good stuff and a decent delivery. Still, it was a positive year overall. King was a trendy breakout pick last winter, and now that he’s proved his stuff works against mid-to-high-level minor league competition, he’ll enter 2027 with an outside chance to work big league innings.

King has a prototypical starter’s build and athleticism, with a strong lower half and a clean arm circle. He’ll occasionally overthrow, and a significant heel grind can get him off balance, but there’s otherwise a lot to like in his delivery. He raised his arm slot a tick this year, which led to subtle differences in how his pitches moved, though not really how they performed; better hitters made slightly more contact, but the arsenal still grades well. He generates plus extension, and his drop-and-drive delivery helps his carrying, mid-90s fastball play well up in the zone. He pairs the heater with a long, sharp slider that flashes plus and a fading change that flashes above average. While still inconsistent — King doesn’t use it much and would perhaps benefit from dusting it off a little more often — the cambio took a step forward year over year. For all the walks, King will sometimes show feel to pitch that’s mature beyond his years, adding and subtracting on a back door breaking ball, or surgically dotting the fastball at the top of the zone against guys who can’t get the barrel there.

There are risks here. King has the delivery, and at times has shown the command, to start, but the overall volume of strikes has lagged. His change isn’t a finished product, and there’s a chance his current breaking ball isn’t sharp enough to reliably miss big league bats. Still, there aren’t many 20-year-old lefties with this kind of arm talent. The change should improve, and he may yet add a power breaking ball as he matures. There are enough ingredients here to project him as a mid-rotation starter, and with this update, he enters our Top 100 list.

Perry was the clear breakout prospect in Toronto’s system in 2026. Originally drafted in 2022, the righty signed for a modest $200,000 bonus. He spent his first pro season on the complex and his second walking nearly 20% of opposing hitters in Low-A. He then had TJ, which prematurely ended his 2024 campaign and kept him out for all of the following year as well.

Upon his return, Perry looked like a new pitcher. His average fastball velocity jumped from 92 to 94 mph, and his breaking balls looked correspondingly sharper as well. Perhaps most surprisingly, Perry threw way more strikes. Across three levels, he allowed just 32 free passes in 82.2 innings and struck out nearly four times as many hitters as he walked. In six months, he’s leapt from an afterthought to one of this system’s top pitchers.

Perry has the easy operation of a starter. He’s a strong kid with a well-honed, high-three-quarters delivery and a clean arm swing. He’ll occasionally overthrow and pull the fastball with him, but overall his command is pretty good, particularly for someone coming back from major surgery. He’s adept at keeping the fastball up in the zone and tends to locate his breaking balls in places hitters are likely to chase them. He has good feel for spin, and hitters struggle with his buckling curveball in particular. And while he doesn’t have the same kind of feel for his sinking change, hitters couldn’t do anything with it this year.

While Perry looks like a starter, evaluators are split on whether he’s more of a backend or mid-rotation prospect. At his best, his stuff looks crisp enough for the latter role, and a no. 3/4 starter outcome is a realistic ceiling. But Perry’s workload has been light enough that it’s hard to say with much conviction that he’ll be able to maintain that over a full season. He averaged just four innings per outing in 2026 and only topped 80 pitches twice. Between that and a lower chase rate at Double-A — Perry tends to work the edges, and it’s fair to notice that advanced hitters didn’t bite as much as low-minors opponents — there are enough question marks to keep him in this value tier for now. Were I scouting for a big league team, I’d project him as a no. 4. For us, he’s a Pick to Click and a guy we’ll monitor closely next spring for signs that he’s able to maintain his best stuff in longer bursts.

We had Carlon as one of the top arms on our Draft Board, but the southpaw fell to the 29th overall pick. Part of that is because the 2026 draft, particularly among the pitchers, was a jumble of eye-of-the-beholder players, and some teams may have been wary that he left one of his last starts of the year with a sore arm, which coincided with a brief velo dip down the stretch.

Carlon is a lefty starter with an XL frame. He was a reliever for most of his career at ASU before becoming the Friday guy for the Sun Devils in 2026 and blossoming into a first-round talent. Despite the size and a herky-jerky delivery that features a lot of moving parts, he throws strikes. His fastball touched triple digits at times this year and comfortably sat 93-96 mph in most outings. His primary offspeed is a plus power slider with late downward break that he can throw to both lefties and righties. He also threw an occasional curve and change, almost as if to remind scouts and draft evaluators that he has them.

Carlon’s fastball plays beneath the number, which leaves him heavily reliant on the slider. He is able to run that pitch on and off the plate with consistently sharp break and pretty good feel for moving it around the zone, which gives him a chance to start even if everything else in the holster is pedestrian. I’d put his chances of staying in the rotation at a little better than 50/50, with late-inning upside in relief.

Hill was Minnesota’s second-rounder in 2024. An athletic lefty with arm strength and good stuff, he struggled to find the zone in his first year and a half in pro ball and was shipped to Toronto in the Jeff Hoffman deal. It was only a few starts, but he hit the box more often following the trade, and if he’s able to keep the free passes somewhere near the 9.7% figure he notched in Vancouver, he has a path to our Top 100 list.

