As the snow continues to pile onto the streets of Toronto, and as the wind continues to gust, while you continue to shiver… just know this: The Blue Jays equipment truck is already en route to Dunedin, Florida. Sunnier (and warmer) days are coming, Blue Jays fans.

Much has been made of the Blue Jays’ offseason, one that started with a thunderous bang, but has since left some wanting more after Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette landed elsewhere after rampant speculation all winter had the Blue Jays landing at least one of the two top bats on the market.

The one area of the roster that hasn’t been talked about nearly as much is the bullpen. The Blue Jays are returning a majority of the same group that finished last year, except Seranthony Dominguez, who is currently still on the free agent market, and Yariel Rodriguez, who was outrighted off the 40-man roster in early December and enters this spring competing for a roster spot.

In terms of external additions, there have been a few, but the two most noteworthy ones are Tyler Rogers, whom the Blue Jays signed to a three-year pact worth $37 million, and Rule-5 selection Spencer Miles from the San Francisco Giants organization.

I think most fans are already familiar with Rogers. So for this article, we’re going to focus on Spencer Miles and why he should be a guy who’s firmly on your radar once spring training starts up.

Spencer Miles is a former fourth-round pick by the San Francisco Giants (136th overall) in the 2022 amateur draft out of Missouri. A pure reliever, Miles has struggled mightily to stay on the field since turning pro.

Since entering affiliated baseball in 2022, Miles has only logged 22 1/3 innings *combined* across four seasons. He suffered a back injury at the end of the 2022 season, which eventually required surgery that caused him to miss the entire 2023 season. Then, when he returned in 2024, he only managed to log seven innings before suffering a right flexor strain that required Tommy John Surgery, wiping out the rest of his 2024 and all of 2025 seasons.

Clearly, a guy who has struggled mightily to accumulate a full month on the mound, let alone a full season. The good news is that both instances seem to have been the result of freak injuries, not soft-tissue related ailments that tend to linger and re-aggravate.

So, why would the Blue Jays spend a Rule 5 pick on Spencer Miles, knowing they have to roster him on the MLB club for the entirety of the 2026 season, with the only other option being to offer him back to his original team?

The answer is pretty simple.

As we can see from data pulled from Prospect Savant, Miles possesses elite stuff. He was elite at both missing bats and suppressing hard contact, while displaying pristine control and command during his cameo at the Arizona Fall League this past October.

• 94th percentile psStuff+

• 97th percentile BB%

• 88th percentile Hard-Hit%

• 95th percentile average EV’s against

• 97th percentile chase%

His arsenal is highlighted by an elite sinker (misclassified as a changeup), which generates 9 inches of vertical separation and 8 inches of horizontal separation from his four-seam, registering a whopping 131 stuff+ on Prospect Savant’s stuff scale. Its ability to generate both whiff and extreme groundball rates makes it an elite damage suppression offering while also being counted on to put away hitters in two-strike counts.

Miles also has a cutter he’ll mix in as a weapon against lefties. With his sinker having tons of arm-side movement (moving away from left-handed hitters), the cutter moves glove-side, which he uses to generate soft contact off the barrel rather than swing-and-miss.

The curveball is Miles’ best secondary pitch. It sits in the 79-81 MPH range, with a high spin rate efficiency (2864 RPM) and plays extremely well off of his sinker. During the AFL, Miles’ curveball generated a 33.3% whiff rate, second only to that of his 4-seam. Stuff+ loves his breaking ball too, as evidenced by its 108 stuff+ marker.

Clearly, Spencer Miles has immense arm talent. From a pure stuff standpoint, you could argue he’s atop the food chain in the Blue Jays bullpen. The Blue Jays clearly like what they’ve seen from him, otherwise they wouldn’t have selected him in the Rule 5 Draft knowing they would have to guarantee him a roster spot for all of 2026 if they wanted to retain his rights beyond 2o26.

The question now becomes, will he actually crack the Opening Day roster?

The Blue Jays’ bullpen is in an interesting spot right now. With the additions of Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, along with Shane Bieber opting to exercise his player option to rejoin the Blue Jays for 2026, that leaves a few arms that normally could see a big league rotation enter the season as long relievers with the roster as currently constructed.

What makes it even more precarious is that Miles isn’t the only Rule 5 selection vying for a spot in the bullpen. Angel Bastardo, who was the Jays’ selection from 2024, missed the entirety of the 2025 season rehabbing from Tommy John Surgery, meaning his clock still hasn’t started yet either. He doesn’t have to remain in the big leagues for a full season like Miles, but if the Jays want to keep both around, that’s two spots there. All of this to say the Blue Jays’ current bullpen picture is extremely muddied.

Situations like this tend to always work themselves out. Injuries happen, trades are made, unforeseen hiccups and/or pleasant surprises occur more often than not. I’m also a big believer that the cream always rises to the top.

Spencer Miles can be the cream of the Blue Jays’ bullpen. The stuff is undeniable, and he’ll enter camp healthy *knock on wood* ready to show the baseball world what the Blue Jays see in him.

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