1. Nimmala
2. Yesavage
3. Stephen

#4 might be Rojas or even King? King is only 18 but scouts seem to love him, and he’s off to a great start in his pro career.

C Edward Duran seems to be having a nice season. He just turned 21. Will he get promoted to high-A this year?

The only one I have to strongly disagree on is Schreck. 163 wRC+ was 96th percentile in AA. 137 wRC+ after his promotion to AA. Yes he was a 24 yr old, but that is great for a 22nd ranked prospect. Imagine he's probably closer to a top 10 prospect in the system now.

Disagree on Maroudis and Barreira. Both are coming back from injuries and it takes time to get things back to where they once were so for me both guys are pretty much exactly where'd I'd expect them to be.

This is a great exercise.

First, my cavils: I'd put Schreck and Rogers in the up-arrow group. Rogers did well in high-A, earned his promotion and has been okay in AA. That's definitely enough for an improved grade for me. Barriera and Pinto I'd put in the middle group - Pinto's extraordinary production nets out the recurring injuries. On down side, I'd have Roden in the middle group - on balance, it's a wash or marginally down for me.

As for our 3/4 prospects, I'd put a pair of injured guys there still: Tiedemann and Kasevich. Pinango, even as a LF/DH is coming up quickly, imho, but he isn't quite there yet.

Stats-wise there's been I think 8 standout hitting prospects this year so far - Nimmala, Roden, Clase, Schreck, Pinango, Arias, Shaw, Duran. With honorable mentions to the injured Munoz and Pinto in their small samples. (and i think Flores and Nunez stand out in the DSL too, though i don't know how much that means).

All of those guys have legit very good offensive production for their ages and levels. Though none of them better than just "very good" overall this year, either.

If we consider Roden and Clase as "graduated" (even though i struggle with even considering the likes of Barger and Jimenez as truly graduated at this point), then that leaves 6.

On the pitching side obviously Yesavage doing very well, and I'd hand the 2nd best pitching performance so far to Stanifer, over Stephen in 3rd. But to be honest, I still have Tiedemann as our #1 pitching prospect, even ahead of Yesavage.


So maybe that's my tentative top 10 prospects at the moment, if we're saying Roden and Clase are no longer prospects.

Nimmala
Tiedemann
Yesavage
Schreck
Pinango
Stanifer
Arias
Stephen
Duran
Shaw

something like that at the moment.


But again it still feels a bit weird to me to just ignore the group of youngish borderline mlbers who have yet to establish themselves but aren't technically prospects anymore - Barger 25, Jimenez 24, Wagner 26, Roden 25, Clase 23.

My Top 10 pitchers:

Trey Yesavage
Kendry Rojas
Johnny King
Gage Stanifer
Juanron Watts-Brown
Ricky Tiedemann
Khal Stephen
Adam Macko
Jake Bloss
Silvano Hechavarria

My Top 10 hitters:
Arjun Nimmala
Victor Arias
Edward Duran
RJ Schreck
Sam Shaw
Yohendrick Pinango
Aaron Parker
Jean Joseph
Josh Kasevich
Orelvis Martinez

Prospects with little or no trade vakue:
Enmanual Bonilla
Landen Maroudis
Orelvis Martinez
Fernando Perez
CJ Van Eyk

Non-Prospects/current MLB in order of trade value:
Alan Roden
Leo Jimenez
Jonatan Clase
Braydon Fisher
Will Wagner
Joey Loperfido
Paxton Schultz

for those interested live feed of DSL Blue Jays Red - no sound-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUf5n2c0UZI

Marc - just a minor thing, but it's Juaron not Juanron. Just noting it because it's misspelled on your Google sheet too in case you wanted to correct it :)

ach I should not have left out Rojas. He's obviously right up there near the top of our prospects.

I like dreaming on King, too, but I've been far too traumatized by pitching prospect implosions to let myself get excited by a pitcher all the way down in complex league. Probably more a me thing than a King thing, to be fair.

I agree ugly, the Jays have an abundance of interesting guys who have exhausted their rookie eligibility, remain intriguing, but haven't established themselves as yet. I wouldn't include Barger among them - he's been too good.