Hill was arguably the most projectable pitcher in the 2024 draft, and he’s still oozing with upside. He’s athletic, with good hip and shoulder separation and a loose arm, and his lanky 6-foot-5 frame still has plenty of room to get stronger. He touches the upper 90s, spins a couple of quality breaking balls, and flashes a plus change with late finish. These are top-shelf pitching ingredients, and the high-end outcomes here include things like All-Star Games and Cy Young votes.

Hill is still pretty raw, though. He’s a late separator, and he doesn’t always repeat his delivery, which limits his ability to execute his pitches. It’s particularly notable on fastballs, which he’s able to locate precisely to the arm side at times, but struggles with when trying to hit the other side of the plate. The pitches themselves aren’t necessarily in their final form yet, either. He’s a downhill thrower, and the angle and shape of his fastball are such that it’s vulnerable in the zone. His curve can steal strikes all day long, but it’s almost 20 mph slower than the fastball and has a big hump, and it too gets hit a little bit. Even his slider, which is missing bats like a plus or better offering, isn’t particularly firm.

There’s time for all of this to coalesce. But Hill strikes me as a guy who needs reps, and I’m a little concerned that he won’t get them; he certainly hasn’t gotten many thus far. This past season, he finished five innings just once, he never threw 80 pitches in an outing, and the next time he sees a hitter for a third time in a game will be his first. I really like the traits, and were I still a scout, I’d bet aggressively. For us, there are enough questions about his control, pitch shapes, and stamina to hold him in this value tier for now. He’s a Pick to Click candidate and a guy I’m excited to monitor in 2027.

Tiedemann made his long-awaited return to the mound in 2026, and after a quick minor league tune-up, the Jays brought him to Toronto toward the end of the year. He looked understandably rusty at times, with more non-competitive misses than you normally see in the big leagues, but he also showed the plus stuff that once made him a Top 100 prospect. He struck out eight hitters in six innings of work and missed a bunch of bats with the breaking ball in particular.

On stuff and athleticism, Tiedemann still has mid-rotation starter traits. His delivery is simple and clean, with a slight crossfire, an easy operation, and a short and loose arm stroke. A lower-slot lefty, Tiedemann touches 98 with a fastball that misses plenty of bats up in the zone. He has a plus sweeping breaking ball with sharp break, a nightmare pitch for lefties and a reliable strike generator even without the platoon advantage. He also has a change, and while it’s his third-best pitch, it too looks like it’ll be at least average with a little work.

Despite that, Tiedemann’s future role is likely in relief. Drafted in 2021, the 24-year-old has only thrown 176 pro innings and hasn’t averaged even three innings per outing since his stint in the AFL back in 2023. For a team with playoff aspirations in 2027 and theoretically plenty of rotation help on the way, he may wind up in the bullpen simply out of organizational need anyway. While a rotation outcome isn’t out of the question — it’d be fascinating if a non-contender swung a trade and stretched him out — the projection here is for a late-inning reliever.

Despite a late draft position and limited bonus pool, Toronto managed to land both our top college starter (Cole Carlon) and our favorite high school catcher in the 2026 class. Brick was paid commensurate with his talent, not his draft position; though he was selected in the fourth round, he signed for $2.5 million, early- second-round money. Brick reclassified from the 2027 class after he hit well with Team USA at the U19 World Cup in Japan in 2025. Though we have more limited and less reliable showcase data for him because he was facing a lot of 2027 draft kids over his last two summers, the data we do have is very positive, including an 83% contact rate, which is great for a projectable 6-foot-2 catcher. He moves the barrel around the zone well, and his top hand drives his swing, giving him a shot to grow into a blend of contact and power.

Brick is a work in progress on defense. His crouch is high and his footwork erratic, but he’s an excellent athlete with a great arm, agility, and okay receiving considering his age and inexperience. Those blemishes don’t add risk to his profile so much as they probably add time to his developmental journey. He’ll likely debut on the Florida complex next spring.

Caricote was Toronto’s top signee in the 2026 international class, an athletic catcher who inked a $1.9 million deal. He’s a good mover with a nice blend of present bat speed and growth ahead. He has a lofted bat path, and when he drops the bat head into the lefty happy zone, he can unleash a ferocious and powerful swing. The mechanics are also fairly low maintenance. He has a little hitch in his load, but he’s direct to the ball from there, he gets the foot down early, and he swings with an appropriate level of effort.

Caricote had a productive DSL debut, hitting .274/.369/.433 with five homers, though with a little more swing and miss than his 16.4% strikeout rate would imply. His approach is immature — he chased 32% of the time, 52% with two strikes — but at this stage, it’s better to ask a guy to pull back on the reins than to turn it loose more often.

Defensively, Caricote looks good. He’s a remarkably smooth receiver for a player his age, and he has a strong arm as well. His release is long and at times a little stiff, and there’s room for growth when it comes to his accuracy, but at his age, that’s normal and expected, as is a tendency to stab too much on balls in the dirt. You don’t need him to catch tomorrow, you need him to do so in five years, and the forecast is for him to play well back there when the time comes. There’s enough uncertainty in a player this young and far away from the majors that we’re not quite ready to get irresponsible with the topline FV grade. A year in, though, it looks like Toronto gave their big bonus to the right guy. Caricote projects as an everyday catcher.

