TORONTO — Just like the parent club at the big-league level, the Toronto Blue Jays’ farm system rebounded in a significant way last season. 

Addison Barger, Trey Yesavage, Braydon Fisher, Mason Fluharty, Joey Loperfido, Paxton Schultz and Lazaro Estrada all made varying degrees of contribution to a team that advanced to the World Series. Prospects Khal Stephen, Juaron Watts-Brown, Alan Roden, Kendry Rojas and Will Wagner built up enough currency to be used for deadline adds. Yesavage was an obvious headliner, but there were several other developmental successes, too.

In the process, the Blue Jays moved from a consensus bottom-third farm system among public third-party evaluators to the middle tier of organizational rankings. 

10. Trey Yesavage; 62. Arjun Nimmala; 66. JoJo Parker

14. Trey Yesavage; 52. JoJo Parker; 76. Arjun Nimmala; 85. Johnny King

8. Trey Yesavage; 48. Arjun Nimmala

12. Trey Yesavage; 45. JoJo Parker; 77. Arjun Nimmala

*End-of-2025 ranking; others are as of spring 2026

The goal for 2026, then, is simple.

“We want to continue building off that because they set the standard up there and ideally we're preparing our guys to contribute to that when they get up there and not just be a part of it,” said Joe Sclafani, the director of player development for the Blue Jays.

“The pitching was outstanding, honestly. They took jumps much quicker than even I thought was going to happen and that's a testament to Justin (Lehr, the director of pitching), Ricky (Meinhold, the pitching co-ordinator), all the pitching coaches. They did a really good job of everybody getting on the same page, same language, messaging, guys attacking the zone, understanding themselves better, so building off of that, for sure.”

On the hitting side, “I think our damage development has been pretty good,” added Sclafani.

“Guys are coming in and they're seeing meaningful gains, not only in bat speed but in EVs, as well. We have opportunities. Definitely continue getting better with the defensive development. We were just OK last year comparatively. Baserunning is the lowest-hanging fruit for us. We were bottom three in all of baseball in a lot of those things. We're going to try to steal more bags. We are just going to be better on the basepaths, knowing how important it is up there. We want to make sure we're consistent with it.”

There’s a lot to unpack there and the theme of building organizational continuity across all levels is an important one. But given where the Blue Jays were on the pitching side after a dismal 2024 that included eight prospects needing reconstructive elbow surgery,........

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