Toronto Blue Jays 2026 Top Prospect Rankings: No. 1 Trey Yesavage

[Brian Labude]

We are finally here. We've unveiled the entire Jays Centre Top 20 Prospects list, and now have reached the number one spot. Trey Yesavage is a man who needs no introduction. He debuted at the end of the 2025 season and proceeded to become a star during the Toronto Blue Jays’ magical run to the World Series. If you can believe it, he is still a prospect, so, on the day of his 2026 debut, let's dive into what makes him deserving of our top spot. If you haven't read our previous articles, you can do so now before continuing:

• No. 20 to 16
• No. 15 to 11
• No. 10: Jake Bloss
• No. 9: Yohendrick Pinango
• No. 8: Victor Arias
• No. 7: Juan Sanchez
• No. 6: Gage Stanifer
• No. 5: Johnny King
• No. 4: Arjun Nimmala 
• No. 3: Ricky Tiedemann
• No. 2: JoJo Parker

Yesavage made his way to the Toronto Blue Jays organization in 2024, when they drafted him in the first round (20th overall), out of East Carolina University. The Blue Jays opted to hold him out of games that season and then start him at Single-A Dunedin to begin 2025. He started his magical season with a rough game, one in which he walked six batters and showed terrible control. It didn't take long for him to right the ship, as he had three double-digit strikeout games over his next six starts. The phenomenal aspect of those performances might have actually been his control; he only walked two over 29.2 innings in that span. He was then promoted to High-A Vancouver, where the strikeouts continued to rack up, but the walks did as well. He wasn't long for High-A Vancouver, only pitching in four games there, for a total of 17.1 innings, and allowed just three runs. It was then off to Double-A New Hampshire, where he walked 11 batters in his first five starts. Ultimately, he adjusted and found his control again, walking zero over his last three starts there. Triple-A Buffalo was his next stop and proved to be a real challenge for him, as he walked 11 in six appearances and gave up seven earned runs.

The Blue Jays were nonetheless ready to get Yesavage to the major league level, having him debut on September 15. It's what happened next that cemented him as a legend to Blue Jays fans. The team made him a part of the postseason roster, and he didn't disappoint, firing 5.1 no-hit innings against the hated New York Yankees and striking out 11 on his way to one of the best performances of the 2025 playoffs. In fact, only he was really able to outdo himself. It took seven innings of three-hit ball against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series to do it. He would end up striking out 12 batters on that magical night in Los Angeles, and while he couldn't help the Blue Jays to the ultimate win, he earned the kind of legendary status that will last all of time. 

What To Like

When you look at Yesavage, the biggest thing to like about him is his swing-and-miss stuff, and he has a lot of it. In the minor leagues during the 2025 season, he had a strikeout rate of 41.1% (100th percentile). In his three games in the majors before the playoffs started, his strikeout rate was 25.8%, and it rose to 35.6% in the playoffs. What makes him so good is that, to pair with his elite strikeout stuff, he is able to keep hitters from making good contact. He held minor league hitters to just a .156 batting average and major league hitters to a .236 batting average. 

The uniqueness in Yesavage's delivery and his pitch arsenal really drives the whiffs to crazy levels. He has a pitch release of over seven feet, one of the highest in all of baseball. While his arsenal features some really good pitches, he relied mostly on three: a four-seam fastball, a splitter, and a slider. The four-seam fastball had around 19.5 inches of induced vertical break (iVB). Couple that with his release height and attack angle, and it proved to be an extremely difficult pitch for hitters to square up. His splitter was his next best pitch and dove on hitters. With 31.5 inches of actual vertical drop, it was nearly unhittable. His slider became a huge weapon in the playoffs when he lost the command of his splitter; it had the same effect with a different type of break. 

What To Work On

Yesavage really had only one major thing holding him back at times from becoming a star: his control. He tamed it in the playoffs last year, but in the minor leagues in 2025, he had a walk rate of 10.5% (48th percentile). In the majors, it was 11.3% (10.1% in the playoffs), and this year, it has been 12.5% on his rehab assignment. You can see just from his playoff games how vital curtailing the walks is to him becoming an ace starting pitcher. He walked just one in the 11-strikeout game against the Yankees and zero in his 12-strikeout game against the Dodgers in the World Series. In the three starts he made between those games in the playoffs, he walked nine and only struck out a combined 15 hitters. His strike rate in the minor leagues last year was 64.8% (78th percentile). This shows he might be searching for the strikeouts a little too much and could improve his performances by not nibbling on the edges and instead trusting his stuff in the zone a little more. This should also improve his length in games, as he won't rack up as many pitches with deep counts and strikeouts. 

What's Next 

Yesavage is going to make his season debut for the Blue Jays tonight, Tuesday, April 28. He can give them a huge boost, as their starting rotation has been decimated by injuries and bad play so far in 2026. If he can start the season just as hot as he finished 2025, he can almost single-handedly turn the Blue Jays’ season around and give them the boost of energy and excitement that the team very much needs right now. It will be important that he doesn't try to do too much, but if he can keep the walks down, he could quickly become the ace in waiting behind Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease. 

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