It’s been a tough couple of years for Bloss. After a brief big league debut with Houston in 2024, he entered 2025 on the cusp of making the Blue Jays rotation, but tore his UCL six starts into the minor league season. Bloss returned to the mound this past summer with his arm strength intact but with very little touch and feel, and he took a beating in four Triple-A starts. He then went back on the shelf in mid-July and was eventually transferred to the 60-day IL with a right teres major strain that cost him the rest of the regular season. He was back throwing for short stretches in the Arizona Fall League, where he sat 93-95.

Prior to the injury, Bloss looked like a relatively safe mid-rotation starter. He had, and has, a power pitcher’s frame and a north-south attack with a bunch of weapons. His mid-90s four-seamer projects plus and is further aided by above-average carry. His upper-80s slider was the big bat-misser before surgery, and his 12-6 hammer of a curve was plenty good as well. His change was hampered a bit by a slower arm path, though he reliably kept it to the arm side, and lefties mostly weren’t able to drive it. Periodically, Bloss looked like that guy again in 2026. His average fastball was harder than at last glance, at least during the regular season. He was throwing his breaking balls a little firmer as well, and the curve in particular looked really sharp at times.

But Bloss wasn’t fully himself. His release point was inconsistent, he wasn’t generating as much extension, he threw a bunch of cement-mixer sliders, and his two-seamer got whacked. Setbacks aren’t unusual for a pitcher shaking off cobwebs, though the degree to which Bloss got hit around (10 homers in 39.1 minor league innings across three levels) was a little surprising. I still like him and, health willing, see a path to the mid-rotation projection he had last year. Between the injury and uneven performance, though, he slides into this FV tier for now.

Stanifer was arguably Toronto’s 2025 breakout prospect. A late pick out of a suburban Indianapolis high school, he signed for $125,000 and spent two relatively nondescript seasons at the lower levels before turning in a career season in Vancouver. He spent most of 2026 in New Hampshire, where he missed a ton of bats (he struck out more than 30% of hitters) but was also pretty wild (14.5% walk rate).

Stanifer is an above-average athlete with a three-pitch mix. He sits in the mid-90s with a four-seamer that touches the upper 90s. The pitch has carry but also tail and lacks some of the other characteristics that can turn a good fastball into a monster. The pitch tunnels pretty well with his slider, a plus north-south offering that falls off the table and induces some of the best whiff and chase rates in the system. The change is the third offering here, and while he doesn’t execute it consistently, it too flashes plus and actually generated more chase than the slider this past year.

While Stanifer’s delivery isn’t violent, it is high-effort. He’s never been a great strike-thrower, and both below-average command and a style of pitching heavily reliant on inducing chase suggest he’ll fit better in short stints than the rotation. The Jays don’t have to flip that switch just yet; a five-and-dive starting outcome is still in play. But if I were a betting man, I’d stack seven or eight out of 10 chips on a future primarily in relief. Stanifer projects as a nasty, if slightly wild, late-inning reliever.

Thompson was a $5,000 signee in the 2025 draft, a priority older senior with interesting stuff and release traits but fringy velocity. He’s added nearly two ticks to his fastball since draft day and, combined with a low release and above-average vertical, the pitch has been a real bat-misser. It’s difficult to tell on video if Thompson is working with one breaking ball or two, though the velocity gap is large enough that I’ll guess two. Both are horizontal breakers, one low-80s and one mid-80s with corresponding differences in length. I like the slower, longer one more, as it’s still sharp enough to run off the barrel, while the slider plays like a soft cutter. He’s also got a changeup with late hop to it, though he hasn’t thrown it a ton.

Thompson has a chance to start. While he’s not playing catch out there, it’s a clean, up-tempo delivery, and he repeats it well. His command is a little below average now, but he’s good at elevating the fastball, and he isn’t so erratic that you’d think that he couldn’t improve his location elsewhere, too. The bigger question is endurance. Thompson isn’t a big guy, and his velo tends to drop midway through outings. Given that the stuff is more good than great and that the arsenal is pretty shallow, I feel more comfortable projecting him as a backend starter or good multi-inning arm than as a mid-rotation guy. A no. 4 outcome is the ceiling if these concerns prove overblown, or if I’m underrating how well his sneaky fastball will play at the highest level.

An Honorable Mention on last year’s list, I profiled Guerra as an arm strength flier who needed to find a breaking ball. A year on, consider one found. The righty added a couple ticks and a little more break to his slider year over year, and the pitch generated a CSW% above 40% in 2026. He doesn’t always finish it, and it’s vulnerable in the zone if he hangs one, but when he snaps off a good one that dives late beneath the zone, it’s nigh unhittable.

Guerra has retained the arm strength that first made him interesting, as he sits in the mid-to-upper 90s and touches triple digits. He also has a change that flashes above average, though it’s even less consistent than his slider. Though he’s started for most of his career, Guerra made a handful of upper level appearances in relief down the stretch, and he projects to stay in that role long-term. He’s an open strider with huge spinal tilt, a big head dip, and noticeable arm slot variation between his fastball and secondaries, the change especially. All of that limits his deception and control, which makes him reliant on out-stuffing hitters. I think he’ll be able to do so, and he has late-inning upside if he softens some of the rough edges on his command and execution.

