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Adam Macko joins a long list of Blue Jays pitchers on the shelf to start the 2025 season
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Photo credit: © Mark J. Rebilas - USA Today
Ryley Delaney
Feb 24, 2025, 18:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 24, 2025, 05:15 EST
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The Toronto Blue Jays have been unlucky with injuries the past calendar year.
It was reported last week that Adam Macko has a meniscus tear in his left knee, with the 24-year-old left-handed starter receiving surgery on Feb. 20 with no clear timeline of when he’ll return. 
https://twitter.com/ShiDavidi/status/1892630509844349256
It’s a big loss for the Blue Jays, as the left-handed pitcher was seen as a potential depth starter for the team if injuries occurred. Last season, he had a 4.87 ERA and a 3.72 FIP in 81.1 innings pitched with the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats and is on the 40-man roster.
Macko joins a long list of pitching prospects currently on the shelf, especially in the past calendar year. It started early for the Blue Jays, as Brandon Barriera left his Apr. 6 start after just an inning and third pitched, later receiving Tommy John surgery. The young left-handed pitcher has only pitched 21.2 innings professionally since the Blue Jays selected him in the first round of the 2022 draft.
A few weeks later, Landen Maroudis left his Apr. 21 start for the Dunedin Blue Jays. After a month or so, he also received Tommy John surgery in late May and is on the shelf for a while. This is unfortunate, as the Blue Jays’ fourth-rounder in the 2023 draft had a 0.84 ERA and a 2.43 FIP in 10.2 innings pitched before the injury.
Injuries didn’t just impact the Blue Jays’ pitching prospects, as Alek Manoah received Tommy John surgery in mid-June. After finishing as a nominee for the American League Cy Young in 2022, Manoah had a disastrous 2023 season. It looked as if their 2019 first-round pick was on his revenge tour, posting a 3.70 ERA and a 5.18 FIP in 24.1 innings pitched, before being pulled from his May 29 start.
At one point, Ricky Tiedemann ranked as the Blue Jays’ top prospect and still hovers in the top five. He dominated the minor leagues in 2022 and had some good results, albeit with command and injury issues in 2023. Unfortunately, Tiedemann’s 2024 never really got started, pitching just 17.1 innings last season while splitting his time on a rehab assignment and with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons where the results were less than ideal. Tiedemann was pulled from his Jul. 10 start and needed Tommy John at the end of that month.
In late September, Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling reported that three Blue Jays pitching prospects – Chad Dallas, Carson Pierce, and Nolan Perry, all underwent Tommy John surgery, with the dates unknown. Dallas was seen as a depth option for the Blue Jays in 2024 after a good 2023, but he pitched 61 innings with the Buffalo Bisons with a 6.34 ERA and a 5.54 FIP. His last appearance was on Jul. 21.
Perry is one of the more exciting young prospects in the team’s system and he posted a 2.93 ERA and a 4.25 FIP in 46 innings with the Dunedin Blue Jays in 2024, with a 27.5 K% and an 18.8 BB%. Unfortunately, his final pitching appearance was on Aug. 10 with an unknown surgery date.
One day later was Pierce’s final appearance. Signed as a non-drafted free agent after the 2023 draft, Pierce had a 2.95 ERA and a 3.24 FIP in 64 innings pitched between Single-A and High-A, with a 24.3 K% and a 9.6 BB%. He’s not a top Blue Jays prospect but he has a nasty changeup that’ll help him reach the upper-minors when he returns.
T.J. Brock barely pitched in 2024, pitching just 11.1 innings between a rehab assignment and Double-A, where he had a 1.29 ERA and a 2.38 FIP in seven innings pitched. To make up those innings, he pitched seven innings in the Arizona Fall League where he didn’t give up a run but reportedly had Tommy John surgery in mid-January according to TSN’s Scott Mitchell. He’ll be out for the entire season.
It’s unclear how many of these pitchers will be back in 2025, whether for a brief stint at the end of the season or in the summer but let’s hope the injury bug stops at Macko.
As always, you can follow me on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
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