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Scouting Report: Blue Jays use top draft choice on college pitcher Trey Yesavage
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Nick Prasad
Jul 15, 2024, 20:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 15, 2024, 20:17 EDT
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The Toronto Blue Jays had the 20th pick in the 2024 MLB draft. The Jays selected Trey Yesavage, a right-handed pitcher out of East Carolina University. Yesavage is ranked 11th on MLB’s 2024 draft prospect rankings.
Yesavage attended Boyertown High School in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. He was in the grad class of 2021. Perfect Game baseball had him ranked 5th in the state of Pennsylvania as a right-handed pitcher, he was ranked 9th overall. 
Nationally, he was ranked 133rd in the country at his position and was 382nd overall. He then committed to play in the American Athletic Conference for East Carolina. 

College Career

The right-hander put up various titles in college, especially in his junior year. As a freshman, Yesavage began to establish his role on the bump and grew into a trusted reliever. He threw 26 innings with a 4.50 ERA.
His command struggled a tad, and he needed to grow comfortable in the league. Yesavage did get an appearance beyond expectations for a freshman. He appeared in 34 games. His postseason performance was above satisfactory with five appearances, keeping the opposition to a 1.94 batting average. 
In 2023 as a sophomore, he cut his ERA in half and doubled his time on the mound. With an .875 win-loss percentage, he recorded a 7-1 record and a 2.61 ERA in 76 innings of work. His strikeout ability was displayed with 105 strikeouts on the year, only walking 33 hitters. 
2024 was his main campaign and he knocked expectations out of the park. He was named the 2024 American Athletic Conference pitcher of the year. With a .917 win-loss percentage and an 11-1 record, the righty posted a 2.03 ERA and a 2.03 RA9. Yesavage struck out 145 of the 359 batters faced, only walking 32 bats. 

Scouting Synopsis

Trey Yesavage stands 6’4” 225 lbs with an athletic build and durable arm. He’s loose with a short leg kick on the wind-up, keeping his weight back long enough towards an explosion on release. Yesavage has quick arm-action wind that leads into an over-the-top or ¾ delivery slot. 
He has a four-pitch arsenal with two of the four grading in the 60s on the 20-80 scouting scale. His four-seam fastball finds life with movement and bite when coming over the top on the high slot; his ¾ slot will keep it flat. The fastball tops at 98 mph. 
His hook dips short in the low 80s and works well; he can bury this in the dirt to send batters chasing. His splitter and his slider are the put-away options, also in the mid-80s. The splitter falls off and affects the lower half of the zone and below. 
Yesavage’s slider moves more vertically with depth and dies low and away for chase. The slider and splitter are both equally dependable pitches in his arsenal. 
The East Carolina righty was fastball-dependent until hard contact was more consistent. The use of his offspeed and breaking pitches earlier in the count will be his key to commanding the counts of the meat of the lineup guys. 
Some say a good comparison for Yesavage is Nick Pivetta, which is quite accurate. More recently you can compare him to Jack Lieter. 

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