Bullard’s strong commitment to Texas A&M pushed him out of the top rounds of the 2025 draft where his talent belonged. Toronto plucked him in the 12th and signed him for just shy of $1.7 million, the largest bonus ever given to a player selected so late in the draft.

At the time, the wiry Texan had the look of a slash-and-dash speedster, but Bullard flashed a little more power and a fair bit less contact than expected at Low-A in 2026. Part of that is because lefties crushed him (34 strikeouts in 85 plate appearances) in a way that suggests he might not be a switch-hitter for long. As a lefty, he takes a good rip and has decent plate coverage with less than two strikes; with two strikes, his no-load cut looks unnatural and did nothing to prevent him from chasing significantly more often than he did earlier in counts. There are kinks to work out here, but with his athleticism and at least a little juice, you can see enough bat coming to let the glove play its way onto a roster.

Defensively, Bullard is fast enough for the job in center. His routes and footwork look pretty good on tape, at least, and he could be plus there at maturity. It’s the overall skill set of a modern day fourth outfielder.

Rivas was a small-dollar international signee in the 2025 class. He’s athletic with a live arm, and while his fastball isn’t optimized, he peppers in plenty of 95s and 96s. He also has a wipeout slider that flashes plus; DSL complex hitters were completely overwhelmed by it when it was anywhere near the strike zone. While that’s a great foundation for a pitching prospect, the road ahead is long and arduous. Rivas doesn’t yet have a changeup, and he’s a short, high-effort pitcher and thus even more of an injury risk than your average teenager with his kind of gas. Various teams will handle the upside/proximity dilemma a little differently with a guy like this. We’re putting a 40 FV on Rivas for now, but that could change quickly if he either develops a viable change or scampers off the complex in 2027.

Arias was a Pick to Click for me this spring; that we’re just now getting to him tells you that he did not, in fact, vault into our Top 100. Shoulder surgery on his non-throwing arm delayed the start of his season and he never really got going at the plate. He finished the campaign with a .220/.278/.367 line, just a 70 wRC+ and no improvement to the concerning, though not quite disqualifying, walk and strikeout totals he posted in 2025. He has the tools and just enough contact skill to think a breakout is still possible, but his projection is down year over year.

Let’s start with the good. Arias is an athletic, short-levered lefty with above-average present raw power. He has a fast bat, and he’s able to generate that pop without sky-high swing-and-miss or particularly concerning chase data. Even in a down year, his hard-hit rate (44%) was among the highest in the system, and his max exit velocity (113 mph) was fourth in the entire organization, big leaguers included.

The trouble is that all that thump isn’t translating into doubles and homers. It’s possible that the way Arias swings doesn’t give him enough barrel control to leverage his power. He doesn’t get cheated at the plate: He takes a big leg kick, loads deep, and lets it fly with everything he has. It’s a high-effort cut, and it comes with an early front side leak that limits his ability to cover the plate. And while he’s able to deliver the barrel to all quadrants, he hasn’t found a way to elevate the ball consistently yet. Last year in this space I wrote, “Might there be a tradeoff to make here? Arias’ max exit velos are comfortably plus. If a smaller move or more controlled swing facilitates more contact at the expense of a little juice, the swap could be worth its weight in gold.” I still think it’s a possibility, and with it, a path to an everyday role.

Defensively, the tape looks better year over year. Arias is still a plus runner and he does a lot of good stuff in center. He plays hard, takes a good route, isn’t afraid of the wall, and has a pretty good arm. With even a little more game pop, he has the foundation of a solid fourth outfielder.

Sanchez was one of Toronto’s big-dollar signees in the 2025 international class. He had a strong debut campaign in the DSL and parlayed that and a hot spring into a surprise assignment to Low-A Dunedin. The youngest regular in the league, Sanchez often looked out of his depth on both sides of the ball. After initially treading water, he struggled down the stretch and finished the season with a 70 wRC+. Combined with worrying data under the hood and a rough performance at third base, Sanchez will almost certainly need to repeat the level in 2027.

The bat, and the projectable power more specifically, is Sanchez’s calling card. His 103 mph EV90 and 108 max exit velo are both great for a guy who played the season as an 18-year-old, and he has sufficient projection left on his frame to think that plus raw at maturity is a real possibility. That pop didn’t make its way into games much, though, in part because he’s so expansive (his chase rate was nearly 40% and jumped to nearly 50% with two strikes) and is constantly flailing at spin in particular. He’s also prone to missing fastballs up, as his swing path is grooved and he isn’t consistently able to get the bat head to the top of the zone. More bat speed will help, and Sanchez is likely to grow into plenty. Overall though, he looks more like a potential power threat than a well-rounded offensive force.

Sanchez had a rough defensive campaign as well, as the game often looked too fast for him on that side of the ball. Fielding percentage isn’t relevant unless it starts with an eight, which Sanchez’s did. He booted all manner of balls — short hops to the backhand were particularly vexing — and while he has the arm strength for third, he’ll need to clean up the scatter on his throws to stay there. While he has time to work himself into an average defender at the hot corner, I think it’s unlikely, and a shift to left field or first base looms as a real possibility. The Jays and their fans can hope that Sanchez’s difficult 2026 season is attributable be attributed mostly to age. At the very least, it’s time to take him off the fast track.

