Toronto Blue Jays Scratch Top Prospect From Spring Debut with Injury
Toronto Blue Jays' top prospect Ricky Tiedemann was scheduled to start Saturday's spring training opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, but he's been scratched with hamstring tightness.
Per Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun:
Ricky Tiedemann not in tomorrow’s lineup as starter due to left hamstring tightness. Team doesn’t believe it’s serious but manager John Schneider said he’ll have a better idea on Saturday.
It's good to hear that nobody thinks this is serious but it's still a disappointing development for Tiedemann, who was limited to just 44 innings in 2023 at the minor league level because of injuries. He should make his major league debut at some point in 2024, but it's unknown when that will be.
The Blue Jays enter the season with five starters already, and they have Yariel Rodriguez as well, so Tiedemann could be best-served working in the bullpen once he gets to the bigs.
He enters the season at the No. 29 prospect in all of baseball. The following comes from his MLB.com prospect profile:
While he sat around 93-94 mph as an amateur, the 6-foot-4 lefty started being around 95-96 mph, touching higher, with his heater after adding muscle in the offseason. The pitch has some sink to it as well and helped Tiedemann force healthy amounts of ground-ball contact. That said, his mid-80s, diving changeup has become arguably his best pitch with the way it generates whiffs, and that helped him limit righties to a .153 average in 2022. His low-80s, sweeping slider shows plus potential, though it needs to be a little more consistent to give Tiedemann his true third weapon.
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