With Spring Training now officially under way for the Blue Jays, right-hander Alek Manoah recently spoke to reporters as he looks to put a brutal 2023 campaign behind him. As noted by Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, Manoah is looking to put last year behind him.
“When your team is going to a playoff and you’re not there, it’s tough,” Manoah said, per Davidi. “but talking about 2023, for me is kind of not worth it. It’s in the past right now for me, which is really good.”
It’s not a surprise that Manoah prefers to leave his 2023 in the past. After a breakout season in 2022 where the right-hander pitched to a 2.24 ERA in 196 2/3 innings of work en route to an All Star appearance and third place finish in AL Cy Young award voting, Manoah struggled to a 5.87 ERA with a 6.01 FIP across 19 starts for the Blue Jays last year. Rather than reflect on his disastrous season, Davidi notes that Manoah spent the offseason overhauling his training regime and nutrition plan.
While it’s anyone’s guess how the game’s latest “best shape of his life” rebound candidate will perform on the mound this year, the 26-year-old hurler is seemingly to be penciled into the fifth spot in the club’s rotation behind Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, and Yusei Kikuchi. Manoah has gotten rave reviews from others around camp this spring, including Gausman. The veteran ace told reporters (including Davidi) that his teammate “looks a lot more like himself than he ever did last year,” adding that he believes Manoah may not have been fully prepared for the impact his 2022 workload would have on him the following year.
Even as Manoah appears to be the primary candidate to round out the club’s rotation, he’s not without competition. Most notably, the Blue Jays signed right-hander Yariel Rodriguez to a five-year deal this winter. Rodriguez, 27 next month, was dominant as a reliever in Japan’s NPB but spent the 2023 campaign building himself back up to be a starting pitcher, with Toronto brass suggesting that his presence provides the club with “starting depth” that can fill multiple roles on the team. While those comments hardly indicate that Rodriguez is a favorite for a spot in the Opening Day rotation, it’s fair to wonder if the Jays could reconsider their stance if Manoah’s struggles continue throughout the spring.
Another possible alternative to Manoah in the rotation is Ricky Tiedemann, the club’s top pitching prospect. The 21-year-old southpaw made just 15 starts last year across all levels of the minor leagues, posting a 3.68 ERA in 44 innings of work, but managed to reach the Triple-A level and has long been seen as a possible contributor at the big league level for the club this season. Club manager John Schneider recently confirmed that to reporters (including MLB Network’s Jon Morosi), noting that the Jays already have a plan in place regarding Tiedemann’s workload for 2024 and that the club’s preference is for those innings to come at the big league level, provided Tiedemann proves himself ready for the opportunity.
Despite his limited workload as a professional since being drafted by the Blue Jays in the third round of the 2021 draft, Tiedemann enters the 2024 campaign as a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport and on the shortlist of the game’s very best pitching prospects alongside the likes of Andrew Painter of the Phillies, Cade Horton of the Cubs, and Kyle Harrison of the Giants. While it seems unlikely the Blue Jays would lean on Tiedemann for anything close to 30 starts this year given his minimal experience, it’s certainly possible that Tiedemann could force the issue and make it to Toronto fairly early in the season if the Jays want to maximize his big league opportunities.
Also looking to establish himself at the big league level this season is infield prospect Orelvis Martinez. The 22-year-old enjoyed a solid season in 2023 as he slashed .243/.340/.496 in 125 games split between the Double- and Triple-A levels last year. While Martinez has spent the vast majority of his professional career on the left side of the infield, he saw increasing time at second base last year and Morosi adds that Schneider has indicated he’ll continue to focus on the keystone headed into the 2024 season. There should be opportunities for Martinez to work himself into the club’s infield mix, as following the departures of Matt Chapman and Whit Merrifield via free agency the club has no certain starter at either second or third base. The likes of Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Justin Turner, Davis Schneider, Cavan Biggio, and Santiago Espinal all figure to spend time on the dirt for the club this winter alongside stars Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
While the likes of Manoah, Tiedemann, and Martinez all figure to impact the club for years to come, the same can’t currently be said for catcher Danny Jansen, who’s entering his final year under club control in 2024. Jansen recently spoke to reporters (including MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson) regarding his future, noting that he and the club have “had conversations” about the possibility of him remaining in Toronto following the 2024 campaign. While Jansen made clear that “he’s not closing any doors” on a return, his focus is on the coming season at this point.
The backstop, who turns 29 in April, has enjoyed something of a breakout over the past two seasons, slashing .242/.324/.493 combined with strong defense behind the plate. That offense is good for a 127 wRC+, a figure which ranks fourth in the majors among catchers over that timeframe behind only Adley Rutschman, Willson Contreras, and William Contreras. That being said, Jansen has appeared in just 158 games over the past two seasons due to a combination of injury woes and the presence of 25-year-old backstop Alejandro Kirk, who has gotten the lion’s share of playing time each of the past two seasons in Toronto.