Dallas, a.k.a. Cheese, returned from Tommy John surgery no worse for wear. Out since mid-2024, he made a handful of starts for Buffalo before getting summoned to the big leagues for a few multi-inning outings. He was a little wild there, but missed bats with his breaking balls. Dallas spins the ball well, and he leans on his breakers: His best pitch is an above-average sweeper, and he’s also got a more traditional 12-6 hook that he likes to steal strikes with. While he has a sinker, he doesn’t use it a ton and relies instead on a low-90s cutter when he wants something firm and (relatively) straight.

Dallas is a perfect fit for our “MIRP” tag. He has the graceful delivery and, in turn, control of a starter, and his stuff is good enough that he doesn’t need to air everything out for 15-20 pitches to be effective. It’s not an attack likely to survive multiple trips through a big league lineup, though, as Dallas needs to induce chase on breaking balls that are sharp but not especially firm. Working as a starter in the minors, he’s been dinger-prone throughout his career, and it looks like his best path to value is as a one to three inning guy who can spot start (if anybody still bothers with that in this era). He’s poised to contribute regularly in low-to-mid-leverage work in 2027.

Sprock signed for $225,000 out of Elon, a small Division I school. He played both corner infield positions there and was pretty good on the mound, too, where he touched 96 mph in relief. Though he never caught in college, the Twins started working him in behind the plate shortly after the draft, and he took to the position well. He split his time between catcher and third base across two levels for Minnesota before the Blue Jays acquired him at the deadline as part of the Jeff Hoffman trade.

The experiment behind the plate is off to a good start, though Sprock isn’t a finished product back there. He’s a surprisingly clean receiver for someone so new to the job, and he’s good at funneling balls back toward the center of the plate. He tends to flinch as he does it, so there’s some push and pull to his framing work in the here and now. His catch-and-throw skills are raw: He has plenty of arm strength, but he isn’t quick out of the crouch, and his throws are pretty scattered. As with his receiving, there are times when he lines everything up mechanically and the operation looks big league-caliber. As you’d expect, though, he needs a lot of reps to build consistency. He’s athletic and still new to this, and forecasting him as an average defender feels aggressive but realistic.

The Jays will presumably be patient with him there because the bat isn’t all that likely to profile by itself. He’s part of Toronto’s brigade of 30- or 40-power prospects who can hit. Sprock’s contact rate was nearly 85%, 88% in zone, and his short and punchy swing should continue to allow him to make plenty of contact as he reaches the upper levels. He projects as a utility player with a unique flavor, with a little upside if he really takes to the job behind the plate.

Rojas signed for just shy of $1 million in the 2024 international class. After two solid statistical seasons in the DSL, he just about Xeroxed that production in the FCL, where he hit .266/.413/.427 with nearly as many walks as strikeouts. That’s in line with the competitive, if not special, production we’ve forecast for him since he signed. He’s a patient hitter with a fairly short swing and good bat-to-ball skills. He isn’t especially projectable and he wasn’t in great shape, but he should have enough pop to chip a few balls over the fence at maturity.

If Rojas makes it, the glove will be a big part of why. He’s a quiet receiver with a good arm and the physicality we like to see in a catcher. He’s sometimes content to try to stab at balls in the dirt rather than get in front of them, but he has time on his side to improve as a blocker. He has everyday upside if either his pop or defensive grade exceeds this projection.

A first-rounder back in 2022, Barriera’s career has since been defined by injuries, and the 38.2 frames he threw in 2026 were a career high. Understandably, he was rusty, with a lot of walks and less velo than he showed at his peak. While Barriera mixed in a few cutters and changeups, he mostly worked with his fastball and slider this past season. He dropped his slot slightly year over year, and now gets a little more run on his low-to-mid-80s slide piece. That pitch flashes plus, and he’s touched the upper 90s with his heater in the past. That would be a suitable mix all by itself in short stints, and given how much time he’s missed with injury, it’s sensible to project a relief outcome here. On stuff, there’s enough to dream on him developing into a good club’s first lefty out of the ‘pen.

Klein is an undrafted success story who rose from Iowa Central Community College to the majors after adding bulk and velocity to his big, broad 6-foot-5 frame. He now boasts a rise-and-run heater that touches 97 mph, but more often sits lower, particularly as he gets deeper into outings. Klein has primarily worked as a starter throughout his career, but I’m skeptical his secondaries are good enough to turn a lineup over multiple times. In short stints, the fastball might play as a plus pitch, and if his breaking balls get any sharper alongside, he could have a couple of average complementary weapons to keep hitters honest. He debuted this past season and looks like a near-ready middle reliever.

Harry’s 2026 breakout was one of the farm’s most unexpected developments. A year after his aggressive and relatively punchless approach was thoroughly exploited by mid-level arms, Harry made an unusual adjustment: He started swinging even more. He turned it loose 60% of the time during his 48 games at Double-A, one of the higher rates in all of pro ball. It worked, too, as Harry posted a 140 wRC+ with eight bombs and then was again an above-average hitter following a promotion to Triple-A.

A big season at the plate has done wonders for Harry’s stock, in part because he was already a slick defender. He’s a solid-average shortstop with quick feet, a strong arm, and a knack for making plays at full extension. Average hands and throwing accuracy kept me from getting too crazy with the fielding grade here, but given the versatility — Harry has experience at second base and all over the outfield — you could justify projecting him as a plus defender.

