TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays may be new to Spencer Miles, but Dunedin, Fla., is not, as the right-hander selected in December’s Rule 5 draft happens to be spending a second straight off-season there with his girlfriend.
Naturally, his familiarity with the city came up during his first visit to the Player Development Complex, as did the local golf cart parades, which he happened to take part in the year before, helping his girlfriend and her family dress up their ride as an Amazon Prime truck.
As Miles relayed the details, Anthony Gomez, the club’s minor-league rehab coach, lit up and said, “No way, that was you guys? That was the best one.” Gomez then pulled out his phone, reviewed some video and picked out the 25-year-old sitting in the back, waving.
“It's kind of a small world,” said Miles. “And then obviously I'm living here, and they Rule 5 me, and in Dunedin, you drive along that main road, and you drive past the stadium wherever you go, and it's kind of funny now I'm going to be playing there. It's awesome.”
The coincidences offered the intriguing right-hander some immediate comfort with a new organization, and the Blue Jays will give him a chance this spring to see if his pitching can keep him with the club.
Surgeries on his back and elbow limited Miles to only 10 minor-league outings since the San Francisco Giants made him a fourth-round pick in 2022, but a strong showing in the Arizona Fall League opened up a unique opportunity for him.
Miles figured a rebuilding club might roll the dice on him in the Rule 5 draft, only to instead find himself in the mix for a spot in the defending American League champs’ win-now bullpen, which already has more candidates than available spots. Factor in that the Blue Jays will also have Angel Bastardo, a 2024 Rule 5 pick who spent all last year on the IL, in camp, and the competition for a roster spot runs even deeper and more unusual for a contending club.
All of which has left Miles to process how “it’s kind of crazy going to a team that was just in the World Series and went to Game 7.”
“Especially as kind of a speculative arm, a big hard-throwing righty, you'd think like maybe the Rockies or the White Sox or a team of that nature would take a chance on someone like me, to just see if a bullpen spot could be filled or a spot starter or something,” he continued. “It will be really cool, maybe I'll have a chance to compete for a World Series in my first year in the big leagues. That would be pretty sweet.”
The Blue Jays would certainly sign up for that, and their belief that such an outcome was even possible prompted them to make the pick. Essentially, it’s a $50,000 flier as Rule 5 picks cost $100,000, but if they aren’t rostered for the entire season, they must be offered back to their original clubs for $50,000.
By the baseball industry’s standards, that’s not a lot of money for a pitcher featuring what assistant GM Mike Murrow described as a fastball that gets up to 98 m.p.h. and models as elite, with a cutter that’s effective against left-handed hitters. Miles has always thrown strikes — “Sometimes I probably throw too many strikes,” he said — and also has a sinker, a sharp curveball and a work-in-progress changeup, giving him enough tools to get outs.
His five outings in the AFL showed off big-league calibre stuff, and if he’s durable and able to maintain his command, “he's a useful pitcher on any team,” said Murov. “We are hopeful that we see that version of him, and if we do, then it's going to be easy to keep him.”
Still, the challenge before Miles is substantial.
He entered pro ball with big stuff out of Missouri but experienced back issues in 2023, a complication from a previous surgery during his junior year of high school, when he suffered a stress fracture in his lower back. That procedure inserted a screw to stabilize the affected facet joint, but over time, bone had cauliflowered around it, leading to a blockage.
The subsequent operation shaved that down and cost him the entire season.
Miles resumed throwing that off-season and was feeling good until one bullpen session led to enough elbow soreness that he couldn’t throw the next day. A flexor strain was initially treated with a platelet-rich plasma injection, but he never got right. The ligament tore, and Tommy John surgery followed, keeping him sidelined until his recent AFL stint.
"I've been through the wringer a little bit on the injury front,” he understated.
All of which led him to describe his first outing back, a clean inning with two strikeouts Oct. 9, as “surreal” and "magical.” In all, he logged 8.2 innings over five outings, allowing four earned runs on nine hits and a walk with 12 strikeouts, a small step toward making up for so much lost time.
“I got a little bit more analytical as I settled in,” said Miles. “I started thinking about, OK, let's place this pitch here in this count and stuff like that. That side of the competitive nature came back after the first couple, because definitely the first one was a blackout, maybe the second one was as well, and then I started settling in and like getting that baseball knowledge, pitching knowledge back and just kind of being the athletic pitcher that I am.”
That’s the pitcher he aims to show off in his first big-league camp this spring. Miles said GM Ross Atkins phoned him shortly after the Blue Jays selected him in the Rule 5 draft and told him to simply be himself once he shows up, advice he plans to take to heart.
“That's a good motto, especially since this is the first time I'm going to a new organization, first time at big-league camp,” said Miles. “If I just am myself, kind of a happy-go-lucky guy, laugh a little bit, get super competitive and throw strikes with my stuff, I'll be just fine, and so I'm just going to plan on that. And hopefully that gives me a shot at making the team.”