My rough top-ten, based mainly on vibes, right now is:

Nimmala
Yesavage
Tiedemann
Kasevich
Pinango
Rojas
Schreck
Stephen
Arias
King

Marc, I'm a little surprised to see Tiedemann and Kasevich so low on your lists - would I be right to guess that you're applying a fairly steep injury discount?

Kasevich would probably be a tick or two higher on my position player list just because of how weak the list is (excluding the AAAA/MLB guys). But he's already 24 and there are pretty major issues with his bat. I know that the batted ball profile from last year was better but he still struggled to stay north of .700 OPS on the year. The defense of course gives him a fighting chance.

Johnny King pitched today, 4.2 innings, 7 K's.

Apologize if this is too long and messy, but i just wanted to take a snapshot of this "glut" of 23-27yr old borderlineish mlb type talent in AAA and MLB at the moment, looking how they each have performed at each age in MLB, AAA, and AA.....and my OCD mind couldn't decide on a cutoff so i ended up including everyone in that age group that's at AAA or higher right now.


Age 27

OF Robertson: MLB 12pa, .333babip, 17wrc+ -- AAA 191pa, .330babip, 160wrc+

Age 26

UT Schneider: MLB 53pa, .269babip, 98wrc+ -- AAA 160pa, .319babip, 104wrc+
IF Wagner: MLB 68pa, .250babip, 50wrc+ ----- AAA 60pa, .289babip, 111wrc+
OF Loperfido: MLB ------------------------------- AAA 274pa, .351babip, 117wrc+
UT Tirotta: MLB ---------------------------------- AAA 216pa, .381babip, 124wrc+
OF Robertson: MLB ------------------------------- AAA 464pa, .296babip, 95wrc+

Age 25

UT Barger: MLB 195pa, .312babip, 127wrc+ --- AAA 45pa, .259babip, 95wrc+
IF Wagner: MLB 86pa, .359babip, 125wrc+ ---- AAA 355pa, .339babip, 140wrc+
UT Schneider: MLB 454pa, .257babip, 80wrc+
OF Loperfido: MLB 262pa, .331babip, 74wrc+ - AAA 189pa, .316babip, 134wrc+
OF Roden: MLB 106pa, .250babip, 67wrc+ ----- AAA 83pa, .371babip, 177wrc+
UT Tirotta: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA 342pa, .317babip, 111wrc+ -- AA 73pa, .389babip, 160wrc+
UT Palmegiani: MLB -------------------------------- AAA 138pa, .222babip, 69wrc+
OF Robertson: MLB --------------------------------- AAA --------------------------------- AA 412pa, .292babip, 118wrc+

Age 24

UT Schneider: MLB 141pa, .369babip, 176wrc+ - AAA 392pa, .309babip, 145wrc+
IF Wagner: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA 28pa, .625babip, 245wrc+ ---- AA 234pa, .370babip, 138wrc+
OF Roden: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA 286pa, .345babip, 143wrc+ --- AA 244pa, .287babip, 133wrc+
OF Schreck: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA 32pa, .200babip, 137wrc+ ---- AA 169pa, .311babip, 166wrc+
UT Barger: MLB 225pa, .239babip, 70wrc+ ----- AAA 249pa, .299babip, 131wrc+
UT Nunez: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA 188pa, .347babip, 114wrc+
IF Jimenez: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA 41pa, .329babip, 100wrc+
IF Rivera: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA 170pa, .352babip, 91wrc+ --- AA 46pa, .333babip, 40wrc+
OF Loperfido: MLB --------------------------------- AAA 138pa, .329babip, 89wrc+ --- AA 365pa, .344babip, 147wrc+
UT Palmegiani: MLB -------------------------------- AAA 501pa, .261babip, 85wrc+
UT Tirotta: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 269pa, .278babip, 96wrc+
OF Robertson: MLB --------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 340pa, .271babip, 89wrc+

