Baseball America announces Toronto Blue Jays top ten prospects for 2026

Baseball America revealed their Top 10 Blue Jays prospects heading into the 2026 season on Wednesday.

The top of the Blue Jays organization is headlined by Trey Yesavage, the breakout postseason star who enters 2026 as a favorite for the America League Rookie of the Year Award.

Baseball America liked the Blue Jays rookie phenom so much that they put Yesavage on the cover of their BA Best of 2025 issue of their magazine.

The 22-year-old began the season at the Single-A level but rode an outstanding strikeout rate to reach the big-league rotation by the end of the year, making three regular-season starts plus 5 more in the postseason.

The biggest was his game 5 start in the World Series where he set a rookie records while striking out 12 Dodgers in a 6-1 victory.

Scouting grades: Hit: 45 | Power: 60 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 50 | Overall: 55

Only 17 heading into the 2023 Draft, Nimmala drew tons of intrigue for his future projection and slotted in as No. 11 in MLB Pipeline's rankings for the class.

The Blue Jays selected him 20th overall, making him the highest first-generation Indian-American ever drafted in the four major sports, and signed him for $3 million.

Nimmala spent the entire 2025 season in High-A Vancouver after splitting the 2024 campaign between Rookie Ball and Single-A.

Across 120 games and 473 at-bats, Nimmala authored a .224/.313/.381 slash line with 29 doubles, 13 home runs, and 61 RBIs.

The right-handed bat produced a .694 OPS and a .266 BABIP while playing against pitchers who have almost three years on the 19-year-old infielder.

Nimmala improved on his K-rate this season (21.4% vs. 30.7% last year), and while his power dipped slightly (.156 ISO), he was able to hold his own for a good portion of the year, experiencing the odd slump at the plate here and there.

Defensively, he produced a .957 fielding percentage across 853 2/3 innings at shortstop.

Scouting grades: Hit: 60 | Power: 55 | Run: 50 | Arm: 55 | Field: 50 | Overall: 55

Parker played his way into the top 10 picks with a strong senior season that earned him Gatorade state Player of the Year accolades.

Parker went eighth overall to the Blue Jays in this year's Draft and signed for a little under slot at $6,197,500.

Parker has a chance to be a plus hitter with 20-25 homers per season. He has a sound left-handed swing, manages the strike zone well and employs a gap-to-gap approach.

He shows some feel for driving balls in the air and is posting more impressive exit velocities as he continues to gain muscle.

Scouting grades: Fastball: 60 | Curveball: 55 | Changeup: 40 | Control: 45 | Overall: 50

King was still just 17 years old when the Blue Jays selected him in the third round of the 2024 Draft and signed him for an above-slot deal at $1,247,500.

Given his age and physical projection as a 6-foot-4, 210-pound lefty, the Blue Jays were thrilled to land such a high-upside project for their development staff.

King's profile leads with his fastball, which lives in the lower-90s for now and touches 95-96 mph with good ride and run.

His curveball is his best secondary pitch at this point, and it has nasty two-plane spin in the 78-81 mph range and projects to be a legitimate out pitch for him.

Spending parts of the 2025 season in the Florida Complex and Florida State Leagues, King has posted incredible stats at each stop.

With the FCL Blue Jays, he notched 24 innings with 41 strikeouts to just 7 walks and an ERA of 1.13 and allowing an opposing batting average of just .195.

On June 28th of this year, King was promoted to Single-A Dunedin and has achieved nothing short of the same success he had in rookie ball.

He's made 8 appearances and 7 starts at the Single-A level in 2025 and has pitched to the tune of a 1.93 ERA across 28 innings of work.

Among pitchers with at least 5 innings pitched in the Florida State League (FSL) in 2025, King's ridiculous 15.75 K/9 stands atop the leaderboard by far, besting even Yesavage in his 33.1-inning stint with the team earlier this year (14.85 K/9).

What's even more is that he's doing this at just 19 years of age and in his age-18 season while most of his contemporaries in the FSL are at least 20 years old.

His MLB ETA is listed as 2028, but if he continues to dominate the minor leagues as he has so far then this certainly could come sooner.

Scouting grades: Fastball: 60 | Slider: 60 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 45 | Overall: 45

A 19th-round pick as an Indiana high schooler, Stanifer was the lowest Blue Jays selection to sign in 2022, doing so for $125,000 to forego a Cincinnati commitment.

It was a slow build for the right-hander over two seasons in the Florida Complex and Florida State Leagues before he took off like a rocket to begin 2025 as Trey Yesavage's piggyback partner in Dunedin.

Stanifer posted a 0.69 ERA with 38 strikeouts over 26 innings before earning a promotion in late May to High-A Vancouver, where he has carried his momentum into a starting role.

Pitching exclusively out of the stretch, Stanifer has short arm action on the mound, like he's hiding the ball a little extra longer before bringing it home.

His 2025 breakout has coincided with a fastball velocity jump, and he now sits in the 94-96 mph range with regularity.

As if that wasn't enough, the heater has exceptional ride (17-20 inches of induced vertical break) and ample armside run that can give hitters fits.