Toronto Blue Jays Prospect Profile: Left-handed reliever Kai Peterson
2 days ago
The Blue Jays may have found a diamond in the rough.
When building a contender, teams need to find productivity with their early-round picks. The Blue Jays’ success in drafting in the first round hasn’t been great since the start of the millennium, with Alek Manoah, Marcus Stroman, Ricky Romero, and Aaron Hill being the most notable first-round selections.
The Blue Jays regime of Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro haven’t done a great job in the first round since taking over prior to the 2016 draft aside from Manoah. However, they’ve done a pretty good job at finding impact players in the latter rounds, like Davis Schneider, Spencer Horwitz, Addison Barger and a few others.
In the 2023 draft, they may have found a pitcher who could be another impact player in a few seasons.
Getting to know Kai Peterson
In 2021, the Blue Jays selected left-handed pitcher Ricky Tiedemann out of Junior College, but that was a totally different situation to Kai Peterson’s, as Tiedemann was a top prep pitcher in the COVID-shortened 2020 draft. Peterson, on the other hand was selected in the 20th-round of the 2023 draft, or 604th overall.
Pitching mainly as a starter in his final season at Sierra College, Peterson pitched 84 innings with a 3.86 ERA. Moreover, the 21-year-old had a 13.61 K/9 with 62 walks, so many strikeouts but a high walk rate.
Peterson didn’t make his professional debut until this season with the Dunedin Blue Jays, where he has a 4.80 ERA and a 3.13 FIP in 30 innings pitched, pitching in relief in all 21 games he’s appeared in. The walk rate remains a problem, as he has an elevated 18.4 BB%.
However, Peterson makes up for that with an insane 44 K% while keeping the ball in the park, giving up a single home run. Of pitchers in the organization with 20+ innings pitched, both his K% and K-BB% (25.5%) rank first in the organization.
It’s also worth noting that the elevated ERA is because of a stretch of three bad games in the middle of his season, where he gave up 10 earned runs in two innings and a third. Removing that from his season, Peterson has a 1.95 ERA in 27.2 innings pitched.
Peterson features a sinker/slider mix, with the fastball sitting 93-94 mph, and the slider sitting in the low-80s.
The command and control will need to be cleaned up, but it’s evident the Blue Jays have a strikeout artist in the minor leagues. Time will tell if he makes an impact, but he’s a relief prospect worth monitoring.
As always, you can follow me on Twitter @Ryley_L_D.
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