The last thing supporters want to hear is a concerning report from the Blue Jays regarding their top prospect.
Ricky Tiedemann, one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, is Toronto’s top prospect. In addition to being ranked as the 26th greatest prospect in baseball, MLB Pipeline believes that the 21-year-old is the best left-handed pitcher in the game. Only Paul Skenes, Jackson Jobe, Cade Horton, and Andrew Painter rank higher than him as the fifth-best pitching prospect overall.
Despite having a somewhat light workload given that he was drafted in, all of that recognition has come 2021. His limitations have been brought on by injuries. He has experienced another one, and based on the most recent information, it may have been severe.
The last thing Blue Jays supporters want to hear is the most recent Ricky Tiedemann update.
Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports that Tiedemann had an MRI on Thursday after feeling pain in his left elbow. These outcomes are still unknown. Whoa.
For any pitcher, hearing about an elbow injury is the last thing you want to hear. This implies that everything is possible, including a lengthy stay on the IL and Tommy John surgery. If he had to take that course, Tiedemann might end up missing for more than a year, which would be absurd.
This season, the southpaw pitched poorly in his three minor league starts for Triple-A Buffalo, giving up nine walks and five runs in eight innings of work (5.63 ERA). Despite this, he did manage to strike out ten batters, demonstrating his ability to knock out batters at frightening rates. It’s ridiculous that in his minor league career, he has struck out 14.4 batters per nine.
Particularly with Tiedemann, the issue is that his injuries keep piling up. This spring, a hamstring issue kept him out of action. That’s an injury, but it’s not that alarming. Due to bicep and shoulder issues, he spent some time on the injured list last season. He has so suffered three different arm ailments during the past two seasons. This most recent one might turn out to be really significant.
He has only made 36 starts and pitched 130.2 innings in his minor league career due to injuries. When healthy, he has demonstrated that he is at the very least almost MLB-ready, but his recent seasons have seen him struggle to stay healthy. Before being sent down, Blue Jays manager John Schneider even said he was “in the mix” to start the opening series.
The fact that Tiedemann may have been the next in line is what makes this injury so regrettable. Manoah was replaced by Yariel Rodriguez in place of Bowden Francis, but what if Rodriguez suffers in his next outing? Had the Jays opted for Tiedemann at that point? It’s hoped that he escaped the worst, but it’s difficult to remain calm until we know for sure.