Tucker Toman (@tuckertoman) drives in two with this single! 96.8 mph off the bat here. #BLueJays #NextLevel
Blue Jays Nation’s Pre-Season Prospect Countdown – No. 13: Tucker Toman
Photo credit: Dunedin Blue Jays
Feb 17, 2024, 15:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 18, 2024, 11:03 EST
Today’s prospect was selected after the second round and had an okay first full professional season.
This is Blue Jays Nation’s annual pre-season list, in which I’ll take a look at the top 50 prospects in the organization. We’ll look at the player’s stats, my observations, and other publications’ scouting reports if available.
Let’s take a look at Tucker Toman
Getting to know Tucker Toman…
Position: Third base/Shortstop
Bats: Switch
Born: November 12, 2003
Acquired: 2nd-round compensation, 2022 draft (Blue Jays)
2023 Team: Single-A Dunedin
Previous Ranking: 10
After the Jays selected Toman in the 2022 draft, they placed him in the Florida Complex League to finish the 2022 season, where he slashed .289/.391/.368 with three doubles in 46 plate appearances. He had a 15.2 BB% and a 26.1 K% and a 119 wRC+.
Toronto was aggressive in 2023, promoting the then 19-year-old to Single-A. It didn’t go great, as Toman slashed .208/.320/.313 with five homers in 503 plate appearances for an 81 wRC+. The walk rate remained high over a much larger sample size, a 12.5 BB%, but the strikeout rate of 26.8% was an early worrisome sign in Toman’s game.
Thankfully, Single-A has Baseball Savant stat cast data, which Prospects Live tracked during the 2023 season. Toman has an average exit velocity of 86.5 mph, a solid number considering his age and relatively new experience with wooden bats. On top of that, he had a maximum exit velocity of 105.6 mph.
Toman ranks on all three lists we’ve been using throughout this series. Fangraphs rank the 20-year-old as the 30th-best Blue Jays prospect, while ranking as Scott Mitchell’s 22nd-best Blue Jays prospect. Moreover, Baseball America ranks Toman the same as Fangraphs, as their 30th-best Blue Jays prospect.
Fangraphs note that he’s better on the left-side of the plate than he is the right-side, but had issues tracking the ball from either side. He also whiffed quite a lot during games. Defensively, he was fine at third base, but Fangraphs believes that the hit tool is already a red flag. Again, he was 19 in his first professional season.
The goal in the 2024 season for Toman is to avoid striking out at the clip he did in 2024. Toman’s hit tool is better than the 20 present value, 30 future value that Fangraphs give him credit for, but he’ll have to prove it as he repeats the Single-A level.
It’ll be a big season for Toman, because if he gets off to a hot start, his stock will once again rise to where it was when the Jays first drafted him.
In case you missed it…
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