Harry won’t have to hit much to help a ballclub, which is good because I’m concerned he won’t. His operation in the box is unconventional. He sometimes loads in part by arching his back as the pitcher prepares to deliver, drifts his front forward, and then puts his full body into his swing in a way that leaves his head bouncing all over the place. He’s often off balance against spin and can’t help but chase all manner of slop well off the plate. Big leaguers aren’t going to have to throw him strikes all that often to get him out, and while Harry has a little pop, he probably isn’t going to punish enough mistakes to stay in the lineup with his current approach. He has the ceiling of a super sub if this part of his game matures beyond expectations.

Cook began his college career in the Southern Mississippi bullpen, where he was wild and rarely got on the bump in games. He switched to the outfield prior to his junior season and, despite no significant reps at the plate since high school, flourished there. He hit .350/.436/.468 with 31 walks and just 19 strikeouts in 60 games, a mind-blowing season given the previous two sentences. He’s also an 80 runner and a projectable center fielder, and the overall package enticed Toronto to give him nearly a million bucks out of the 2025 draft.

While Cook’s offensive production suggested he might hit the ground running in pro ball, it now looks like he’ll be in the slow lane. He struck out a lot at Low-A and was barely a league-average hitter there, as a ton of popups limited his ability to put his wheels to work. His rawness on both sides of the ball makes him more of an interesting flier to monitor than a near-term contributor. Still, elite speed is elite speed, and there’s more runway ahead to develop than Cook’s age alone would imply. He’s also a daylight guy for us: Eric likes him a fair bit, and went to bat for him as we kicked around names toward the bottom of the list.

Gleed was traded from Miami to Toronto at the end of March in exchange for Leo Jiménez. The timing of that deal meant he fell through the cracks of our team lists last cycle, even though he has (and had) the talent for a full write-up.

Gleed is in many ways a modern hitter. He’s trying to lift the ball to the pull side, and he has the open stride and lofted swing that often come with that approach. He registered a 15 degree launch angle and 39.4% groundball rate in 2026, which shows that he’s pretty good at it. Even though Gleed’s bat speed and raw power are just fair, strong pitch recognition and bat-to-ball skills help make it all work. Better stuff looms as a real test, because he’s just not that physical, but the projection here is for him to get to enough power to be dangerous.

Gleed has played both first and third base. On tape, it looks like he has the glove for the hot corner, as you can see him make a bunch of tough pickups on hard grounders and in-between hoppers, but his arm scares me. A lot of his throws are aimed or lobbed, his accuracy is below average, and his release also isn’t particularly quick. Oddly, the operation looks worse when he has time, and some of his best and firmest throws come when he has to really make a play. Taken together, he looks more like a guy who fits better in a reserve corner role than in an everyday job.

After a lost 2025 season, Kasevich enjoyed good health and put up a solid full campaign at Triple-A Buffalo, where he played all over the infield and posted a contact-fueled, league-average batting line. Kasevich has one of the best hit tools in the minor leagues. He can get the bat on anything, and between that and his patient approach, he’s been on base a lot as a professional. He isn’t punchless in the box — his hard-hit rate was about 37%, and his 110 mph max EV is only a smidge short of average — but he’s mostly a singles hitter. Defensively, Kasevich is an adequate, if fringy, shortstop. He isn’t especially quick or rangy, and compensates instead with reliable hands and accurate throws. He’s a low-variance, big-league-ready utility infielder, and given that he’ll be 26 on Opening Day, his window of productivity will most likely occur in his pre-arb years.

Messina was an overslot 12th-round pick in 2024 and, presumably to the disappointment of resident Gamecock Michael Bauman, he signed for $550,000 to forgo his commitment to South Carolina. He was wild but effective in his return from elbow inflammation this year, a malady that cost him just about all of the 2025 season. He generated plenty of grounders, struck out 27.3% of opponents, and registered an ERA just north of 3.00. But he also walked 16.5% of opponents and had a couple of disaster outings where he couldn’t escape the first.

While Messina isn’t the loosest athlete, his delivery is fairly simple, and the guess here is that he’ll throw more strikes with experience. The stuff is good enough to stay patient with. Messina touches 98 and he had outings where he sat in the mid-90s this past summer. The fastball plays down from the velo a bit; despite a lot of carry and a short stroke, he’s a short, open strider and not particularly deceptive. He can really spin it, though, and the curve, slider, and cutter carved through Low-A bats. It’s worth continuing to develop him as a starter for the reps, but in the long run, he projects as a breaking-ball-heavy, mid-to-high-leverage reliever.

You may or may not have known that minor leaguers can still be traded after the deadline. Rodríguez was involved in such a swap, joining the Jays from Los Angeles in exchange for Sebastian Rodriguez.

Rodríguez is a fun watch. He’s got a throwback, ’70s-style delivery where he starts completely closed to the plate, nearly knees himself in the chin as he coils, somehow rocks back even further as his arm stretches toward the ground, and then springs toward home. For Super Smash fans, the load-and-go effect is somewhat reminiscent of watching Samus queue up her arm cannon. What comes out of the arm is pretty interesting, too. Rodríguez will touch 100 mph, albeit with mediocre shape, and both the slider and changeup project as plus offerings.

