Khal Stephen was the 2nd round draft pick for the Jays in the most recent 2024 MLB draft, receiving an underslot signing bonus of $1,116,750 out of Mississippi State. As a college junior, receiving an underslot bonus is more representative of his leverage than his talent, as he had a very successful 2024, pitching 96 innings with a 3.28 ERA with 107 strikeouts to just 21 walks. Stephen was with Purdue from 2022-2023, first as a reliever, then as a starter; he improved his numbers across the board after transferring to face stronger competition in the Southeastern Conference. 

What to Like
Standing at 6' 4", Khal is an imposing figure on the mound. Stephen throws with an over-the-top delivery and has a shorter arm action. His main pitch, which he threw over 65% of the time, was his superlative fastball. A pitch modeling darling, Stephen’s fastball didn’t blow anyone away with its velocity, only sitting around 92-94 miles per hour, but could reach 96 mph. Due to his height, he gets solid extension on the pitch of 6.5 inches, and he regularly gets a ton of induced vertical break, averaging over 20 inches on the fastball. Adding in his very solid command of his fastball, there’s a reason why he threw the pitch so many times. If Stephen can keep his fastball up in the zone, he’ll continue to get ugly swings.

Stephen also throws various secondary pitches, but with his high usage of his fastball, he doesn’t really throw the rest all that much. His main secondary is a slider that averaged around 83-84 mph and had a greater than 40% whiff rate on the season. Stephen also had another breaking ball in his curveball, which he threw more to get me over pitch. It had an Induced Vertical Break of -5.2 inches and -17.0 inches of horizontal break that he threw in the higher 70s. Stephen’s most interesting secondary is his changeup, which he didn’t throw too much of the time, but it had good results when he did throw it. The changeup has decent velocity separation from the fastball, sitting around 85 mph on it, and it has good fade, with 11.9 inches of horizontal break and 14.6 inches of iVB. It generated solid whiff rates at 41.9% and held a solid ground ball rate when hitters did make contact. Lastly, Stephen threw a cutter sporadically, which sat around 88 mph. Having a deeper arsenal allows for more hope that Stephen can last as a starting pitcher as he develops.

What to Work On
Although Stephen had a ton of success with the pitch in college, he would benefit a lot from adding more velocity to his fastball; if he could sit more in the 95 mph range, it would add a lot of effectiveness to his already good fastball. MLB hitters are more used to seeing guys with average fastball velocity like Stephen has, and even though he has an excellent ride on it, hitters have been getting better at hitting fastballs with a ride. He’d also need to improve his secondary pitches; MLB hitters are too good at hitting fastballs to throw one over 65% of the time for the most part. His breaking balls were solid but unspectacular in college, and the Jays could work on a bit of pitch design to help sharpen up his slider and create more separation from his curveball. Increasing the velocity on his secondary pitches would also be a boon for Stephen, as pitches generally get more effective with higher velocities, as long as there is still reasonable separation from each pitch to throw off hitters’ timings. Getting more comfortable throwing the changeup would also be helpful for him; he would need to be able to repeat his delivery well enough to fool hitters, and he would also need to be able to locate it well, which is still a work in progress. The Jays could also tinker with adding other pitches to his arsenal, and a splitter that tunnels well off the fastball could add a devastating swing-and-miss pitch, and the Jays have found a lot of success with splitter pitchers in the major leagues. 

What’s Next
Khal Stephen has a lot of interesting traits that we could look forward to, and if development goes right, he could be a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter. There’s also always reliever risk for any pitching prospect, and if his velocity falls off, he could be seen as more of a reliever. Still, the upside is genuinely there if the Jays do a solid job at development and if he stays healthy. Stephen hadn’t thrown a single professional inning as of yet. Still, as he was drafted out of college and is pretty advanced, he should start in Single-A Dunedin, or if the Jays are very confident that his fastball is too much for Single-A, he could head right to High-A Vancouver instead to face more of a challenge to debut. Stephen has already spent time in Florida at the Jays developmental complex, and the Jays should have already started evaluating what could work for him and, if he is successful in that, could get promoted pretty quickly through the system, barring any setbacks.