Don't Forget About Jake Bloss

[Matthew Creally]

As consequential as 2025 was for the Blue Jays at the big league level, things were just as promising for their minor league pitching. It's been a long time since they've developed a homegrown starter that has lasted more than a handful of years in MLB before switching teams or roles, and that will have to change if they hope to be competitive long-term.

After floating in the proverbial abyss for most of our short-term memory, the system has surged over the past year and a half, with Trey Yesavage, Johnny King, and Gage Stanifer breaking out to project as future starters. Khal Stephen was also part of that group before he was dealt to Cleveland for Shane Bieber at the deadline. Ricky Tiedemann is essentially fully recovered from Tommy John surgery. 

The Blue Jays' recent player development hires, including amateur scouting director Marc Tramuta and minor league pitching director Justin Lehr, shortly preceded this wave of positive momentum. While the recent lack of quality pitching to come from within has drawn the ire of many fans who care for sustainability (and has been offset by ownership's willingness to invest in winning), early returns suggest the Blue Jays have the right minds in place to end that drought.

Absent from the list of pitchers who saw their stock rise in 2025 is righty Jake Bloss, who made six starts before tearing his UCL. He won't be fully recovered for spring training but should be back at some point later in the year. Bloss, who will be 25 in June, was the headliner in the prospect package Toronto managed to secure for Yusei Kikuchi, joining the franchise alongside Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner. He hasn't yet gotten outstanding results in Triple A, with an ERA over 6.50 in 14 starts since the trade. Command is the main culprit; his walk rate in Buffalo is a few ticks over 11%, and his zone rate is around 45% – considerably below-average. On a positive note, he has the stuff to succeed, with an in-zone swing-and-miss rate exceeding 15% post-trade.

Heads were turned last week when FanGraphs listed Bloss as the Blue Jays' third-best prospect in their annual top prospect ranking, giving him a future value (FV) grade of 50 on the traditional 20-80 scouting scale. Their evaluators are optimistic about his chances to become a regular mid-rotation starter at the MLB level. Of course, some other outlets remain a little more skeptical after the injury; Baseball America has Bloss at #9 in the system, and MLB Pipeline's most recent update has him at #8. That FanGraphs ranked him so highly even after major elbow surgery, though, is nothing short of a ringing endorsement. That the Blue Jays got him and two others for what ended up being a pure rental was nothing short of a decisive victory.

What's unfortunate about Bloss's injury is that the Jays had already begun to tinker with his pitch mix in an intriguing way over the 2024-25 offseason. He entered last year relying noticeably more on his changeup while dialing back his sinker. He also cast his sweeper aside after reworking his gyro slider, which was already a good out pitch, into a version that had more drop and more cut, effectively becoming a hybrid of the two slider shapes he was previously working with. How this all changes post-surgery is something to watch, but in general, pitchers seem less affected by UCL surgery now than they ever have.

That's a good thing, because Bloss's stuff comps are rather encouraging. He leads with a mid-90s four-seamer with tons of carry and notable cut action. When accounting for his nearly seven feet of extension, the heater is reminiscent of Padres reliever Jeremiah Estrada's notorious fastball shape circa roughly 2023 when he was still with the Cubs, before he added a few ticks of velocity. A more recent comp for the pitch would be Red Sox reliever Justin Slaten's four-seamer. Estrada's 2023 fastball was an above-average pitch per Stuff+. Slaten's is one of the best in the game.

Against righties, that new slider became Bloss's primary pitch in the starts leading up to his injury. It has somewhat of an unusual movement profile, with roughly seven inches of sweep (just a few short of being considered a sweeper) and positive induced vertical break, as well as mid-to-high-80s velocity. It compares closely to the ride-sweep shape coined by White Sox reliever Jordan Leasure, who isn't a household name but still notched a near 40% swing-and-miss rate with the pitch in 2025. It was one of the more effective sliders in MLB by run value (+7). Bloss's knack for cutting the ball makes him a good bet to handle same-handed hitters once he gets to MLB.

Meanwhile, it was the changeup that was his preferred secondary against lefties. It doesn't have a special amount of separation from his fastball in terms of vertical movement or velocity, but it averaged nearly 13 inches of arm-side run, which contrasts nicely with the fastball's tendency to cut. Metrically, it likely won't be a plus pitch; it averaged 87 mph with less drop and run than most of the premier changeups around the league.

Its closest shape comps are from 2023, a mostly uninspiring group led by Mike Clevinger, who got a 90 Stuff+ on the offering. If I had to guess, Bloss's newfound emphasis on it since coming to the Blue Jays has more to do with arsenal effects than anything else. In his TL;DR blurb on FanGraphs, former Pirates scout Brendan Gawlowski mentioned that a slower arm path might make Bloss's changeup easier to detect, but it runs enough that lefties don't usually square it up.

His arsenal is rounded out by a sharp 12-6 curveball he deploys to both sides. It falls off the table with high-70s velocity and considerable glove-side action, often throwing off hitters expecting something else. It's biomechanically similar to the curve thrown by Giants starter Adrian Houser, which didn't receive glowing reports from pitch models by any means but was still useful last year thanks to Houser's elite command and deep pitch mix. The slider is Bloss's best breaking ball; he'll use this one more for effect.

From time to time, he'll also mix in a sinker to righties, which runs like the changeup with a few more ticks of velocity and carry. The sinker's speed and movement profile has a top comp of new A's reliever Mark Leiter Jr. It's not a special pitch by any means, but it does the job to keep hitters guessing.

He may have missed out on the shared success that Toronto's upper tier of pitching prospects enjoyed in 2025, but Jake Bloss is integral to the short-term future of the staff. Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber are set to come off the books following this season, and Bloss is closer to being MLB-ready than most of the internal options the Blue Jays have to fill those spots. He has a deep arsenal led by a potentially plus-plus fastball and a bat-missing slider, and once he returns from injury and gets his accuracy under control, he'll be on the doorstep of a spot on the big league roster. After all, the state Toronto's incumbent starting pitching unit finds itself in is exactly why the Jays traded for him. As of now, there figures to be plenty of competition for rotation spots in 2027 and beyond. Bloss's first steps to proving he's an arm that can take on such a responsibility will begin in a few short months.

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[sliderguy35]

i think your shape comps are a tad aggressive, especially for the fastball.

both of the guys you listed (estrada / slaten) throw a few ticks harder while also having the same / more IVB. remember that IVB is negatively correlated with velocity (the faster the pitch, the less time it has in the air to gain IVB), so guys who throw harder while maintaining the same IVB will have their fastballs grade out MUCH higher. 

bloss was sitting around 94 in AAA before he blew out, the velo combined with the shape and the plus extension leads it to look more like david festa / sean burke's fastballs (although with a slightly lower release height). both of which are good fastballs for a starter to have & a good place to build an arsenal from, but definitely not plus or plus-plus

all that being said, i do like bloss a lot & both breaking balls are plus in my opinion. a breaking ball-heavy, "what if sean burke had average command" type guy is a good floor for a pitching prospect & there's right tail outcomes where he looks a lot like zac gallen IMO.