Emergence Of Trey Yesavage A Major Boon To Future Of Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays and their fans almost certainly are still in a collective state of shock. They did everything but win the World Series, outscoring and arguably outplaying the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers, somehow falling just short of putting them away countless times.

This matchup was incorrectly billed as a stereotypical David vs. Goliath kind of deal. That’s just not fair to the Blue Jays. The Dodgers had to play in the wild card round, not the Jays. The Jays had home field advantage, not the Dodgers. Both teams had great offenses, but Toronto’s was more well-rounded, made way more contact and wasn’t quite as reliant on its transcendent superstar. The Jays actually had a bullpen.

One area in which the Dodgers had a distinct advantage was in the starting rotation. They set out to use their four ace starters – Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow – as often as possible, in starting and relief roles. And the Jays had no chance to match them. But they came oh so close to doing so, in large part to the emergence of rookie Trey Yesavage.

Yesavage was the Blue Jays’ 1st round pick in the 2024 draft, the 20th overall selection, out of East Carolina University. To say that he rode the bullet train to the major leagues would be an understatement. He had all of 98 innings worth of minor league seasoning, in which he posted a gaudy 160/41 K/BB ratio. He then accrued all of 14 major league innings after being recalled in September.

He then became the club’s co-ace along with Kevin Gausman in the postseason, clearly outshining his much more experienced rotation-mate. A 39/11 K/BB ratio along with a more than respectable 3.58 ERA 27 2/3 innings certainly catches the eye. It was Yesavage, not Gausman, who was summoned to pitch in relief in addition to his starter’s workload in the World Series, like the Dodger stars, and he was up to the task.

This is a huge development for the Blue Jays, who simply lack the starting pitching depth of most World Series contenders. Gausman is a legit staff ace, albeit one who is overly dependent upon his splitter for his success. Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber, their postseason contributions notwithstanding, have uncertain futures. Chris Bassitt is a free agent, and Jose Berrios was unuseable by season’s end. Eric Lauer is a nice complementary piece as a swingman, but it would be unwise to expect more from him.

Yesavage is a potential staff alpha, with an out-pitch splitter but more, featuring a fastball and slider that also flash well above average, all coming out of a deceptive over-the-top delivery that has some Tim Lincecum to it. There’s no reason to believe that Yesavage won’t quickly settle in at the very top of the Blue Jay rotation and stay a while.

The role of the starting pitcher once again is changing at the major league level, with the importance of the durable workhorse increasing. For a while there, teams were loath to let starters go a third time around the order and were often into their bullpens by choice by the 5th inning. The pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction.

The number of MLB ERA qualifiers (162 or more innings pitched) has begun to creep upward in recent seasons after years of steep decline. In any single game, the third time around the order theory makes some sense, but over a full season the bullpen churn is too much for a team to bear, and can lead to pitching staff collapse.

Starting pitcher development has also begun to change. Yes, innings limits still exist, but they’re not as etched in stone as they once were. What good is it for a club to be ultra-careful and then watch a pitcher spend half of their control years on the major league disabled list, like, say, Hunter Greene. Get a guy to the major leagues, let him pitch at a high level and max out the value of his control years. Sure, the pitcher could still get hurt, but be aggressive within reason.

The Jays did just that with Yesavage down the stretch, and it came thisclose to resulting in a World Series championship. Starting pitching remains the coin of the realm, and while it ultimately delivered a World Series title to the Dodgers, the Jays’ new young ace did everything within his power to fight them off.