Unsurprisingly given the delivery, Rodríguez isn’t a good strike-thrower. Partly because he’s wild and partly because they can’t really hit him, Triple-A hitters have been content to take their walks and have done so in about 14% of their plate appearances over the last two years. That’s too high, even for a guy running enormous whiff rates on two secondaries. He projects as an effectively wild middle reliever, but the risk he’s an often-wild, rarely-effective depth option is pretty high.

Southisene comes from a family of baseball players, and his brother Tate is a Top 100 prospect in Atlanta’s system. The Cubs paid this Southisene seven figures to steer him away from his commitment to Tennessee. After a solid, if punchless, start to his pro career at the plate, the Blue Jays landed him in this summer’s Kevin Gausman trade. He’s a Toronto type of acquisition: short, twitchy, lot of contact, nice swing, positional versatility up the middle, not much pop. Toronto’s player dev group has worked wonders with many a farmhand, but they have an uphill battle to get the slender Southisene to anything beyond 30 game power.

Southisene has good hands and instincts at short, but both his arm and range, particularly in the six-hole, are currently light for the role. The rosy forecast here is that he can become an average defender there as he matures, but I have sources who think that’s a little hot. A lot rides on whether he can do it, as it might be the difference between a long-term utility fit and more of an up-down profile.

Schreck was lightly recruited out of high school and nearly wound up at MIT before deciding to walk on at Duke. It took a few years, but he hit his way into the Blue Devils lineup and put himself in position to transfer to Vanderbilt after he graduated. He parlayed a strong super-senior season into a low-dollar draft bonus with the Mariners, who quickly flipped him to the Jays in exchange for Justin Turner in 2024. He got stronger seemingly overnight, and a corresponding uptick in power, combined with his patient approach, helped turn Schreck from a nice story into a real prospect. 2026 wasn’t quite a lost year for him, but a wrist sprain limited him to 70 games and kept him down in Buffalo. When healthy, he was his usual patient self, though he didn’t hit for the same kind of power — raw or game — that he showed in 2025.

Even before this past season’s middling campaign, Schreck was a divisive player. There is a strong analyst/scout split at work here, and the scouts are mostly underwhelmed. Schreck needs a deep load and a long swing to generate his power, and it takes him a while to get his bat from the launch point to the hitting zone. A long swing and a slow bat is often a deadly combination, one more commonly found in Quad-A hitters than big league run producers.

Defensively, Schreck has occasionally manned center, but he’s a corner outfielder. I tend to be skeptical of corner bats without big pop who derive substantial value from their approach, and I don’t really see Schreck as an exception. There are plenty of people throughout the industry who like him quite a bit, and so with a nod to sources whose opinions I respect and value, I’m keeping him up here on the list, even though I think he’s more of an up-down guy with a platoon ceiling than an impactful hitter.

The son of former big leaguer Sean Casey, Jake is a departure from the type of hitters Toronto tends to gravitate toward. He’s an athletic, strapping lad with a fast bat, a chance to grow into plus power, and a scary swing that threatens the profile entirely. He’s bottom-hand dominant in the extreme, and he lands late in a way that seems to contribute to his problems adjusting off the fastball. The good and the bad were on display in 2026, when he socked 12 homers and posted a 129 wRC+ in 57 High-A games, but also struck out 27.8% of the time with huge whiff rates against all types of secondaries.

Defensively, Casey has seen time across the outfield. He’s a fit in center, where he has enough speed for the job and isn’t afraid of the ball. His arm strength is a little light, though he gets rid of the ball pretty quickly. As a late bloomer out of a small, cold-weather school, it’s worth staying patient on the tools here even if the data is pretty scary. He has a fourth outfielder’s ceiling.

Goodwin has exceeded my expectations. When I first saw him a couple of years ago, he was a punchless shortstop who had a lot of trouble catching up to fastballs in the upper half of the zone, an impression that I retained after he repeated High-A in 2025. At the upper levels in 2026, Goodwin had a productive campaign, hitting .263/.363/.464 with limited drop off after a promotion to Triple-A. The combination of surprising strength development (though not traditionally projectable, he’s added several ticks to both his max and 90th-percentile EVs over the past couple of years) and a couple of small mechanical adjustments (he’s turned a double toe tap into a more traditional lift-and-stride and shortened his load) have helped Goodwin develop fringy power while also making more contact. The window of the zone where he can reliably do damage is still narrow, and you can get him out with good spin, but he looks like a competitive big league hitter. It’s a credit to both the org’s dev competencies and the player’s work that he’s gotten to this point. Defensively, Goodwin is capable at short, with decent hands and a very quick release. He projects as a utility infielder.

Van Eyk’s prospect stock has yo-yo’d considerably throughout his professional career. Here and there, he looked like a no. 4-caliber starter with average arm strength and a plus curve. He’s had to battle through a lot, though, as he’s undergone Tommy John, seen his velocity fluctuate, and moved in and out of various minor league rotations. More often, he’s looked like a no. 5 or 6 starter. In 2026, more than six years after draft day, he finally ascended to the majors, where he made a handful of appearances in various roles. His long-term projection is for more of that kind of thing, wearing a few different hats in an up-down role.

