The Toronto Blue Jays are beginning to bring up a part of their future.
The Toronto Blue Jays have been tough to watch this weekend, as they headed into Sunday’s matinee contest having scored a lone run in two losses and face a potential series sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays.
However, the front-office made a transaction Sunday morning that should excite true Jays fans. I’m not talking about the placement of the third baseman Yangervis Solarte on the disabled list, which only further contributes to the narrative that Toronto’s season has been derailed by bad injury luck.
With Solarte landing on the DL, the Blue Jays called up catcher Danny Jansen, the teams #3 prospect, from the AAA Buffalo Bisons. Jansen had been somewhat overshadowed in Buffalo by the call-up of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the greatest prospect on Earth, but the 23-year old backstop is one of the Blue Jays’ best young talents who has been crushing minor league pitching the past two years and is an exciting piece of Toronto’s future.
A 16th-round pick in 2013, Jansen has soared through the minor leagues the past two seasons. He started 2017 in Advanced-A ball but rose all the way to Triple-A Buffalo by season’s end as he combined to hit .323/.424/.552 across three levels of the minors.
Jansen has continued his crush the baseball this year as he clubbed 12 home runs, 58 runs batted in and a .390 on-base percentage with the Bisons before Sunday’s promotion to the big leagues. He represented the Blue Jays at the 2018 ll-Star Futures Game in Washington this past July, where he swatted a 2-run homer for the U.S. Futures squad.
.@D_Jansen31 went deep to tie the game... you'll want to hear @toriihunter48's reaction! #FuturesGame pic.twitter.com/m5oS3U1F04
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) July 15, 2018
Jansen has been hot at the plate for the past two seasons, and will be able to refine his defense and game-calling skills with the mentorship of veteran catcher Russell Martin, who figures to get fewer starts behind the plate—and more at third base—with Jansen’s arrival.
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While the Toronto Blue Jays called up one of their best young prospects Sunday, it is expected they call up another on Monday as pitcher Sean-Reid Foley was seen at the Rogers Centre prior to Sunday’s game. Reid-Foley is the Blue Jays’ top pitching prospect and has had an effective year pitching across two minor league levels.
The 22-year old righty was a perfect 5-0 with a 2.03 ERA in eight starts at double-A New Hampshire before getting promoted to Buffalo, where he went 7-4 with a 3.50 ERA. Those numbers are inflated Reid-Foley’s first couple rough outings for the Bisons; since June he has a 2.55 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, and 11.08 K/9 in 74 innings.
Reid-Foley was a highly-anticipated second-round pick by the Blue Jays back in 2014, and after achieving mild results through 2017 there was concern that his potential to be a top of the rotation starter wouldn’t come to fruition.
But like Jansen, Reid-Foley’s strong 2018 campaign fast-tracked him to the Majors, and the promotion of these young pieces has Blue Jays fans looking to turn the page on a team that is the oldest in the entire MLB and has been since 2016. These call-ups signify the Jays’ youth movement is coming to light at the big-league level, and fans are anxious for this team to shed its old skin in favor of their crop of prospects in the Blue Jays farm system, the 3rd-best of all thirty organizations.
While the Blue Jays’ season is lost, Monday night will have a fair bit of significance for the team as a road series kick off against Kansas City Royals, who are fighting with the Baltimore Orioles for the title of worst team in all of baseball.
Sean Reid-Foley is expected to toe the rubber for his Major League debut, while there’s a chance Danny Jansen is his battery mate in what would also be his first game in the Majors as well. These guys are just the tip of the iceberg in what will be a major roster turnover for the Blue Jays in the upcoming seasons. As Blue Jays broadcaster Mike Wilner says, the future sort of begins now.