Blue Jays draft 17-year-old shortstop Nimmala with No. 20 pick
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With their first and only pick on Day 1 of the 2023 MLB Draft on Sunday, the Blue Jays selected shortstop Arjun Nimmala at No. 20 overall.
The 17-year-old Nimmala is the first draftee from Strawberry Crest High School in Florida and “all about projection” as the 11th-ranked player on MLB Pipeline’s Draft prospect rankings, with talent that’s left the Blue Jays thrilled he was available at No. 20.
“It’s overall tool package, combined with the age and overall upside of the player,” said Shane Farrell, the Blue Jays’ director of amateur scouting. “The power, the arm strength, reactions defensively, playing at a premium position. That all makes him a really exciting player and somebody I'm really happy to get into the farm system.”
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At 6-foot-1 with some physical projection ahead of him, Nimmala describes himself as a “patient-aggressive” hitter at the plate who has plus raw power with the ability to drive the ball to all fields. Nimmala’s athleticism and instincts at shortstop should give him every opportunity to stick there long-term, but his offensive upside is what has scouts most excited.
Nimmala’s father, Balu, first came to the United States from India in 2001. By the time Arjun was born in 2005, he, Balu and his mother, Neeru, were living in Florida. Baseball was new to the Nimmalas, but as Arjun embraced the sport, so did his family.
“I also played a little bit of soccer and basketball, and those are both really fun sports for me,” Arjun said. “And at that age … it's just playing for fun. And then it came travel ball time for baseball, as well as competitive basketball. And I decided to go with baseball, because it was just the passion. I just had way more fun on the baseball field. So I chose baseball.”
Teams tend to have a “type” when it comes to hitters in the Draft. Some prefer college bats to high school bats while others target power, hoping to fill in the rest with player development. The Blue Jays’ recent trend has been to target hitters with an advanced plate approach, regardless of age, but there’s still room to stray from that.
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“You can look at last year’s Draft with players like Alan Roden or Josh Kasevich,” Farrell said, “who control the zone well and make a lot of contact. Then a few rounds later, we take a chance on Peyton Williams, who has more of a first-base profile with really big power. We are a little more balanced, but also trying to get the players in our system that our player development group is most wanting to work with.”
This relationship between the Draft and the player development staff has been important. These are two separate arms of a baseball front office, but the Blue Jays have put an emphasis on the two working together. If they want to chase top-end outcomes with these prospects, why not involve the people who will be developing them for the next few years in the Draft process?
“Ultimately, that’s the goal, to feed your system with the types of talent that you’re best at developing,” Farrell said. “What we’re trying to do is really involve our player development group -- specifically at the coordinator level -- and fold them into our amateur scouting process more throughout the year to get them familiar with the pool of players they may potentially be working with.
"It also allows a different set of eyes to look at the player differently than a traditional scout may. It provides a unique opinion.”
Nimmala joins the Blue Jays at an important time for this club’s farm system. In the coming weeks -- and surely the coming two or three years -- the Blue Jays will lean on their prospect depth in trades as they look to win with their talented core.
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That core isn’t getting any cheaper, either, so it’s more important than ever that the Blue Jays develop some MLB-caliber players internally to help balance out those salaries.
The Blue Jays launched this new competitive era for the organization around Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the jewels of their international scouting and Draft work. Alek Manoah, Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk, Cavan Biggio, Jordan Romano, Nate Pearson and Tim Mayza have also been developed internally, but there’s been a bit of a gap since the last wave.
The Blue Jays are betting on it all coming together for Nimmala, from his offensive upside to his physical ceiling, and he instantly becomes one of the top names in this farm system.