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TORONTO — In a way, the stars aligned for Steve Sanders and the Toronto Blue Jays when they were put on the clock at 11th overall on the opening night of the 2019 MLB Draft.

While the club’s director of amateur scouting has always been quick to point out that it’s a dangerous game to draft for need and Sanders’ overarching philosophy is one of best player available, it’s been quite clear for a long time now that the Blue Jays are an organization in desperate need of high-end pitching prospects.

And, ideally, not just high-end, but fairly close to the majors, as well, which is sort of like searching for the best scratch-and-win at the corner store due to the unpredictable nature of young arms.

In the days and weeks leading up to Monday’s first round, that obvious need continued to point to the Blue Jays selecting a college pitcher in the first round, and the board just happened to oblige.

Position players were plucked with nine of the first 10 picks, leaving the Jays in position to select West Virginia right-hander Alek Manoah, an arm they had been connected to for some time as the draft process unfolded.

“In general, we are committed to taking the best player available and in this draft it happened to be a college pitcher,” Sanders said. “We’re excited about what Alek brings to the table and certainly hope that he’s somebody that can move quickly, but he’s going to move at his own pace. Different guys sort of determine their own timeline. I don’t think we came into this specifically targeting a certain type of player, but we’re certainly excited to see somebody with Alek’s upside but also Alek’s now-pitchability be there for us at this pick.”

Listed at 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds — Baseball America had him up to 6-foot-7 and 275 pounds — Manoah looks an awful lot like their current top pitching prospect, 6-foot-6, 245-pound Nate Pearson, who Sanders selected in his first draft at the helm back in 2017. 

Big body, bigger fastball.

Neither is guaranteed anything at this point, but Blue Jays fans — and probably the front office for a moment or two — are now dreaming of a future one-two punch atop the rotation that’s as about imposing as it gets.

Pearson’s 100-m.p.h. fastball has helped him climb to Double-A this season, while Manoah could follow a similar path and show up on a mound in Vancouver with the short-season Canadians in the Northwest League once he’s signed.

In his junior season with the Mountaineers over the past few months, Manoah began to morph from a thrower into a pitcher, as he started to harness the fastball he can run up to 98 m.p.h., and it got the Blue Jays’ attention.

“We do have a lot of history with Alek, dating back to high school down in Florida,” Sanders said. “I would say this year for the draft, we really got a good look at him in the Cape Cod League where he performed, showed similar stuff with improved strikes and really put himself firmly on the radar for this year. I think what we really liked is that Alek continued to get better over the course of the spring. He was obviously somebody that we saw early, but really kind of blossomed in the middle, towards the end of spring and finished strong. The more we watched him, the more we liked him.”

Unlike a year ago when the Jays passed on some arms that were ranked in the top 10 in favour of a perceived reach in Texas high school infielder Jordan Groshans — that pick is no longer seen as any sort of under-slot reach thanks to Groshans’ performance — this time Sanders landed a player some thought could go higher had the board broke in a different way.

He doesn’t come without risk, however, and it’s a familiar story.

If the body and conditioning go sideways, the command wavers, or the changeup doesn’t develop as a viable third offering, Manoah could end up in the bullpen.

But Manoah seemed to alleviate some of those concerns this year, getting deeper into games and holding his stuff while doing so.

“We certainly expect all of those things to be factors moving forward, but the combination of his stuff, his athleticism, his feel to pitch, his command, and his makeup — we’re really confident in who he is as a person and the work he puts in on and off the field to reach his ceiling as a major league starter,” Sanders said.

“We see him as a big, strong durable guy that has a chance to take the ball every five days in a major league rotation.”​

With their final pick on Day 1, the Jays took another pitcher, this time mining the high school ranks for right-hander Kendall Williams.

A native of Mississippi, the 18-year-old attended IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where scouts became enamoured with a projectable 6-foot-6 frame that checks in at around 200 pounds.

Ranked 54th by MLB Pipeline, 58th by Baseball America, and 83rd by FanGraphs, the big question with Williams is how much it will take to buy him out of his commitment to Vanderbilt, one of the best NCAA baseball programs around.

The slot value assigned to pick No. 52 is $1.4 million.