2024 might’ve been the worst season for pitching injuries in the Blue Jays minor league system in franchise history. They had six, yes six, pitching prospects go under the knife for Tommy John surgery: Ricky Tiedemann, Brandon Barriera, Chad Dallas, Nolan Perry, Carson Piece and Landen Maroudis.

The team also lost Alek Manoah to UCL surgery, which wiped out their top four starting pitching depth options for the foreseeable future. If you were a Blue Jays starting pitcher and you didn’t end the season with a major injury, you got a gold star.

Bowden Francis was a big success story in the second half for the Blue Jays, but beyond that, the team didn’t have many positives to take away from their starting pitching development in 2024. With a few extra arms in the mix heading into 2025, the Blue Jays have depth options, but they still need more to survive a full 162-game season.

As of now, these are the Blue Jays’ best internal starting pitching depth options for next season.

Initially, Jake Bloss was viewed as the crown jewel of the Yusei Kikuchi trade from the Houston Astros. However, it didn’t take long for Will Wagner to make an impact at the big league level and his performance overshadowed the lustre on Bloss as a potential rotation piece for the Blue Jays.

Had he not gotten shelled at triple-A, the Blue Jays might’ve called upon Bloss to make a spot start here or there to finish the season. The team opted to let him work things out at Buffalo, and he ended his Bisons run with a 6.91 ERA over 8 starts, allowing seven or more runs in two of those outings.

It’s easy to forget Bloss started the 2024 season at single-A in the Astros organization, made three starts for Houston when the rotation fell on hard times, and finished the season at triple-A, so it was an odd developmental year for the right-hander. Unless the Blue Jays get some high-end starting depth pieces this winter, Bloss will be the first man up if they need a starting pitcher from an internal perspective.

He was initially a throw-in prospect from the Teoscar Hernandez/Erik Swanson swap after the 2022 season but Adam Macko has blossomed into one of the best starting pitching prospects in the Blue Jays organization.

He spent most of the 2024 campaign honing his craft at double-A New Hampshire before making one appearance in Buffalo at the end of the season. The Blue Jays’ number eight prospect set a new career high for innings with 93.1 and collected 105 strikeouts along the way.

His 60-grade curveball ranks as the best in the Blue Jays minor league system and opponents slugged a mere .333 on that pitch in 2024. And with a whiff rate of 26.3%, he’s well on his way to piling up even more strikeouts this coming year.

Macko likely starts the season in triple-A with the Bisons and may get some work at the big league level in 2025, as his clock is already ticking after the Jays added him to the 40-man roster last winter.

Lazaro Estrada is one of the handful of Blue Jays prospects making waves in the Arizona Fall League. The 25-year-old graduated from single-A to double-A this season, posting a 4.47 ERA in 11 starts with the Fisher Cats. Overall, Estrada hurled 98.1 innings and struck out 113 batters.

In his best start of the year, he threw seven no-hit innings for the Vancouver Canadians on June 18, striking out eight batters along the way. He’s been performing exceptionally well in the Arizona Fall League and earned a spot on the American League Fall Stars team and should get a chance to make some waves in triple-A. It should be worth noting that he is Rule 5 eligible this winter but might not be gaining much interest unless an opposing team wants to bank on his AFL stats translating quickly at the big league level.

If the Blue Jays are digging this far down the starting pitching depth well, something has gone wrong with their season next year, but it never hurts to have options just in case their Plan A, B and C goes awry.

Right-hander CJ Van Eyk ate up innings at double-A with the Fisher Cats this past year, posting a 5.68 ERA through 16 starts. It’s the first time Van Eyk got his feet underneath him as he missed the 2022 season and part of the 2023 campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Last year, he was in similar shoes as Estrada, as Van Eyk’s impressive Arizona Fall League run earned him the honours of being named to the 2023 American League Fall Stars team. Van Eyk should get a chance to compete in Buffalo this year and is Rule 5 eligible as well.

There are a handful of Blue Jays starters who excelled at double-A, but once they got the call to Buffalo, they struggled mightily as a member of the Bisons. Include Trenton Wallace among those players thanks to his sparkling 2.68 ERA in 17 starts with the Fisher Cats, but a 6.27 ERA in 9 starts with the Bisons.

While his peripherals at double-A looked great, his FIP was nearly two runs higher than his ERA, so it felt like his BABIP was back to normalizing at some point. But overall, the left-hander’s numbers were half decent, and he made 26 starts split between New Hampshire and Buffalo.