Blue Jays Minor League Starting Pitchers Of The Month - July 2025

[Brian Labude]

We are deep into the heart of summer now, and as July wraps up, we take a look back at the stellar performances across the Toronto Blue Jays' minor league system and hand out the starting pitcher awards. We have the top five, which includes the Starting Pitcher of the Month and the honorable mentions to reveal. It was more challenging to come to a conclusion as to who would make it as an honorable mention and who was going to take home the mythical and coveted top spot as the best starting pitcher in the Toronto Blue Jays' farm system. The pitching across July has been spectacular; unfortunately for the farm system, the Blue Jays traded three of their top pitching prospects and threw everything into chaos. Hopefully, those trades can propel the big league team to a magical and deep playoff run. Let's dive into the best starting pitchers for July. 

Honorable Mentions

-Kendry Rojas, Double-A New Hampshire - 18.2 IP, 18 H, 8 ER, 2.7% BB-Rate, 40% K-Rate (Stats with the Blue Jays)
Kendry Rojas would have been the starting pitcher of the month if he were still with the Toronto Blue Jays organization. Unfortunately, or thankfully, depending on your view, he was moved at the trade deadline for help at the major league level.

Rojas started the season late, after missing the first two months recovering from an injury. He coasted through four starts at Single-A Dunedin in June, before receiving a promotion up to Double-A New Hampshire at the start of July. Despite a rough debut for the Fisher Cats, where he was touched up for the first time on the season, in his next two starts, he showed off his ace-level pitch arsenal. He combined to go 9.2 innings, only surrendering one run, one walk, and striking out 18 hitters. 

Rojas has a good four-pitch mix, three of which have excellent metrics and grade out very well when considering in-game results. His fastball and sinker stand out above his other two pitches and are elite weapons for him. For the season, his swing and miss ability, control, and his skills at inducing weak contact have been well above average. If he can continue his run through Double-A to end the season, don't be surprised if he pushes for a major league call-up by mid-season in 2026. 

-Juaron Watts-Brown, 16.1 IP, 1.286 WHIP, 4.41 ERA, 13% BB-Rate, 24.6% K-Rate
Juaron Watts-Brown is another pitcher that would have made the top five list, but instead the Blue Jays decided to ship him off to help the major league team make a run at the playoffs. 

For July, Watts-Brown had some ups and downs, but ultimately had bookend stellar games. In those two games, he went 12 innings, only gave up two runs, and struck out 12. 

On the season, Watts-Brown was nearly elite at getting swing and misses, as well as striking batters out. His struggles were in giving up hard contact when hitters did connect with his pitches.

-Khal Stephen, Double-A New Hampshire - 16 IP, 0.750 WHIP, 2.81 ERA, 3.4% BB-Rate, 22.4% K-Rate
Stephen was the most high-profile prospect traded by the Blue Jays and would have also been in the top five starting pitchers for the month. He was garnering top 100 prospect status across the majority of sites and is going to hurt the most by losing him. 

Stephen made three starts in the month, with his best two being the last ones at High-A Vancouver and his worst start being his lone appearance for Double-A New Hampshire. The good on the month was 12 innings, one earned run, 11 strikeouts, and only one walk. The bad, his four innings at Double-A, where he gave up five runs (four earned) over four innings, and struck out just two. 

Stephen possesses an elite strike-throwing ability and control, which leads to his high-end swing and miss stuff. His four-seam fastball is his elite pitch and graded out extremely well while he pitched at Single-A Dunedin. For the rest of the season, he needs to work on improving his secondary offerings, as they fall behind his fastball. 

5. Bryan Borbon, DSL Blue Jays Red - 16.2 IP, 0.840 WHIP, 1.08 ERA, 4.6% BB-Rate, 18.5% K-Rate
Borbon makes this list due to the many trades the Blue Jays made at the deadline, sending away a number of their top pitching prospects. Borbon is a 17-year-old, pitching in the Dominican Summer League, so his production carries a little more weight. In his best two games during July, he combined to throw nine innings, not surrendering a run, only walking one batter, and striking out six. He could be someone to watch more closely, especially if he comes stateside in 2026. 

