Toronto Blue Jays fans will have to wait a little longer to see righty Trey Yesavage pitch in Spring Training, as the team plans to be strategic with his usage throughout the season.
It was a very unusual season for Yesavage in 2025, who still qualifies as a rookie despite taking the majors by storm in the postseason.
The 2024 first-round pick, who made his professional baseball debut in High-A in April last year, ended up making his major-league debut in September before making five starts in the postseason - including a record-setting performance in Game 5 of the World Series.
Yesavage, 22, dominated the minor leagues at every stop before setting a franchise record with nine strikeouts in his major-league debut on Sept. 15. Yesavage set a franchise record for strikeouts in a postseason debut with 11 against the New York Yankees in the ALDS, then set a major-league record for strikeouts in a World Series game by a rookie, with 12 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5.
“It’s a little slower, obviously,” manager John Schneider said earlier in the week of Yesavage’s build-up in camp this year, per MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson. “He went from having the longest off-season possible after he got drafted to the shortest one possible after his first full year.”
Yesavage set a new career high with 139.2 innings pitched across five levels a season ago. When the Blue Jays drafted him in June 2024 out of East Carolina University, they immediately shut him down for the remainder of the season. That layoff of almost a year between starts marks a stark contrast to what happened in 2025, where his final pitching appearance in 2025 came on Nov. 1, in Game 7 of the World Series.
The team has not announced when Yesavage will pitch yet, but his name has not appeared as the scheduled starter in any game until at least March 1.
“We’re just trying to be strategic,” Schneider said. “Looking at the broad picture, I think it would be unrealistic to say, ‘All right, Trey, first year in the big leagues, here’s your 32 starts and your 200 innings.’ We’re trying to stay aware of that, and there’s probably going to be some times where you have to hone him in a little bit if you can maneuver the rotation a little bit.”
But Schneider also doesn’t want to create a strict limit in terms of innings or days of rest between starts, as the team seeks to return to the World Series after falling in extra innings of Game 7 against the Dodgers last year.
“We don’t want to pigeonhole it and say that we’re going to cut five or six starts off his season,” Schneider said. “If there’s a time to adjust, to skip a guy or to push a guy back, yeah. You’ve got to look at the schedule and look at what other people are doing, but I don’t want to say it’s reactionary. If he’s feeling great, then great, but history has shown it’s hard to say, ‘Hey, 22-year-old Trey, here’s 32 Major League starts, go strike out 12 every night.’”
One factor working in the Blue Jays’ favour in the pursuit of keeping Yesavage’s workload under control is the number of pitchers capable of starting currently on the roster.
It has been reported that the Blue Jays are reuniting with veteran and future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer on a one-year deal, and also have Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios penciled in to rotation spots, along with free-agent acquisitions Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce. Lefty Eric Lauer is also seeking a spot in the rotation, though he excelled in a versatile bulk-relief role last season.
“The goal is to win,” Schneider said to Matheson Thursday about the crowded rotation. “The goal is to win right now, get back to where we were and win the World Series this year. However we can make ourselves better, we’re going to.”
One would have difficulty finding a manager in the big leagues who is unhappy with having seven capable starting pitchers on the roster. The job for Schneider moving forward will be finding a way to effectively use all seven in order to have the team healthy and ready to compete in the postseason in October.