Maroudis signed for $1.5 million out of high school back in 2023. He’s a svelte 6-foot-3 with a drop-and-drive delivery and low release height for his size. A year further removed from the internal brace procedure that cost him most of the 2024 season, Maroudis found the strike zone much more reliably in 2026. The trouble was that hitters tattooed most of what he threw, and his ERA was over 6.00 at High-A. Visually, his fastball, curve, and slider all flash above average, and he’ll sporadically show feel for locating in productive areas (his change has a similar pattern but is even less far along). But he isn’t able to do so consistently, and so while he has a path to contributing in some kind of role, his execution will need to take a sizable leap forward to get there. Maroudis is one where a couple of sources who saw him this year liked him, and their views helped shade him up from the Honorable Mentions onto the main list.

Stephan signed with Texas as an undrafted free agent in 2020 and was dealt to Toronto, along with Josh Smith, at the deadline in exchange for Adam Macko. Since then, the righty has advanced slowly but steadily through the minors as a command-and-control-oriented starter with a couple of good breaking balls but below-average arm strength and fastball shape. After a rough ride in both Triple-A leagues, it’s starting to look like his stuff is a little too soft to reliably turn over a lineup multiple times. Time and again in 2026, he’d have outings where he missed barrels and drew chases on his slider and cutter the first time through the order, only to run into trouble later on as hitters stopped biting. Stephan can still help, perhaps in a multi-inning role, maybe in a more traditional relief role if he gains a few ticks in short stints. But, barring an unexpected velo surge, he now projects as a lower-leverage relief fit or spot starter rather than a backend guy.

Pena was the third piece in the return package for Jeff Hoffman. For what feels like the umpteenth time this list, we’re talking about a little guy with bat control, not much power, and less defensive versatility than you’d like. At the plate, his setup reminds me of Jean Segura’s. While he doesn’t have that kind of a hit tool (or power), Pena has short levers, moves the bat around the zone well, and can adjust off the fastball. He struck out in only 7.1% of his plate appearances in 2026 and has some of the highest contact rates in the system. With the glove, Pena is rangy enough for second, but his hands aren’t great. He lacks the arm for the left side of the infield or the speed you’d like to see in center. There’s enough bat-to-ball skill to stay on him, but unless he really hits or his feel for defense comes late, Pena looks like he’ll be a tricky roster fit.

Shaw is one of a few Canadians lurking in the Blue Jays system. He grew up in British Columbia and mashed for a month in his backyard of Vancouver this past summer, where he hit .239/.427/.535 in 21 games for the Canadians. As was the case in 2025, injuries limited Shaw’s playing time in 2026. A blood clot in his shoulder cost him the first couple months of the season, and then he went down for the year in July after sustaining an unspecified injury.

Despite the unexpected power surge, Shaw is a hit-tool oriented batter. He makes an above-average rate of contact and rarely expands the zone, in part because he doesn’t swing much at all. When he does turn it loose, he’s direct to the ball and the way he can flatten his swing path facilitates contact throughout the zone. His raw power is well below average, and at his size, will likely remain so. Defensively, Shaw is versatile, if not spectacular. His reads and routes are adequate in center, though his speed fits much better in a corner. He has some second base on his CV as well, though none this past year. His ceiling is as an OBP-over-power fourth outfielder who can stand in center occasionally.

Hechavarria is a 23-year-old Cuban righty who signed for about $250,000 in 2024. He’s a loose athlete with good body control and a clean, if slightly long, circular arm swing. As with many strike-throwers with no dominant out pitch, the juiced ball was unkind to Hechavarria in 2026. Despite no real deterioration in the quality of his offerings, his HR/9 more than doubled from 2025 (he again split time between Low- and High-A). The obvious inference is that Hechavarria’s stuff probably won’t be crisp enough to turn over major league lineups multiple times.

There’s still enough touch and feel here to project Hechavarria as a big leaguer. He’s adept at locating his fastball at the top of the zone, can run his slider on and off the plate, and, most impressively, has a knack for pulling the string on the change in just the right spot to miss lefty barrels. At this point, though, he looks more like a lower-leverage, one-time-through guy than a potential rotation piece.

Pinto is a short, somewhat squat second baseman with surprising physical tools for a player of his stature. He’s a good defender at the keystone, with enough arm for the job. He has even played a little center field in recent years, so there’s versatility as well. At the plate, Pinto has roughly average power. While he needs a big swing to get to it, his mid-to-upper-70s contact rate is just fine, particularly because he has no obvious vulnerability to spin or high heat. Like Victor Arias, though, Pinto’s big cut may be limiting his barrel control and with it a chance to tap into that power regularly.

The other big issue here is injuries, as Pinto again missed significant time in 2026. He’s an all-gas, no-brakes type of player, and he’s Buxton’d his way into several significant maladies: rib issues and a hamstring strain in 2022, quad strains in 2023, various injuries for a couple of years, and then more rib problems in 2026. All told, he’s played in just 234 games across six minor league seasons. On tools, Pinto projects as a quality reserve, and one could argue that he’s a “young” 24-year-old given his lack of reps. From a valuation perspective, though, it’s hard to list him any higher than this until he proves he can stay on the field for an extended period of time.