Below 8% CUP at run date. IL with right shoulder impingement. PPI window forfeited. He threw 2.2 innings in a Single-A rehab start and is progressing. The Blue Jays are in a rotation crisis with four pitchers injured. Late April return is the working timeline.
The model assigned Yesavage a CUP below 8% on March 20, flagging him as IL with a forfeited PPI window. He was placed on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder impingement on March 19, before the season began. The PPI deadline has passed. The pick is gone. The question now is when he returns and what kind of workload the Blue Jays allow him given the innings he accumulated in 2025.
As of April 9, Yesavage is progressing faster than expected. He made a rehab appearance at Single-A Dunedin, throwing 2.2 innings on 44 pitches. He allowed one hit, one walk, and struck out three batters. The Blue Jays described it as a positive step and confirmed his second rehab start is scheduled at Dunedin. The working timeline for a return is late April or early May.
Yesavage was selected by Toronto with the 20th overall pick in the 2024 draft out of East Carolina University, where he was both a reliever and a starter. He signed for a $4.175 million bonus. He is 22 years old, born July 28, 2003, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. In 2025, he became the fastest pitcher in Blue Jays history to reach the major leagues, climbing from Single-A Dunedin in April to the big leagues in September, passing through High-A Vancouver and Double-A New Hampshire along the way.
In his 2025 major league debut on September 15, he struck out 12 batters over seven innings. He then became the central figure in one of the most remarkable postseasons by a rookie pitcher in MLB history. In Game 5 of the World Series, he threw seven innings, allowed one earned run, and struck out 12, setting a rookie record for strikeouts in a single World Series game. His 39 postseason strikeouts set the all-time rookie record, surpassing Michael Wacha’s previous mark. Toronto won the World Series.
Yesavage threw 139.2 innings in 2025. He began the year in Single-A, was promoted multiple times, pitched 17 innings at Triple-A, made three regular season starts, and then threw 39.2 innings in the postseason. The Blue Jays acknowledged before the 2026 season that they planned to carefully manage his workload given the unprecedented demands of his rookie year.
The shoulder impingement that put him on the IL is being treated cautiously. The Blue Jays are dealing with significant rotation depth issues: Jose Berrios has a right elbow stress fracture, Shane Bieber has right elbow inflammation, and Cody Ponce, signed to a three-year, $30 million deal to anchor the rotation, suffered a knee injury in his season debut and is lost for most of 2026. With four starting pitchers on the injured list, Toronto’s urgency to return Yesavage when healthy has increased significantly. The rotation crisis means he will not be held back once cleared.
Yesavage was originally a Tier 1 lock in the Sub-Batch A model. The shoulder injury on March 19 changed that. At run date, the model had him flagged as IL with a CUP below 8%, reflecting the impingement and no clear return timeline. The PPI window was noted as forfeited because the April 9 deadline would pass while he was on the IL. Both of those model calls resolved correctly. He is on the IL. The PPI is gone. The next question is a calibration one: does he return and pitch before the June 18 checkpoint? Given the Ponce injury and the rotation crisis in Toronto, the answer is almost certainly yes.