2025 MLB Draft Preview: Toronto Blue Jays

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve finally arrived at what many baseball fans consider to be the best time of year: the 2025 MLB Draft. Starting Sunday evening at 6pm ET, the first 43 picks, involving many faces that will be the future of this sport, will be made.

The Toronto Blue Jays, who enter Sunday’s action with a 55-39 record and a two-and-a-half game lead over the New York Yankees in the AL East, have the eighth-overall pick. For those who keep track at home, that’s the highest pick the Blue Jays have had in the first round of a draft since the 2020 campaign.

That year, they selected Austin Martin with the fifth-overall pick. Martin was eventually used as a key piece in acquiring Jose Berrios, who remains a rotation mainstay in Toronto, from the Minnesota Twins.

For years, the Blue Jays have had some rough luck in their drafts. Now, they enter the annual event with Marc Tramuta, the club’s new amateur scouting director, at the helm of it all. He was elevated to this position in November of last year and was previously the scouting director of the New York Mets for six seasons.

Some of the big signings the Mets made under Tramuta include Pete Crow-Armstrong, David Peterson, Jarred Kelenic, Brett Baty, and Tylor Megill. He has a solid reputation and many Blue Jays fans are excited to have a new face at the forefront of their club’s scouting department.

The draft is an exciting time for all, but the Blue Jays have a chance at really making some impactful acquisitions. Let’s take a look at the status of the current farm system and what the industry is saying about their first-round pick this year.

The Blue Jays Have an Improving Farm System

Don’t look now, but the outlook of the current Blue Jays’ farm system is rapidly improving. This is a refreshing shift, as the club has been the butt of many jokes around the industry in recent years as one with playoff aspirations at the big-league level, but zero depth down on the farm.

As of right now, Toronto’s got three players in Just Baseball’s top 100 list: Arjun Nimmala (No. 49), Ricky Tiedemann (No. 90), and Trey Yesavage (No. 91).

Beyond the “big three”, though, there’s a ton more talent coming up through the ranks. Just this year alone, left-handers Kendry Rojas and Johnny King, right-hander Khal Stephen, outfielders Eddie Micheletti and RJ Schreck, and catcher Edward Duran have all taken highly encouraging steps forward in their development.

For so long the Blue Jays’ main issue was that they had little to no prospect depth coming up the ladder. This year, they’re able to say that that is no longer the case.

Last Year’s MLB Draft

Last year’s first-round pick was Yesavage, and by now we all know how that has worked out so far. The right-hander has 16 starts under his belt this season and has a 3.19 ERA and a stunning 14.8 K/9 to his name. It’s not often you come across a pitcher who is ready to ascend up the minor-league ladder like Yesavage is, but he’s clearly a special talent.

Stephen and King were the Blue Jays’ second- and third-round selections. Both have turned themselves into strong future rotation pieces as well. Having these two alongside Yesavage gives the pitching-hungry Blue Jays a handful of intriguing possibilities over the next year or two.

The Blue Jays took infielder Sean Keys with their fourth-round pick and then outfielder Nick Mitchell with a compensatory pick in the fourth round. Keys has 10 home runs with a .762 OPS in 75 High-A games this year, while Mitchell was flipped to the Guardians for Andres Gimenez this past December.

Rounding out the top five in last year’s draft was right-hander Jackson Wentworth, who is having a so-so year in High-A. The soon-to-be 23-year-old has a 5.13 ERA with 72 strikeouts and 30 walks in 73.2 innings of work so far.

The 2024 draft consisted of many wins for the Blue Jays, but most of them came in the early rounds. Micheletti (eighth round) was one of the only notable later-round selections.

What Just Baseball’s Mock Draft Says

Just Baseball’s draft team has the Blue Jays going with infield JoJo Parker as their first-round selection with the eighth-overall pick. Here’s the blurb on Toronto:

The recent steam surrounding the Blue Jays has been prep shortstops. [Billy] Carlson/Parker have, once again, been linked here, and with Carlson gone, Parker is the selection in this mock. Role reversal between the two is possible, plus I wouldn’t be shocked to see Toronto dive into the college pitching side if both are gone.

Parker is a prep shortstop out of Purvis High School in Mississippi. He hit over .400 in every single one of his high school seasons and had an annual OPS that would make Aaron Judge jealous.

In his senior year, Parker hit 13 home runs with 35 RBI, 30 stolen bases, and a whopping 70 runs scored. Scouts love his bat, and it’s not difficult to see why as you watch film on some impressive and competitive at-bats he puts together across the past year-plus.

His .465 average was his highest in a few years, and he made sure to add a 2.68 ERA across 14 appearances to his stat line for good measure as well.

He’s a shortstop by trade with a cannon of an arm, but an eventual move to third base (where his arm and decent-but-not-great range would fit nicely) could be in the cards