When we think back on what the 2025 season meant for the Toronto Blue Jays, it’s impossible to put into words just how much of an impact that season had for the entire organization, top to bottom, not confined only to the big club. Throughout all of their minor league affiliates, breakouts emerged, both of the expected and surprise categories.

Their 2024 first-round selection, Trey Yesavage, started the year off in Single-A Dunedin. By the time he was finished, he had just shattered multiple postseason records by a rookie starting pitcher. Arjun Nimmala took another step towards becoming a true upper-echelon prospect. Johnny King emerged as a teenage phenom with gaudy swing-and-miss ability. Juan Sanchez appears to be their first IFA signee with true star potential since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The list goes on.

However, no other prospect in the system had their stock rise more than Gage Stanifer.

Stanifer was a prep star selected in the 19th round out of Westfield High School in the 2022 amateur draft. The right-hander turned pro after agreeing to a $125,000 signing bonus, turning pro instead of heading to college. Stanifer’s first two professional seasons were spent in the Florida Complex League in 2023 and Single-A Dunedin in 2024. While the overall results didn’t jump off the page, the right-hander was getting acclimated to affiliated baseball, building confidence that he also pairs with an unmatched work ethic, setting the stage for his monster breakout in 2025.

The right-hander began the season back with Dunedin, posting 26 dominant innings of piggybacking Trey Yesavage to the tune of a 0.69 ERA. He was then promoted, along with Yesavage, to High-A Vancouver, where he continued to piggyback with the Blue Jays’ top pitching prospect before Yesavage was ultimately promoted to New Hampshire. Stanifer then began starting his own ballgames in Vancouver and continued to dominate, thus leading to a final promotion to Double-A just before the 2025 season concluded.

All told, Stanifer logged a career high 110 innings combined over three levels (A/A+/AA), pitched to a combined ERA of 2.86, backed up by his 2.70 FIP, while striking out 35.5% of the hitters he faced, which was the highest mark of any qualified starting pitcher across each level of minor league baseball. A truly dominant pitching season for the freshly turned 22-year-old.

This offseason, I sat down to discuss a variety of topics with Satanifer, stemming from his personal life, baseball, and the nuts and bolts of pitching.

Without further delay, let’s get into it.

Stanifer: I would say the best way to describe myself as a competitor, no matter what the role is on or off the field. I enjoy being active, being outdoors, meeting people, and doing things in the community. I would want people to know that no matter what, I always give everything my all.

Stanifer: There were lots of questions when I was selected in the 19th round. My goal was always to get drafted and get into pro ball out of high school. The round I was selected in never made me question the decision I wanted to make. I felt I had put myself in a good spot to go into professional baseball with the routines and knowledge I had gained in high school and from coaches growing up.

The original discussion was talking about the best route for me and whether or not I would sign to go to school or the draft. I ended up calling my agents a few days after telling them I wanted to sign with the Jays, and I knew it was what I wanted to do.

Stanifer: The biggest challenge I would say is getting comfortable with the length of the season and being okay with change. Learning that the timeline is different for all players and wanting to see immediate results isn’t always the case. Whether it was a couple of mechanical tweaks we worked on and taking time getting comfortable moving a little differently, or just understanding your arsenal and what makes you good. Having all the supporting data at the complex definitely helps with all those little aspects.

And I would like to add confidence, learning the mental aspect of the game has continued to help me a lot. Most high school guys don’t struggle much before getting into pro ball, and I felt that has been a big focus over the past 2 seasons.

Stanifer: I would say I have started to develop more of an interest in all the analytical side of things. Having access to so much equipment and data is cool and new, and interesting to the degree that we have it. I would say most of it I leave up to the staff and hear what they have to tell me, which has helped with understanding the little things along the way, with all that we track.

Stanifer: I’d say the biggest thing was a little more mental clarity and finally feeling like myself again. Although 23′ and 24′ didn’t go how I wanted to, I left the last five weeks of the 2024 season feeling the most confident I have felt since being in the organization. Cory Riordan (Jays’ pitching coach) and I had worked on some front-side stuff with a connection ball and finally found some mechanical tweaks that were clicking, which led to some good results in a small timeline. Continuing the work we started in the offseason of 24, I had also gained weight and started throwing harder and got my stuff to be a little bit sharper.

Using the momentum into spring and into the season was huge because I felt like I was in one of the best shapes I had been in. From a mental aspect, I found new ways to implement things into my routines, like journaling and breath work, to be a little more conscious about being in the moment, pitch to pitch, and just competing at the task at hand.

Stanifer: I would say I enjoy the offseason the most, besides when the season is in full swing. I grew up being active because of my family. I’ve always enjoyed that side of things. You go into the offseason knowing the areas you need to improve and how to go about them. I’ve always enjoyed lifting and training and competing with guys from different orgs in a different environment away from the diamond. I would say that the focus I put into my offseason gives me every bit of confidence, which helps with really showing up on day one of spring. Then obviously seeing everything fall into place and put me in the best position to just be myself and play the game.

Stanifer: It was some of the most fun I had pitching last year. It was a new, different role I had always been curious about how I would be in. The experience was always great following him in games, just allowing him to set the tone early, let our hitters get to work, and then let me come in after and finish things up. It was a lot of fun when we could just go out there and compete.

Stanifer: I have always called it a slider, but it would probably be categorized as a curveball.

Stanifer: I would say the biggest focus this offseason was getting back comfortable with my splitter and continuing to be in the zone with the fastball and curve. I made big progress with it last offseason and got to where I wasn’t throwing it consistently enough and lost a bit of feel, making it inconsistent in shape. Finding that comfort and confidence in the grip this offseason has me feeling like it can be just as useful and powerful as my curveball was for me this past season to both lefties and righties.

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