FORT WORTH, Texas – The Toronto Blue Jays selected collegiate right-hander Trey Yesavage with their first-round pick, No. 20 overall, in the baseball draft Sunday.
The 20-year-old from Pottstown, Pa., posted a 2.03 ERA in 93.1 innings over 15 starts at East Carolina, striking out an eye-popping 145 against just 32 walks. He’d been projected to go higher in the draft by some experts and was an intriguing arm to have slipped to them.
The Blue Jays have a signing bonus pool of $8,987,000, the 23rd largest among big-league teams, to work with this season. Of that total, $4,073,400 is designated to the No. 20 spot while No. 59 has an assigned value of $1,489,000.
Boosting the overall total is their compensation pick (136th overall, between rounds four and five) for Matt Chapman’s departure as a free agent, valued at $515,100.
The stakes for the Blue Jays in this year’s draft, particularly their first two picks, can’t be understated after a 44-52 first half, much of the core on the verge of timing out and a farm system ill-equipped to help turn over the roster.
In turn, that’s intensified the focus on the club’s lack of recent success in the draft, especially in the first round. Since 2015, when the Blue Jays selected Jon Harris, who never made the majors, 29th overall, Alek Manoah in 2019 is the club’s only positive bWAR player, at 7.5. Manoah, Nate Pearson and the picks from the last two drafts, Brandon Barriera and Arjun Nimmala, are the only picks among the 10 first-rounders still in the organization.
Sunday’s two selections represented the best chance to land a player that changes the organization’s trajectory, as 252 of the 715 players on opening day rosters to come through the draft – 35 per cent – were chosen among the first 60 picks.
