How the Blue Jays Can Manage Trey Yesavage's Workload in 2026

Trey Yesavage took the baseball world by storm last fall, shining on baseball’s biggest stage against some of MLB's biggest stars. 

Last season, Yesavage climbed the ranks of the Blue Jays’ farm system, starting the season in Single-A Dunedin before finishing the 2025 campaign as a member of Toronto’s rotation in the World Series. 

In total, Yesavage pitched in 139 ⅔ innings, with 27 ⅔ of those coming during the Blue Jays’ postseason run. Selected in the first round, 20th overall in 2024 and still only 22 years old, he is just starting his career, and the Blue Jays will be tasked with making sure that he remains healthy as he enters his first full season at the game's highest level. 

Yesavage has yet to make an appearance during a spring training game, slowly building his way up, going along with the plan the Blue Jays have put in place. Speaking to Sportsnet’s Ben-Nicholson Smith, Yesavage discussed the Blue Jays’ plan to play it cautious with his workload. 

“They’re taking me slow, slower than anyone else in here,” Yesavage said. “I know they have my best interests in mind, so I have all the faith in them for whatever they plan the future to look like. I’m just following orders, per se.”

With under three weeks until Opening Day, the likely scenario is that Yesavage appears in two or three spring games before the Blue Jays break camp and head to Toronto to prepare to start their season against the Athletics. 

Blue Jays manager John Schneider has already said that the team isn't about to ask Yesavage to throw 200-plus innings this season, so that sets up the young right-hander to be on a pitch limit through portions of the season. 

What Does This Mean for Yesavage and the Blue Jays?

This is where the Blue Jays’ deep roster of arms comes into play. Currently, they have Kevin Gausman, Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, and José Berríos presumably slotted into rotation spots. Shane Bieber, when healthy, will claim a role, leaving Cody Ponce, Max Scherzer and Eric Lauer as other potential options heading into 2026. 

Scherzer, like Yesavage, is still being slowly worked into games due to his late signing, so he may not be an option when the regular season begins. Bieber hasn’t worked his way into a game yet, either; he won't be on the Opening Day roster, and it's unclear how soon he'll be ramped up and ready to go.

This means that Yesavage and Lauer working as a tandem to begin the season in one of the rotation spots may be the most likely scenario. Last season, Lauer worked as both a starter and reliever, going 9-2 with an ERA of 3.18, a FIP of 3.85 and a WHIP of 1.10, holding opposing batters to a .227 average. 

The left-hander would provide a different look either opening for Yesavage or coming in following the tall right-hander. Both pitchers made appearances out of the bullpen last year, so this is something that wouldn’t be completely foreign to either. 

Using both Yesavage and Lauer on the same day could raise concerns about overuse of the rest of the bullpen. This plan will require the following day’s starter to provide length if the Blue Jays are routinely forced to use several relievers (including Lauer) on days that Yesavage pitches early in the season. 

With that in mind, using the Yesavage-Lauer combo as the 'fifth starter' would make sense, leaving whoever the Blue Jays choose to take the ball on Opening Day – likely either Gausman or Cease – to follow them up. Gausman and Cease both routinely throw quality starts. 

In a perfect world, Yesavage could throw a full season, but as the Blue Jays look to protect last year’s rookie star, their depth will have to come into play.