Age 23

IF Jimenez: MLB 210pa, .311babip, 102wrc+ --- AAA 226pa, .300babip, 135wrc+
OF Clase: MLB 93pa, .263babip, 66wrc+ ------- AAA 106pa, .438babip, 126wrc+
UT Palmegiani: MLB -------------------------------- AAA 96pa, .386babip, 149wrc+ --- AA 461pa, .312babip, 124wrc+
OF Pinango: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA 78pa, .260babip, 131wrc+ --- AA 192pa, .357babip, 169wrc+
UT Schneider: MLB --------------------------------- AAA 75pa, .316babip, 121wrc+ --- AA 190pa, .357babip, 131wrc+
IF Kasevich: MLB ---------------------------------- AAA 173pa, .369babip, 119wrc+ -- AA 393pa, .313babip, 102wrc+
UT Barger: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA 397pa, .308babip, 95wrc+
UT Martinez: MLB ---------------------------------- AAA 246pa, .234babip, 75wrc+
OF Roden: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 209pa, .350babip, 148wrc+
OF Schreck: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 148pa, .276babip, 135wrc+
UT Nunez: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 433pa, .325babip, 121wrc+
IF Wagner: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA ---------------------------------- AA 298pa, .302babip, 102wrc+
IF Rivera: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA ---------------------------------- AA 368pa, .234babip, 53wrc+

Age 22

UT Barger: MLB ------------------------------------ AAA 36pa, .348babip, 195wrc+ --- AA 198pa, .390babip, 148wrc+
UT Martinez: MLB 3pa, .500babip, 92wrc+ ----- AAA 319pa, .305babip, 123wrc+
OF Clase: MLB 66pa, .326babip, 87wrc+ ------- AAA 426pa, .335babip, 100wrc+
IF Jimenez: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA 77pa, .250babip, 67wrc+ ---- AA 333pa, .325babip, 125wrc+
OF Pinango: MLB ----------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 352pa, .255babip, 81wrc+
UT Nunez: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 326pa, .280babip, 71wrc+

Age 21

UT Martinez: MLB ---------------------------------- AAA 246pa, .317babip, 108wrc+ -- AA 292pa, .223babip, 122wrc+
OF Clase: MLB ------------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 489pa, .294babip, 105wrc+

Age 20

UT Martinez: MLB ---------------------------------- AAA ---------------------------------- AA 492pa, .217babip, 97wrc+



In general the numbers jive with BBox' general take on these guys.

Robertson/Tirotta/Palmegiani - highly unlikely to be useful. Palmegiani had a legit interesting year at age 23 but that seems a one off. And of course anyone can have a late power surge like Robertson this year and suddenly become interesting, but i don't think the chances are high, even with Robertson having that surge right now.

Wagner/Schneider/Loperfido - show me NOW, or it might be too late. I think wagner's got the edge here tho and his numbers would look better this year if healthy. Schneider hasn't been a liability either.

Barger/Roden - one is breaking out and the other sure seems like he should soon too. neither of these are close to locks but both possible impact bats.

Martinez/Clase/Jimenez - legit impact talent potential profiles. unfortunately it sure seems that Orelvis was getting an artificial boost and so far without it he doesn't look like much of anything. Jimenez may still be underrated in general tbh.

I was a bit surprised by where Schreck and Pinango slotted in here tbh - what they're doing is comparable to Roden's track record or Barger's or Schneider's. That's really good and i don't think we should hesitate to consider them legit prospects already, despite their short track record.

Then some more unique profiles - I'm still a low guy on Kasevich, but admittedly the floor is high enough to stay interesting. I still like Nunez, but that's based on an expected power bump. Rivera doesn't look like anything really.

My current top 10 without thinking real hard about it:

Arjun Nimmala
Trey Yesavage
Ricky Tiedemann
Kendry Rojas
Khal Stephen
Victor Arias
Yohendrick Pinango
Orelvis Martinez
Yohendrick Pinango
Johnny King*
Jake Bloss

The 11-20 group feels strong to me, feels like all of these could push into the top 10 pretty quickly. Not sure how I’d rank them but here they are from youngest to oldest:

Landen Maroudis
Fernando Perez
Brandon Barriera
Edward Duran
Gage Stanifer
Juaron Watts-Brown
Adam Macko
Josh Kasevich
RJ Schreck

I’m lower than many on Kasevich because he didn’t hit much at all as a professional until last year’s 41-game run at AAA. I need to see a longer stretch before I’ll really buy in.

Oops, double-Pinango.