The new look Blue Jays could be scary good at the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest.
If only they had signed Pablo Sandavol too.
Sandoval (not Sandavol) signed a minors deal with the Giants. Weird.
Manoah and Vladdy both look slimmer. Kirk I haven’t seen yet.
He’s in great shape heading into spring training; hopefully it translates to success on the field.
Seems like he took Anthony Recker’s criticism to heart – finally.
“Huh”…Anthony Recker of MLB Network ripped Manaoh months ago for being fat.
Huh?
Manoah lost weight this offseason. TF are you talking about?
Last year is something you put in you tires…
Let’s go!
Tiedemann is not a consensus top 30 prospect and there’s no way he hits the majors before the trade line and most likely not all season as he’s never built up a workload and lacks control.
MLB #29
Fangraphs #28
Baseball America #22
Wrong on all accounts. Most lists have him firmly in the 20-30 range, and highly likely to break camp with the team. It sounded like that would’ve been the case last year until injuries took over.
Copied and pasted from Baseball Prospectus:
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Ricky Tiedemann is the best left-handed pitching prospect in baseball and ranks 22nd overall, according to Baseball America’s 2024 top-100 prospects list.
Tiedemann is not breaking camp with the team.
dude,
I’m not denying he has the highest ceiling of any left handed pitcher in minors, he has that title no doubt ! He’s just no where near major league ready as he doesn’t have workload experience and his small showing at AA was unsuccessful. Nate Pearson is more likely to earn a rotation spot than the ricky
He’s also not a top 30 prospect in baseball. Not even close ! This is the golden age of baseball talent and there’s a 100 players with a higher floor than tiedemann. The shakiest position in minors is left handed pitching and tiedemann hits that profile on all accounts
@ Big whiffa
Your second paragraph is factually wrong. As has been stated in this thread, Ricky Tiedemann is a top 30 prospect by LITERALLY every legit prospect ranking system other then Keith Law (who may or may not have some sort of childish bone to pick with the Jays organization).
If you have personal feelings otherwise, that is your right, of course, but you’re going against a bunch of industry professionals who do this for a living.
He struck out 105 batters in 62 innings and his season was derailed due to an injury. Of course he’s a top 30 prospect in baseball. Look at the prospect lists. The kid has 3 plus pitches.
I like the jays and tiedemann. 1/2 the guys all those professionals have listed in their career – fizzed out and never made it or atleast had success at the big league level. So take that into account when you raise these guys opinions above your own. Just because they all have him in top 30 doesn’t make it true and right now he’s just too unproven to be ranked that high
He’s 100 innings shy of a full workload. He going to carry that success over a season and k 250 a year ? Maybe, but he’s going to have to show me WAY more than 60 innings to make a believer out of me. Especially after getting rocked in 2A
Fan opinion isn’t taken into account. Pipeline, Fangraphs, BA, and Keith Law is how prospects become considered “consensus” anything. Is Tiedeman considered top 30 by those 4 outlets? If so, he’s a consensus top 30 prospect.
Not a consensus no, but he is listed as 24th by ESPN, 26th by Bleacher Reports, 28th by Fangraphs and 29th by MLB.com.
Keith Law over at The Athletic is the only major ranking that seems to be down on him, ranking him 52nd
Baseball America has him ranked 22… so it is just Keith Law that doesn’t like him.
Hasn’t Kieth Law always judged the Jays farm system and prospects more harshly since being fired by the team.
Considering Keith Law’s abysmal track record with Toronto, we shouldn’t take him seriously.
I think he’s better than Manoah. If the Jays had teams interested in him, they should have dealt him.
I think I care way more about what the rays board, padres board, or the mariners board looks like over these media postings. To much pride, bias, and click bait agenda for me and these public lists.
They are always setting guys up to fail too w these lists. Tiedemann fits that profile. Not as bad as James wood or Colson Montgomery, but still way too premature to have him too 30
I didn’t know MLB scouts read these articles
Firstly, you don’t know how much a young player is gonna develop over an off season. It may be slow or it could be pick.
Every spring there are surprises and some players advance and exceed expectations. You’re right that he, probably, needs more time. But, maybe he’s ready sooner.
Those concerns you point out are maybe why he does come up this season. If the starter outlook fades a little or they want to manage a workload limit, a bullpen assignment makes sense. If the stuff plays as most think it will, why not have that bullpen assignment be in the majors?
