A guide for Blue Jays fans ahead of the Draft
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This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson’s Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
It’s nearly MLB Draft weekend -- three of the most important dates on the baseball calendar.
It doesn’t bring the immediate gratification of taking a Victor Wembanyama or Joe Burrow first overall and seeing them on the big stage immediately. But the MLB Draft is still the foundation of any good organization.
Here are the details you need to know:
When: July 9-11
Where: Seattle
Rounds: Rounds 1-2, plus comp picks, take place Sunday beginning at 7 p.m. ET. Day 2 covers Rounds 3-10 on Monday, beginning at 2 p.m. ET. Day 3 finishes the Draft with Rounds 11-20 on Tuesday, beginning at 2 p.m. ET.
How to watch: Day 1 coverage will begin at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Network, ESPN and MLB.com. Day 2 and Day 3 (each beginning at 2 p.m. ET) will stream on MLB.com and ESPN+.
Latest mock draft: Blue Jays go for high school lefty
Prospect rankings: Read full profiles of the Top 250 Draft prospects here.
Toronto’s picks: The Blue Jays have just one pick on Day 1, the 20th selection. After losing its second-round pick for signing Chris Bassitt this past winter, the club won’t pick again until the third round, No. 89.
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Director of amateur scouting Shane Farrell continues to run the Blue Jays’ Draft and is optimistic that top-end talent will still be available at No. 20.
“Broadly, it’s a deep class,” Farrell said. “If you look around at the different demographics, there’s definitely depth on the position player side, the college position players and high school position players. There’s going to be some depth to give some length to those Day 1 picks.”
The Blue Jays went without a second-round pick in 2021, as well, so they know how this works.
Every club has a "type," too. The sprawling nature of the Draft means these types don’t show up in every single pick. But Toronto's recent Draft classes give some hints who the organization will target.
“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.”
You’ll hear plenty of talk about “collaboration” this time of year. That’s vague, but Farrell shed some light on how Toronto's Draft crew and player development crew work together throughout this process. The Blue Jays want to put themselves in the best position possible to develop these players, which requires knowing their own strengths.
“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.”
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Lastly, you’ll hear a lot about physical projections over the course of the Draft, particularly with picks out of high school.
The Blue Jays’ player development complex is their secret weapon. This gives them the best foundation possible to develop players.
“You can point to Ricky Tiedemann as somebody we saw pretty immediate gains with,” Farrell said, “just getting him into a more diligent routine and program. To really take off, a lot of that was done just based on physical gains.”
The MLB Draft isn’t nearly as based on “need” as other spots, but Toronto could always afford to add more pitching to its lower levels. In recent years, the club has changed its approach to developing pitchers, chasing high-end outcomes and welcoming the risk that comes along with it.
This has been a welcome change. It should be easy to find depth players, but developing true stars internally is the golden ticket in baseball. It’s also what will help the Blue Jays keep this competitive window open with the big contracts they have and some major decisions coming on Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.