I've thought for some time that Jimenez and Roden were the best of that bunch. Unfortunately, I am expecting 2025 to be a bit of a lost year for Jimenez. As someone who had mono in their early 20's I can attest, that at least for some, it takes months to feel 100% again. Barger is definitely the surprise for me out of that group.

My ranking is based on an assessment of (really a guess) which players opposing teams would choose if they could poach anyone from the Blue Jays system. I’m guessing most teams would choose King near the top of the list, maybe in the top five or seven players, probably ahead of prospects like Schreck or Pinango.

I realize that not everyone thinks about rankings this way.

I've long thought that Barger was going to hit. His defensive work this year has been a very pleasant surprise.

I would definitely put Robertson in a different category than Palmegiani and Tirotta - the under-the-hood numbers are just far, far better for Robertson. He looked bad in his brief debut, and there's obvious swing-and-miss, but his contact quality has been great this year. And it's not so much that he's getting to more power, but that he's making more (and better) contact in Buffalo.

On Kasevich, I see him as having a strong foundation with his excellent contact ability and good defensive value who hits the ball pretty hard. There's more room for offensive improvement if he can get the ball in the air a bit more. So I'm more optimistic about the bat than the consensus here seems to be. And as Nigel said, there are flaws in some of the other hitting prospects or a lack of defensive value - or they remain pretty far away. I think a number of the pitching prospects could move past him in my estimation pretty soon (if Rojas comes back strong, etc.).

Nimmala
Yesavage
Tiedemann
Kasevich
Pinango
Rojas
Schreck
Stephen
Arias
King

I'd have Kasevich and Pinango a little lower (low ceiling for first and bad D for second) but this top-10 is pretty close to mine. I'd have Paulino, Watts-Brown, Duran and Shaw vying for this list as well with Maroudis and Barriera possible if their rehabs start to pick up.

I can understand some of the reasons why, but it’s interesting that most have Stephen above Stanifer. Based purely on stuff, I think Stanifer’s got better pure stuff (I know the concerns about the lack of a quality third pitch for Stanifer).

I think that thinking of prospects in tiers is useful because the difference between two prospects can be almost nothing or huge.

Top tier
Nimmala

Second tier
Yesavage
Tiedemann

Third tier
Arias, Duran, Shaw, Stephen, Stanifer, King, Pinango, Schreck.

Things change if you care more about upside or closer to majors or other factors. A number of guys close to tier 3 and some tier 3 guys are close to tier 2 but don't feel like anyone is really all that close to Nimmala right now even if he is struggling a bit.

I dunno Greenfrog - sounds to me like you're trying to shove off the responsibility for your preference for raw upside in prospects onto other mythical GMs!

I like Stanifer a bit more than Stephen too, nigel. His best pitches are slightly nastier, and his underlying numbers are significantly better while a full year younger. I think there's probably some babip noise in their respective ERAs.

Yeah, could be, UO. I'm a BA subscriber and might be absorbing some of their bias and extremely positive reports about King this year. To be fair, they've also been very positive about a number of Blue Jays prospects this season, including Yesavage, Stephen, Stanifer, Schreck, and Pinango, among others.

And King is extremely young, he's just getting started in his pro career, and he currently has only two pitches (four-seam FB 94-96 and a curveball). He has a very long way to go.

Incidentally, in Keith Law's midseason top 50 prospects, he ranked Nimmala #37 and Yesavage #47, with Stephen on his shortlist of other prospects considered for the top 50 (Stephen was the only Blue Jays prospect on that shortlist).

I've seen one of the prospect writers already report that if we were to re-draft the 2025 draft today that King would be a 1st round pick. He has looked that good amongst his class of HS pitchers.

It's probably worthwhile to comp him to Ricky.

Ricky started a year older than Johnny, but started in A ball.

I would say that Ricky had better raw stuff - more velo, nastier slider, probably a more refined changeup, and arguably better command.

