The final spot in the Blue Jays’ Opening Day bullpen is no longer a mystery.

Earlier today, Mitch Bannon of The Athletic was first to report that Rule-5 selection Spencer Miles had won the final spot over right-hander Chase Lee, who has minor league options. It was a move that may have come as a surprise to some, but not for those who have been following what the Blue Jays brass has been saying regarding Miles all spring long.

For starters, Blue Jays assistant general manager Mike Murov was keenly high on Miles right after the Blue Jays selected him in the Rule-5 draft back in early December. The organization loves Miles’ stuff. His ability to have three distinct fastball shapes (4-seam/sinker/cutter) allows him to manipulate the baseball in ways most typical relievers can’t.

On top of that, Miles also spins a high RPM curveball that he tunnels extremely effectively off of the fastballs.

The Spencer Miles case study is an extremely fun one to dissect. This is someone who’s pitched a combined total of 22 innings over the course of four professional seasons when you combine his season totals along with his time in the Arizona Fall League from this past October. Multiple significant and unrelated injuries have ravaged his ability to toe the rubber since the beginning of his professional career. The Blue Jays selected him, knowing he’d never pitched above A ball while also having missed the entirety of the 2025 *regular* season.

This was always the Blue Jays betting on stuff and upside. As long as his stuff held and looked the way it looked during the AFL, there was always a strong chance Miles was going to make the Opening Day bullpen. A minuscule sample size of Spring Training results was never going to make or break his odds of making the roster.

Another factor working in Miles’ favour all spring was asset management.

The Blue Jays weren’t going to carry two Rule-5 guys (Angel Bastardo) unless they had a catastrophic spring from a health standpoint in the bullpen. The odds of them carrying one were always high, just given the number of relievers on the bubble that still had minor league options remaining, while Miles obviously didn’t.

It’s always important to remember that the roster that teams carry for Opening Day resembles nothing like what the roster will look like even a few weeks from now.

There is no guarantee that Spencer Miles lasts the full season on the Blue Jays’ 26-man roster; in fact, the odds are against him doing so. With that being said, if you have the opportunity to option guys to Triple-A so you can get an extended look at someone who you’d outright lose from your organization if he didn’t make the roster is a smart piece of business that virtually all clubs do.

The knockout blow for Miles making the team ultimately came down to his extremely vast pitch mix. It’s extremely rare to find a reliever with the ability to throw 6 different pitches, as Miles has shown the ability to do.

You can see the three distinct fastballs Miles possesses, the plus curveball we already mentioned, and he also mixes in a slider and a changeup. That’s multiple arm and glove side offerings, which should make him decently platoon neutral when he’s at his best.

Towards the end of camp, Miles began ratcheting up the velocity on all of his pitches. His 4-seam fastball averaged 95.8 MPH throughout the spring, but he was sitting at 97.2 MPB in his final tune-up appearance against the Rays. The Stuff+ on his three main offerings blew up that day and gave you a glimpse of Miles when he is healthy and feeling good.

This is a firm reminder that Spring Training results are not something front offices care much for, if at all, when it comes to evaluating bubble players.

Spencer Miles didn’t have an impressive spring from a results standpoint. He pitched to a 5.38 FIP and generated a 10.9% walk rate while having a strike% of just 59.3%. The Blue Jays didn’t care. They were looking at how Miles’ stuff was playing in the zone, how he sequenced his pitches, and how he fared when adversity hit. The Missouri native passed all those tests with flying colours, he missed bats, flashed + stuff, and got better towards the end of spring.

He’ll hear his name called on Opening Night by Blue Jays public address announcer Tim Langton, he’ll soak in what it’s like to pitch in front of 40+ thousand fans for the first time in his life, and he’ll present the Blue Jays with a raw, yet high upside reliever with a chance to make a name for himself. 6 months removed from being an A-ball pitcher in the San Francisco Giants organization. Baseball is simply the best.

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