Blue Jays’ top prospect Ricky Tiedemann fans seven in AFL debut

With the 2023 minor-league season wrapped, the place to be for some of baseball’s most exciting young prospects is the Arizona Fall League, where Toronto Blue Jays’ top prospect Ricky Tiedemann made his highly-anticipated debut Tuesday night.

Tiedemann, sidelined for much of this season with a left biceps injury, reported to the Surprise Saguaros with hopes of logging more innings after compiling just 42.0 across four levels during the regular season. And he certainly took a positive step in that direction by enjoying an impressive first outing in the desert a night ago.

The 21-year-old lefty held the Peoria Javelinas to just one run on a trio of hits and walks over five innings while punching out seven and generating 15 swinging strikes. His night concluded after throwing 77 pitches, 44 of which were strikes.

Despite walking the first batter of the contest, Tiedemann settled in shortly afterwards, retiring the next three batters – including two via strikeout – to end the top half of the first inning. He then faced the minimum across the next two innings before running into trouble in the fourth, where a pair of singles and a walk opened the scoring for Peoria.

But that was the only damage the third-round selection from 2021 would allow for the rest of the night.

Upon returning for the fifth, Tiedemann surrendered another single but struck out the next two hitters and induced an inning-ending flyout to cap off his inaugural AFL start. Due to a lack of run support, however, the left-hander earned the loss as Surprise fell 9-0.

Of the five hits the Saguaros’ offence produced, one came off the bat of fellow Blue Jays prospect Dasan Brown, who went 1-for-3 with a double in his AFL debut. Prospects Damiano Palmegiani and Will Robertson made their first appearances on Monday, with the pair combining for four hits and two walks over eight total at-bats.

It has been a productive first two days in the AFL for a Toronto prospect group headlined by Tiedemann, who, along with adding to his workload, also aims to display refined command with his pitches this fall.

The 6-foot-4 hurler posted a 3.68 ERA and 1.68 FIP with 82 strikeouts to 23 walks in 15 minor-league starts earlier this season. He concluded the regular season with a four-inning start at triple-A Buffalo, where he punched out six and allowed an unearned run on a pair of hits and walks.