4. Anders Tolhurst, Triple-A Buffalo - 26.1 IP, 0.797 WHIP, 1.37 ERA, 4.0% BB-Rate, 23.0% K-Rate
It has been a down season for Anders Tolhurst, but the month of July was his moment in the sun. He went five innings or more in all five of his starts in the month and only gave up runs in two of the games. In his three best starts, he combined to pitch 16 1/3 innings, only surrendering nine hits, and struck out 13. The best parts of those three games were the combined zero runs he gave up and only three walks. 

For the year, Tolhurst has had some major problems with getting weak contact, swings, and misses. His most used pitches are his fastball and cutter, but they have not been producing good results. He has given up 11 home runs on just those two pitches. He will need to have a repeat of July to remain relevant and keep any chance of a call-up in 2026 alive.

3. Austin Cates, Low-A Dunedin - 20 IP, 0.850 WHIP, 0.90 ERA, 4.1% BB-Rate, 29.7% K-Rate
Austin Cates was the model of consistency during July. He made four starts, going five innings in all of them, giving up zero runs in three, and two runs in one. His best game came against a tough Bradenton lineup, which happens to have one of the hottest prospects in baseball, Edward Florentino. Cates made easy work of the team, going five strong innings, only surrendering two hits, one walk, striking out six, and did not let a runner cross home plate. 

Cates has a three-pitch arsenal and relies heavily on his fastball and splitter (80.9%). Of the two, his fastball grades out as the best pitch he throws, while his other offerings have been subpar. He has been getting hit harder this year when batters make contact and will need to focus on improving his command and control of his pitch mix to help him reduce the hard contact. 

2. Grant Rogers, Double-A New Hampshire - 30.2 IP, 1.174 WHIP, 3.23 ERA, 2.3% BB-Rate, 13.3% K-Rate
With the Toronto Blue Jays trading away three of the top pitchers for July, Grant Rogers gets a massive boost in this list and comes in second for starting pitchers. 

Rogers has been a quality start machine this season, and July was more of the same for him. He amassed three quality starts for the month and came close in the other two starts. He worked deep into every game, going six or more innings in four of them and 5 2/3 in his last one. The highlight of his month came in his two games against a potent Somerset lineup. To start that series, he went six innings but got touched up for four runs. He made some adjustments, and in his second game against Somerset that week, he went six innings again, but held their bats to just one run in the game. 

There is a major weakness that Rogers has right now: his lack of any swing-and-miss stuff. He doesn't get strikeouts and relies heavily on getting hitters to make weak contact. It would be great for his development if he could develop a pitch he can go to in order to get strikeouts and swing and misses, but to be a back-end of the rotation starter or a bulk relief pitcher, he can ride his control to the major leagues. 

Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Month

1. Johnny King, Rookie-Ball FCL Jays - 13 IP, 1.615 WHIP, 2.77 ERA, 19.4% BB-Rate, 43.5% K-Rate
Johnny King has not only been one of the hottest Blue Jays starting pitchers but also one of the best pitchers in all of the minor leagues over his last few starts. He started his season late due to an injury and is now getting into a groove. Over his last three games in July, he combined to throw 11 innings, giving up only seven hits, one run, and striking out an eye-popping 23 batters (44% strikeout rate). His biggest weakness so far this year has been the walks. For the month, he walked 12 (19.4% walk rate) and wasn't able to control the running as much; seven bases were stolen on him. 

King has a filthy pitch arsenal that is led by his sinker and it grades out as an elite offering. His other two main pitches are a slider and curveball, which he throws much less often, but they garner a much higher percentage of swing and misses. For the remainder of the season, he needs to work on improving his strike throwing and command, as he ranks relatively low on those when compared to other pitchers in the minor leagues. Expect him to remain at Single-A Dunedin this season and start out at High-A Vancouver in 2026. 

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