Early in the offseason I thought a Manoah for India deal made sense. Instead the Reds signed Mattinez to a stupid contract and the Jays signed Escobar and overpaid for Kalefa. Reds could have thrown in a back end starter too they got plenty of those.
Doubt the Jays would have done that deal. Both players would have been viewed as bounce back candidates. India’s play to this point in his career suggests a ceiling as a startable infielder who could be an all star on a bad team. Manoah’s ceiling is a regular Cy Young candidate.
Again the Reds could have thrown in a back end starter someone like Williamson. Toronto needs the depth and the Reds had plenty of it.
Manoahs ceiling is but so is the former rookie of the years. The trade made sense at the time.
I bet Toronto and Cincy both wish they had all their money back at this point to be in the mix for all these big names
I hear you but teams don’t want to wait until mid February. Boras screwed up.
Only if those dudes don’t get paid. Then he screwed up. If they get paid, and it’s march, he did his job
I can still remember Bryce Harper leaving what would soon be the world champion Nationals and pretending he wanted to play in Philly.
It isn’t all about money.
I’m surprised Toronto didn’t bring Ryu back. Surely he wouldn’t cost much and would only be a one year deal.
What would Ryu’s role be? Jays need minor league depth, not six or seven starters on the 26-man roster. (I wish they’d been more aggressive early this offseason signing AAA arms.)
Manoah and Jansen to the Marlins for E.Cabrera seems like a match to me…
Cabrera has injury issues and when he does play he has control issues.
Danny Jansen needs to be resigned period. He hasnt had a wrc+ or ops+ under 105 in 3 seasons and under 115 in 2 seasons. He is average or better in all things catching and has power. He hit 11, 15 and 17 HRs in each the last 3 years while only playing 75-85 games each season due to injury. His injuries ate fluke type tho as they are either general catcher type injuries or from getting HBP on his arms due to his stance. His only knock IMO in he is league average or just below in throwing runners out, he is the type of Catcher that any team would want and trading Moreno and letting Jansen go in 3 years would be a travesty Honestly. I hoped Kirk would be the 1 traded and don’t get me wrong he is an above average catcher with the stick and at most things aswell but hes big and when hes 30 he will have a hard time IMO similar to Panda. I think Jansen would get 15-20 a year so 75-85 over 5 years is a good contact and it gives him a few years on the back to make more money
Danny Jansen’s catching has been going down hill since 2019 not to mention he can’t stay healthy The Jays would be best suited to either move him to a 3rd string catcher role where he can be a bat of the bench and take advantage of his penchant for hitting in the spotlight. If not that trade him and try to get another young catcher to backup Kirk and eventually take over.
The writer of this article should have did some research before he wrote it and with one look at Jansen’s defensive numbers and he would have seen that Jansen is average to well below average in most defensive metrics..
The only thing the Jays should do about their catching situation is travel back in time and not do the Gabriel Moreno deal. How do you trade the young catcher with gold glove potential and a nice hitting stroke, along with an above average professional hitter for a dud OFer? You can find no hit, great fielding OFers all over the globe and get them for league minimum. I cursed Atkins the day of the trade and I curse him now.
that trade cemented the type of team shapiro and atkins want.
they’d rather trade offense for defensive outfields, and play small ball with light hitting utility infielders and a strong rotation and bull pen.
it’ll be boring as hell baseball and i think they put their necks on the line a bit to build this type of team up against the luxury tax in the AL east but we’ll see how it plays out.
Except they traded the most polished catcher, especially defensively, they ever had. Plus an OF who could hit a little for a paper-only player with a weak hit tool. Paper meaning metrics are nice, and does not measure how weak a player Varsho is. He has to take considerable leaps forward to justify the trade.
Moreno is/was the best out of Jansen, McGuire, Adams and Kirk, no question.
That deal will be in competition with the Young-Loaiza trade as the worst in franchise history. Should have cost the GM his job.
We’ve already seen how it plays out, they get shut out a lot, especially in big games.
Jansen can’t stay healthy. Reason #1 why he’s not getting starter money. Reason #2 is Jansen is not getting All-Star catcher money nor should he be in the Top 3 or 4 salaries for Catchers.
If the Jays want to pay him like a fringe starter for 5 years, cool. $15-$20-mil per year? Hard pass. Maybe the Jays can trade Varsho for Moreno .
Whats the going rate for a top 10-15 catcher in the league then 10-12 a year? Im just curious what you think is a fair deal over 4-5 years on a great offensive catcher or isnt horrible behind the dish
After looking into it my numbers were way off, 6-10 is top 10-15 catcher money so something under 50 over 5 years and more like 35-42.5
We also have to factor in Jansen’s injury history. Can’t get better as he gets older. Maybe 5 for $25-mil? That’s around fringe starter money; good enough to start and bad enough to lose out to a better, younger catcher.
