Article: Blue Jays 2025 Top 20 Prospect Rankings: No. 7, Josh Kasevich

[Simon Li]

Welcome back to the Jays Centre Top 20 Prospect reveal and breakdown. Today, we will look into Josh Kavesich as we keep inching toward the magical top five. Let us take the plunge and see what our number seven prospect looks like.

Top 20 Prospects: #16-20
Top 20 Prospects: #11-15
#10: Charles McAdoo
#9: Khal Stephen
#8: Kendry Rojas

#7: Josh Kasevich, SS/3B, 24, (Double-A, New Hampshire Fisher Cats and Triple-A, Buffalo Bisons)
After missing out on the playoffs by a single game in 2021, the Jays had two prominent members of that team leave for Free Agency, with Cy Young winner Robbie Ray leaving for the Mariners and third-place finisher in the MVP voting Marcus Semien going to the Rangers. Luckily, the Jays could offer both qualifying offers, meaning they went into the 2022 draft with two extra second-round picks. With the first of their second-round picks, the Jays selected the shortstop out of Oregon, Josh Kasevich, for an under-slot value of $1 million so that they could sign touted High School Bat Tucker Toman 17 picks later. Unfortunately for the Jays, Toman has struggled immensely since becoming a professional baseball player, but Josh Kasevich has slowly improved as he moved through the system. In 2024, Kasevich started in Double-A New Hampshire, where he performed decently, slashing .284/.333/.364 for a 102 wRC+, earning a promotion to Triple-A Buffalo in August. There, he ended the season hitting .325/.382/.433 for 116 wRC+ in 173 plate appearances, capping off his most successful professional year. 

What to Like
Josh Kasevich can really hit. If anything stands out about his game, it is that whenever he swings the bat, he makes contact. In his third of a season in Triple A, Kasevich ran a 90.5% contact rate and a 96.4% Zone-Contact Rate. He rarely whiffed at all, at only 10.6% of the time, which was the 97th percentile. As a result, he only struck out 14.5% of the time, which was the 88th percentile among all triple-A hitters. The 24-year-old shortstop isn’t just a weak-hitting slap hitter, à la Luis Arraez; he pairs his ability to limit strikeouts with solid contact all around. With a 37.9% hard-hit rate, a 104.2 mph 90th percentile exit velocity, and an 89.6 mph average exit velocity, Kasevich not only sprays liners across the diamond, but he hits them hard. Kasevich also has solid plate discipline, despite the mediocre walk rate of only 8.1%. He rarely swings at pitches outside of the zone, running a chase rate of just 18.2%. Because of his excellent ability to make contact, he regularly has multi-hit games, lining singles back up to the middle or hard into left field.

Kasevich is well built, standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 200 pounds, but moves well for his size. Although not an aggressive baserunner, Kasevich runs well, having combined for 24 stolen bases in the past two years. He uses that speed well defensively, with solid but not spectacular range. He’s got very solid hands and rarely makes mistakes, limiting his errors to 11 at shortstop and one at third base last season. His arm is fringy for the position, which may make it hard to stick at shortstop, but he’s still one of the best defensive infielders in the Blue Jays system. He will be a versatile asset defensively at third base and shortstop, his primary positions. 

What to Work On
Despite his great ability to make contact and solid batted ball metrics, Kasevich hasn’t been able to showcase much power. The most home runs he has hit in a single season was six in 2024. Kasevich is mostly a line drive and groundball hitter, and although those are great for hitting singles, he isn’t making the most out of his ability to make solid contact, losing out on extra-base hits due to his approach and swing. Kasevich should work on lifting the ball more and pulling the baseball to do more damage on pitches that he can turn on, as he can hit the ball hard. His level swing is a big reason he’s so good at making contact, but without any loft, it’s hard to expect him to hit for much more power than he already has. In Buffalo, he did show a bit more power, with all three of his homers in Triple A being pulled to the left-field seats, so maybe he’s found a little bit of his power stroke, but it’s still a work in progress for him. 

Defensively, although he's a solid shortstop, he lacks the elite athleticism to be truly excellent at short. He may move down the defensive spectrum to second or third base if he slows down, so Kasevich needs to retain what athleticism he has to stick at short. He’ll likely bounce around the diamond once he makes his way to Toronto, which may be sooner than we expect, as Bo Bichette and Andrés Giménez occupy shortstop and second base. 

What’s Next?
Kasevich is an extremely polished hitter with little to prove, but he’ll need to show that his last couple of months in Buffalo weren’t a fluke and that he can be a high-OBP, solid defensive infielder who would be a great guy to have at the end of a lineup. He has been invited to spring training as a non-roster invitee, so it’ll be nice to see him get some experience against real major league pitching. He had a tough time against higher velocity in Triple A, so hopefully, seeing more advanced pitching will let him get better against 95+ mph fastballs. Expect to see him return to triple-A Buffalo and be a fixture at the top of the lineup. The Blue Jays infield is very crowded still, with many young infielders ahead of him on the depth charts, but Kasevich could see some major league time in 2025 if all goes right for him and if the backlog clears up for him. He could potentially replicate Ernie Clement’s production at third base with more on-base ability but less power.

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[Spanky99]

I'm quite enjoying these write ups fellas, great job, all of you.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, Spanky99 said:

I'm quite enjoying these write ups fellas, great job, all of you.  

Yeah, the three of them are killing it. Super-happy with the content they're producing.

[Orgfiller]

Kasevich is an interesting guy to follow. His floor is all given by how playable he is at SS. As noted, he's a big guy with an okay arm, so if that means he eventually has to move to a more offensively demanding position like 3B it could really limit his utility. It's encouraging to see that his exit velos aren't quite as bleak as his power output indicates. Whether that means he can dramatically alter his swing to tap into more power or simply give him a higher floor as a high contact, hard lines drives type remains to be seen. If the defense at SS is good he probably profiles as a decently high probability 2 WAR type of guy.

[Brownie19]

On 2/22/2025 at 9:16 AM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Yeah, the three of them are killing it. Super-happy with the content they're producing.

Very good articles.  Love the read.

[Spanky99]

On 2/25/2025 at 2:23 PM, Orgfiller said:

Kasevich is an interesting guy to follow. His floor is all given by how playable he is at SS. As noted, he's a big guy with an okay arm, so if that means he eventually has to move to a more offensively demanding position like 3B it could really limit his utility. It's encouraging to see that his exit velos aren't quite as bleak as his power output indicates. Whether that means he can dramatically alter his swing to tap into more power or simply give him a higher floor as a high contact, hard lines drives type remains to be seen. If the defense at SS is good he probably profiles as a decently high probability 2 WAR type of guy.

I brought this up in late December and was receiving some flak, I didn't get it.