Johnny (18, CPX): 3.2ip/gm, 43.6k%, 6.4b%, 14.3ld%, 62.9gb%, .389babip, 31era-, 34fip-, 41xfip-
Ricky (19, A): 5.0ip/gm, 44.5k%, 11.8b%, 23.9ld%, 45.7gb%, .217babip, 46era-, 53fip-, 58xfip-
Ricky (19, A+): 4.7ip/gm, 36.0k%, 8.0b%, 18.2ld%, 45.5gb%, .276babip, 58era-, 68fip-, 77xfip-
Ricky (19, AA): 2.8ip/gm, 34.1k%, 9.8b%, 9.5ld%, 61.9gb%, .227babip, 57era-, 51fip-, 70xfip-


pretty great stuff from Johnny to be fair. impressed by the low bb% in particular, and also the groundball rate. Can't get quite as excited about him as I was seeing Ricky skyrocket to AA in year one and keep dominating, but he's got until next year to get there to catch up to that pace.



and just for a quick comp to Ye Savage:

Savage (21, A): 4.8ip/gm, 43.3k%, 6.3b%, 15.0ld%, 48.3gb%, .267babip, 57era, 54fip-, 43xfip-
Ricky (19, A): 5.0ip/gm, 44.5k%, 11.8b%, 23.9ld%, 45.7gb%, .217babip, 46era-, 53fip-, 58xfip-

Savage (21, A+): 4.3ip/gm, 47.8k%, 15.9b%, 20.0ld%, 52.0gb%, .130babip, 34era-, 67fip-, 48xfip-
Ricky (19, A+): 4.7ip/gm, 36.0k%, 8.0b%, 18.2ld%, 45.5gb%, .276babip, 58era-, 68fip-, 77xfip-

Savage (21, AA): 3.3ip/gm, 26.7k%, 23.3b%, 13.3ld%, 20.0gb%, .267babip, 175era-, 105fip-, 153xfip-
Ricky (19, AA): 2.8ip/gm, 34.1k%, 9.8b%, 9.5ld%, 61.9gb%, .227babip, 57era-, 51fip-, 70xfip-


Great stuff from yesavage but i'm still taking the guy 2yrs younger who didn't hit a speed bump in AA.


I know Tiedemann's got serious injury issues but the last few years have taught me that no pitching prospect is safe from these injuries, not Yesavage or King either, so for me I still consider Ricky our #1 pitching prospect unless he comes back from TJ a different guy.

My point about someone like King versus say, Pinango, is that many teams would presumably say “give me King” because it’s worth it to try to land a potential star starting pitcher, even if the player carries a lot of risk, because those types of players are so hard to find. And you want to grab a prospect like that before they succeed even more and become untouchable. That’s just my intuition — I could be wrong. Of course, teams are always balancing risk and reward in targeting players in trade negotiations.

As for Tiedemann, he could still be great. It depends on how he feels post-surgery. Is he back to the earlier dominant version of himself? Or will he revert to the version that was struggling pre-surgery? In other words, was the injury the only real issue for him in 2023-2024, or was he having other issues?

My #3 is J Watts-Brown. #4 K Stephen.

2025 has been a net positive for the minor league system from my perspective. The players who I thought would take a step forward have (Nimmala, Yesavage), the ones who I thought would struggle have (Bloss, Orelvis) and the surprises have been mostly positive (Schreck, Pinango, Shaw, Duran).

I don't subscribe to the view that the system is overly weighted to pitchers. I think that the balance is about right, especially bearing in mind the age/contract status of the major league team.

Borderline Generational (I grade on talent and upside)
Tiedemann

Top flight "definitely good in MLB"
Yesavage

Solid and "good" in MLB
Nimmala

4th
King
Maroudis
Kasevich
Pinango
Stephen
Barriera
Stanifer

Barger for me would be at Nimmala's level and Clase in the 4th category for perspective. I'm really high on Tiedemann obviously but I think he will be the ace of this rotation as soon as next year. I also think he was trying to pitch injured in the past and was still blowing major league hitters away. I really can't wait to see him debut.

Jackson Hornung and Pat Gallagher have been promoted to AA.

Bryce Arnold is going from Dunedin to join Casey Martin who went up last week.

I don't know what impact this has on the NH roster, if anyone is going up or out.

The tale of the tape:
Name: Randy Johnson Dicky Lovelady
Height: 6'10" 6'0"
Fastball: 102mph. 93mph
Nickname: Big Unit. ???

Warning: you can't trust left-handers. They're all sinister.

Ack. Wrong thread.

Jackson Hornung who hit well in Vancouver, has three hits in his AA debut tonight.