Are the Jays planning to use Nate Pearson strictly out of the bullpen going forward? There was a lot of hype around him a few years ago as their rising star SP. what happened?
It seems as though Pearson’s days in the rotation are all but finished. The plan for him last season was to act as a multi inning reliever in hopes of getting him up to 100 innings for the season. He struggled tremendously with his command, with his offspeed command in particular being so poor that the opposition could wait on the heater exclusively. It’s a plus that he finally managed to stay off of the injured list for a full season and the stuff is still plus out of the pen, but he needs to improve his command to a great degree if he’s to enjoy any major league success.
TINSTAAPP
I would say yes, it would appear they now hope his ceiling is a high leverage releiver, they seem more focused on Yariel, Bowden and Tiedemann as depth starters
I think a couple things happened with Pearson. One is the obvious injury issues. The other is that I think he got caught in the middle of a philosophical shift. He’s a big tall guy drafted when they liked those tall pitchers creating steep angles. Now it’s all about low releases and flat attack angles. Spin and fastball shape matters more than the pure velo. I think he’s been trying to find the pitch mix and other adjustments to have success all while having a stop and start career.
This seems to be the year of relievers getting a chance to start. Maybe there’s an organization that thinks it’s worth a shot with Pearson now that he’s healthy.
I think he was just WAY overhyped
Tiedemann probably isn’t figuring into the Jays SP plans but it might be a good idea to sign a guy to a minor league deal in-case of a Spring Training injury.
As for the infield, the Cavan/Schneider platoon has about 5 weeks or else Orelvis is up – pending he does not backslide. Whoever fixed his swing last year deserves a huge raise. Martinez was under .100 around mid-May. For those who believe batting average isn’t a good stat, anyone who hits under a hundo is bad.
I don’t recall a swing change being mentioned for Orelvis but more of an improvement to his pitch recognition and swing decisions that led to the massive improvement in results.
When you hit like garbage and you’re in AA, the instruction IS swing change(s). Evidence by his lacklustre performance in 2022 and beginning of 2023 he had holes. I watched him live and in-person both years. It was clear he had made an adjustment with his swing.
What changed with his swing? I didn’t have the opportunity to lay eyes on him and would love to hear more detail about the changes. Every interview I’ve read with Blue Jays personnel mentioned it was all about making better swing decisions for Orelvis so he was swinging at pitches he could handle.
Shorter. You could tell the swing was a little long and loopy. Not only was he handling inside fastballs better and not swinging under, he was able to drive the ball to right centre when pitchers went middle to outside.
Unquestionable pop in his bat. The question now is how he will handle MLB offspeed. Would not mind seeing him play 3B between now and May 1st, and get him the reps he needs. Hearing, however, he’s playing 2B.
I see a lot of comments about players posting impressive seasons hitting in the .240’s – when did this number = impressive?
The .240 average isn’t in itself what people are saying is impressive. It’s 28 homers, the .340 OBP, and the overall .835 OPS
I don’t think batting average is as useless a stat as some new age folks think. Viewed in combo with other power and on base stats can help contextualize how a player generates their offensive production. But using it as a sole reason to like or dislike a player is somewhat myopic.
.240 isn’t bad when you realize he was .089 around May 10.
Its more of a dislike of the organization’s love of .220-.240 hitters with 20 HR’s like the JP Arencibia and Collby Rasmus type guys
Since when is batting avg the only metric for having a successful year? If a guy struggles in the first month hits .100 and then figures it out and hits .350 the rest of the way, did he have a good year? You would say no because he only hit .250 for the season. Such a simplistic evaluation of a player’s performance.
Well, firstly , if he hit .350 the rest of the season, he should be around .308 for the year
I’m happy for Manoah. He’s taken his deficit to the cleaners and looks like he’s ready to win again. Big congrats!
The guy hadn’t pitched an inning yet. Remember all of the glowing predictions for him at this time last year? Time will tell. Losing weight doesn’t make him a great pitcher!
Question to pitching experts: Does anyone believe Alek Manoah’s ‘bad’ outing wasn’t ‘bad’? Peeps are talking up his improved pitch velocity but his accuracy was abysmal, hitting 3 batters, etc. Is pitch speed more important than accuracy at this point in Spring Training or was he as bad as he looked to me (and other observers)?
He was bad and he will be bad all season , there is no recovery for this guy.
Today we see more genius work by Shapiro and Atkins , Giants sign Chapman for an average of 18M a season and we get IKF for 15 M a season . Who would you rather have .
Chapman was not coming back to Toronto like everybody else who left and who will leave if those two twits still running team , Bo and Guerrero will leave when contracts expire also .