Who Must the Blue Jays Protect From the Rule 5 Draft?
Once the World Series wraps up, the Rule 5 Draft will swiftly approach, and the Blue Jays need to protect valuable assets from being selected.
The Toronto Blue Jays‘ 2026 regular season came to an end earlier than expected, and now their attention must shift towards the approaching offseason. In particular, the MLB Rule 5 Draft represents an opportunity for organizations to acquire players from other teams in an attempt to benefit their big-league roster in the upcoming season.
Teams can protect up to 40 players throughout their organization from being eligible for Rule 5 selection, and the Blue Jays will have to be careful to protect their most important young assets in the minor leagues from this draft. While the Rule 5 Draft doesn’t always bear the most interesting or impactful transactions, there is plenty of potential for teams to find hidden gems to add to their rosters.
One such example comes from the Blue Jays, who selected right-handed pitcher Spencer Miles from the San Francisco Giants in last year’s Rule 5 Draft. In 2026, Miles tossed 95.2 innings with a 2.63 ERA, 93 strikeouts to just 25 walks, and a 2.4 bWAR. He was one of the most important pitchers on the Blue Jays’ staff this season and his impact represents the upper limits that Rule 5 players can reach.
Players selected in the draft must be kept on their new team’s MLB roster for the entirety of the ensuing season or be either placed on waivers or returned to their original team.
With a strong minor-league system filled with talent, the Blue Jays have some decisions to be made before the draft approaches on December 9th. These following players need to be ensured protection from other teams in the draft as their value to the Blue Jays can prove to be immense.
Nolan Perry: RHP, New Hampshire Fisher Cats (AA)
Nolan Perry is Toronto’s top pitching prospect and is Just Baseball’s No. 68 prospect in all of baseball. Perry was drafted by the Blue Jays in the 12th round of the 2022 MLB Draft and has since proven himself to be much more valuable than his draft slot would lead you to believe.
In every minor-league stint from Single-A and above, Perry has never registered an ERA of above 3.25 and has consistently proven that he is one of the premier strikeout pitchers at every level. In 2026, he split time between three different levels of MiLB: Single-, High-, and Double-A. He struck out over 30% of his opposing batters at every single level.
Finishing his 2026 campaign with a nine-game stint with the Double-A Fisher Cats, Perry posted a 2.32 ERA over 31 innings while limiting opponents to a .162 batting average and boasting a lower opposing contact rate (66.2%) of any of his stints this season. His ceiling is incredibly high and he’s shown himself to be a very valuable pitching prospect that can make an impact very soon at the major-league level.
This prowess makes him a valuable target for other organizations as well as a treasured asset to the Toronto Blue Jays, so they need to ensure his safety as the Rule 5 Draft approaches soon. Perry has the potential to be one of the best young pitchers in MLB and the Jays need to ensure that he’s able to do so in a Toronto uniform instead of any other.
Gage Stanifer: RHP, Buffalo Bisons (AAA)
Gage Stanifer has been one of the best pitching prospects in the Blue Jays’ system, working his way from Single-A Dunedin to Triple-A Buffalo over the last three seasons. In 2025 across three levels of MiLB, Stanifer posted a 2.86 ERA over 110 innings of work while striking out a whopping 161 batters, which was the fifth-highest mark among all minor-league pitchers that season.
This season Stanifer ran into tougher luck, seeing a rise in oppponents’ effectiveness at the plate. He saw a year-to-year in ERA (2.86 -> 4.83), batting average against (.182 -> .231), BABIP (.296 -> .325), walk rate (12.8% -> 14.5%), and WHIP (1.17 -> 1.54). As much as he didn’t find an immense amount of success in 2026, he still showed flashes of the strong pitching prospect he is.
Ranked by Just Baseball as Toronto’s seventh-best prospect, Stanifer’s pitch arsenal consists of a fastball, slider, and changeup, all of which grade out as above average. He’s registered strikeout rates of above 30% in each of his last two seasons and still pitched to a 2.90 xERA this season.
Stanifer has the potential to turn into a solid major league pitcher thanks to his above-average arsenal and if he can limit his walk rate and control the strike zone at a more efficient rate, he’ll be a very promising piece for the Jays in the coming seasons. They should ensure he’s protected from the Rule 5 Draft and continue to develop his skillset.
Josh Kasevich: SS, Buffalo Bisons (AAA)
Josh Kasevich has been an above-average hitter for nearly his entire minor-league career, only registering a wRC+ below 100 in 2025 across a 42-game injury-riddled season. This year, Kasevich notched a .282/.364/.363 slashline across 130 games while hitting four home runs and driving in 47 runs. He struck out in just 11.4% of plate appearances and walked in over 10% of them, representing a tough out every time he stepped to the plate.
Kasevich has never truly represented a power threat, but he’s a strong example of a pure contact hitter, tallying the sixth-most hits among all minor-league hitters in 2026. Just Baseball ranked him as the Blue Jays’ 11th-ranked prospect thanks to his 55/60-grade hit tool and 60/60-grade plate discipline.
A main concern with Kasevich is that he’s 25 years old and has yet to crack a big-league roster spot. He’s likely to factor into Toronto’s MLB squad at some point in the 2027 season and hit .306 across 40 spring training plate appearances earlier this year.
As a very talented young hitter with a skillset that can bring him great success in the big-leagues, Kasevich should be protected from the Rule 5 Draft because he can have a serious impact on the Blue Jays’ roster very soon.
Daniel Guerra: RHP, Buffalo Bisons (AAA)
Daniel Guerra tossed 78.1 innings across five different levels of the minor leagues this season, the majority of which came at the Double-A level, and he pitched to a strong 3.33 ERA. Guerra dominated at every level of the minors this year but struggled a bit in a small sample size of Triple-A games.
He started 15 games and allowed just a 7.2 H/9 and an 80.1% left-on-base rate across his minor-league season, showing a strong ability to limit opposing bats and keep runners on base. Among Blue Jays minor leaguers with at least 70 innings pitched this season, Guerra’s 12.29 K/9 rate was the third-highest in the organization behind – you guessed it: Perry and Stanifer.
He was also the only pitcher in the organization to strike out 100 or more batters in fewer than 80 innings and allowed the second-fewest earned runs out of those pitchers behind Perry. Guerra’s fastball averaged 97.0 MPH this season, by far the highest of his career, and he increased his swinging strike rate by over 5% from his 2025 season.
While Guerra might not top out on the Blue Jays’ prospect lists, he’s rising through the minor leagues at a rapid pace and is very quickly asserting himself as a dominant young arm. Pitching at five different levels of the minors in 2026 is just a sign of his consistent improvement and is representative of why the Blue Jays should make sure his rights are protected in the upcoming Rule 5 Draft.
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Ethan has been writing for Just Baseball since 2024 and is fascinated by how sabermetric statistics can assist our understanding of outcomes and probability in baseball.…