Blue Jays taking collaborative draft approach with shot at elite talent

TORONTO – Holding the eighth-overall choice in the upcoming draft, and with no pick in the second round, the Toronto Blue Jays have narrowed their focus and locked in on a group of 10-12 players under consideration for their first-round pick.

The process of ranking that group, factoring in what the teams ahead of them might do along with the various signing demands, is well underway, and amid that work, amateur scouting director Marc Tramuta arranged a call this week with the entire player development department.

“We said, ‘If we take this player … what are some of the strengths and weaknesses? What would we need them to work on?’ It’s really good to involve them so that everybody is invested in the process and we have an idea that may factor into some of our decisions,” Tramuta relayed Saturday during a discussion with media. “How they feel about the player, that's very, very helpful. I don't think we did enough of that 10, 15, 20 years ago. I think the most successful organizations are the ones that build continuity and synergy amongst departments.”

Increasing the involvement of different departments is one way Tramuta — running his first draft for the Blue Jays after rejoining the organization last year following a decade with the New York Mets, including years as scouting director — is adjusting the club’s approach to the draft.

A scouting lifer with the rich array of experiences inherent to thousands of evaluation days, Tramuta worked alongside former scouting director Shane Farrell last year and “I thought his process was excellent,” he said. The 2024 draft — headlined by the selections of pitchers Trey Yesavage in the first round, Khal Stephen in the second round and Johnny King in the third round — along with last summer’s trade deadline haul, has helped revitalize a farm system that had been left threadbare.

“I thought we did a tremendous job last year, and I think that showed in the first several picks and how they've done so far,” said Tramuta. “But everybody puts their own little spin on things.”

The sacrifice of a second-round pick to sign Anthony Santander in free agency will make it more difficult for the Blue Jays to replicate that volume of high-upside potential, but the No. 8 spot is a rare opportunity to get elite impact. 

This year’s draft is deep in “shortstops, whether it's the high school or the college crop,” said Tramuta, while “there's a group of top-end pitching, as well.”

To wit, one agent representing draft-eligible said the Blue Jays “are all over shortstops,” and Baseball America, in its most recent mock draft, had them taking Mississippi high-schooler JoJo Parker while also connecting them to Eli Willits, another prep infielder out of Oklahoma.

Tennessee lefty Liam Doyle, widely linked as a possibility for the Los Angeles Angels with the second-overall pick, and Oklahoma right-hander Kyson Witherspoon were also listed as possibilities, with MLB Pipeline, in its mock draft, going with Witherspoon in their spot.

Tramuta, of course, wasn’t tipping his hand — “You look at all the third-party publications and I'm not going to offer up too much information on what we're doing, so I don't know why other teams would do that,” he noted — but his history with the Mets points to a preference on the position-player side. 

Of his seven first-round picks over six years, five were position players – Jarred Kelenic, Brett Baty, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Kevin Parada and Jett Williams – with David Peterson and Kumar Rocker, who didn’t sign, his two pitcher picks. Other notable selections under his watch include Mark Vientos, Tylor Megill, Simeon Woods-Richardson and J.T. Ginn.

“Really my lean would be up the middle players, athletic players and players that provide versatility,” Tramuta said of the attributes he targets. “They're not all going to come up with the position that they play right now. So if you fast-forwarded five years and we added a shortstop that was in triple-A that's ready to come, obviously we have (Bo) Bichette here, so can he play another position? That versatility, that athleticism, is something that I gravitate towards with position players. Obviously you're hoping that they're offensive, too, because if they don't hit, they're probably not going to get here in any real capacity or impact. 

“Pitching-wise, for right or wrong, except for David Peterson in '17, it was always right-handed pitching. I probably should have mixed in a little more left-handed pitching, if I could go back. But I think, and if you look at our staff here and the three pitchers that we took last year, one, two, three, big physical guys, athletes, threw strikes and had multiple weapons. That would be a broad sense of what we're looking for.”

At No. 8, they will have access to find what they’re looking for, with the rest riding on getting their process right.