Left-hander Daniel Norris leads a group of eight Toronto Blue Jays on FanGraphs’ recently-released list of baseball’s top 200 prospects.
Norris ranks 17th among all MLB prospects on the list released Monday by FanGraphs writer Kiley McDaniel. Right-handers Jeff Hoffman (ranked 67th) and Aaron Sanchez (ranked 70th) joined Norris in the top 100 along with outfielder Dalton Pompey (ranked 80th) and catcher Max Pentecost (ranked 93rd).
Though they’re still considered prospects, Norris, Sanchez and Pompey could have major roles on the 2015 Blue Jays. Norris and Sanchez will compete with swingman Marco Estrada for the fifth starter’s role, while Pompey opens spring training with the inside track for Toronto’s starting centre field job.
While Hoffman and Pentecost have considerable upside, they were drafted in the first round by Toronto less than a year ago and are expected to require more minor-league seasoning. Hoffman continues to recover from Tommy John surgery and Pentecost’s first pro season ended with shoulder injury. Sean Reid-Foley also made the list, though the Blue Jays’ second-round selection in 2014 will also need seasoning since he’s 19 years old and less than a year removed from high school.
Robert Osuna (ranked 119th) will be in big league camp along with Devon Travis, so both will get the chance to impress big league decision makers this spring. Osuna’s a hard-throwing right-hander who returned from Tommy John surgery late last year while Travis is the second base prospect Toronto acquired in exchange for outfielder Anthony Gose. Even if both players are longshots to break camp with Toronto, they are at least on the radar of the big league team.
The Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs lead the way with 11 top prospects each, while the Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins have the fewest top prospects with two apiece.
