Blue Jays Minor League Highlights Thread

[Brownie19]

I think everyone should assume that Ricky is dead until he proves otherwise.  

[Eat My Shatkins]

12 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I think everyone should assume that Ricky is dead until he proves otherwise.  

Unfortunately yes, I thought this was going to be his year and he has elbow soreness before he even got started. Crazy.

It's May and he hasn't pitched an official inning yet

[JaysFan99]

4 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

I think everyone should assume that Ricky is dead until he proves otherwise.  

He's just Nate Pearson to me right now. 

[jmomcc]

Just saw Pinto is back in double A after rehabbing at low A i think. 

He seems to get hurt alot but he is one guy who i've seen play a few times in vancouver and i've always just liked him. He's small but has a big league swing imo. He had a homer and walked today. 

[John_Havok]

I'm just wondering when they're gonna lift the reigns of Johnny King a bit. Kid is still being limited to 55-60 pitches per outing and he's had 5 starts this season. Last night's start he was through 4 innings at 56 pitches (so under 15 pitches per inning which is good) and lifted. 

[Brownie19]

5 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

I'm just wondering when they're gonna lift the reigns of Johnny King a bit. Kid is still being limited to 55-60 pitches per outing and he's had 5 starts this season. Last night's start he was through 4 innings at 56 pitches (so under 15 pitches per inning which is good) and lifted. 

I have no idea, but I wonder if he has trouble sustaining his stuff deeper in games?  Maybe just being overly cautious too.  He needs to cut the walks, but so far so good with the results.

[John_Havok]

2 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

I have no idea, but I wonder if he has trouble sustaining his stuff deeper in games?  Maybe just being overly cautious too.  He needs to cut the walks, but so far so good with the results.

That could be an explanation in that they want to see more efficiency, but at the same time they're slowing down his stamina development keeping him at 60. It would seem more prudent to keep increasing the pitch counts even if he's not being incredibly efficient. He is a bit of a unit at 6'3" 210 so maybe they don't have those stamina concerns and are confident he can ramp up quickly if needed. 

[Laika]

I think it's just their pitching progression development model now

Tiedemann was a 2021 draftee who threw 78.2 innings in 2022 across three levels (aggressive promotion to AA) and he was going 5 innings or at least 4 in most of those starts, until he hit AA. 

King was a 2024 draftee who threw 61.2 innings in 2025, between the complex and A ball. They weren't as aggressive with him. Did not push his levels and did not push his innings. 

Similar kind of stuff but RT would have been more polished right away (walk rate tells us that). 

King being 19 for three more months, I bet they just want to see close to 100 healthy innings for him this year. Maybe not even that many. They probably regret pushing RT to AA back in 2022 and regret not building up his innings more deliberately. 

There are not a lot of other Toronto data points. Here are all of the High School SP they drafted and signed after the RT draft:

• Nolan Perry - had injury issues 
• Stanifer - wasn't very good in 2023, 2024 but they let him loose in 2025 at 21 years old when his talent broke through
• Maroudis - got hurt in 2024
• Carson Messina - elbow soreness took his whole season, will be on the FCL roster this year to start, huge helium potential if he has his velo still 🔥
• Troy Guthrie
• Johnny King

I think the youngest MLB SP who was a domestic draft pick was Elmer Rodriguez. He was a 2021 draftee. His progression:

2022: 38.1 innings, 2023: 55.1 innings injury (King is here), 2024: 89.2 innings, 2025: 150 innings 

[John_Havok]

4 minutes ago, Laika said:

I think it's just their pitching progression development model now

Tiedemann was a 2021 draftee who threw 78.2 innings in 2022 across three levels (aggressive promotion to AA) and he was going 5 innings or at least 4 in most of those starts, until he hit AA. 

King was a 2024 draftee who threw 61.2 innings in 2025, between the complex and A ball. They weren't as aggressive with him. Did not push his levels and did not push his innings. 

Similar kind of stuff but RT would have been more polished right away (walk rate tells us that). 

King being 19 for three more months, I bet they just want to see close to 100 healthy innings for him this year. Maybe not even that many. They probably regret pushing RT to AA back in 2022 and regret not building up his innings more deliberately. 

There are not a lot of other Toronto data points. Here are all of the High School SP they drafted and signed after the RT draft:

• Nolan Perry - had injury issues 
• Stanifer - wasn't very good in 2023, 2024 but they let him loose in 2025 at 21 years old when his talent broke through
• Maroudis - got hurt in 2024
• Carson Messina - elbow soreness took his whole season, will be on the FCL roster this year to start, huge helium potential if he has his velo still 🔥
• Troy Guthrie
• Johnny King

I think the youngest MLB SP who was a domestic draft pick was Elmer Rodriguez. He was a 2021 draftee. His progression:

2022: 38.1 innings, 2023: 55.1 innings injury (King is here), 2024: 89.2 innings, 2025: 150 innings 

Fair and reasonable. 

I wonder what the micro looks like ... like, do they tell him, you have 60 pitches to get as far as you can, or you're going to go 4, don't worry about the pitch count so much.  Somewhere in between? 

[Laika]

13 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

Fair and reasonable. 

I wonder what the micro looks like ... like, do they tell him, you have 60 pitches to get as far as you can, or you're going to go 4, don't worry about the pitch count so much.  Somewhere in between? 

Probably more about the pitch count than anything but they would also have a fatigue model that uses all of this info:

• Pitch count
• Inning count
• Pitches per inning
• Number of up-downs 
• Maybe other stuff like weather, pitch types being thrown, favourite mario kart character, sexual preference, what he had for breakfast, girth, and so forth 

There is science based on their fatigue unit regression models, and that is distilled to the stupid coaches and is probably something like: 70 P max, and 3 up-downs max, and never 35+ P in one inning