Remember Blue Jays prospect Ricky T? You should

TORONTO -- Nearly three years ago, Ricky Tiedemann threw one pitch that no one could stop talking about. They still talk about it, actually.

In a Spring Training game in late February 2023, a 20-year-old Tiedemann blew a 99 mph fastball past Javier Báez for strike three. Baseball games in February don’t matter much, but this was the perfect snapshot of all of the hype that had been building. It was the Spring of Ricky T, the young lefty who had every knob turned up to 10.

The three seasons since have teased us, but rarely delivered. That talent is still in there, though. The pitcher who drew crowds of teammates every time he pitched on those back fields in the springs of 2022 and '23 is still in there. The Blue Jays just need to get him healthy, keep him healthy and unleash him.

Tiedemann is the prospect (No. 4) that’s not getting enough attention right now, but that could change quickly -- very quickly -- in Spring Training. After undergoing Tommy John surgery in July 2024, Tiedemann missed all of the '25 season, so it’s no mystery that he’s fallen out of the spotlight, but he’s still just 23 years old.

There’d initially been hope that he would pitch in a few games to end the '25 season, or perhaps head to the Arizona Fall League. While Tiedemann didn’t quite get there, he’s expected to be fully healthy in time for camp and was recently added to the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, where he would have been selected, 100% and without question.

Once this organization’s No. 1 prospect and the No. 29 prospect in all of baseball entering 2024, Tiedemann has pitched just 140 professional innings since being drafted in '21. He owns a 3.02 ERA in the Minor Leagues with a whopping 226 strikeouts, though, good for a rate of 14.5 K/9. He’s gifted, but this is simply a battle of health. Talent has never and will never be an issue.

After the Blue Jays drafted Tiedemann in 2021, he made a significant jump that offseason headed into the next year, the type of jump in physicality and velocity that organizations dream of. Even going into the '24 season, prior to his surgery, Tiedemann was up to 240 pounds after packing on muscle. He looked like a WWE wrestler or an NFL linebacker.

Tiedemann is capable of truly incredible things when he’s completely healthy, but the human body is only capable of doing so much. It can only be pushed so far, and my goodness, did Tiedemann ever push it.

Now healthy with an open road in front of him again, the Blue Jays can begin to dream -- even if it’s very cautiously -- on how Tiedemann could help them at the big league level.

“Hopefully he’s a factor for us in our rotation,” said GM Ross Atkins. “That’s the plan, but we would be open to him impacting the team in a bulk role or some creative way, depending on how things are going.”

Expect the Blue Jays to move very cautiously with Tiedemann. He’s not just coming off Tommy John, but also some very low workloads across his career, so he’s not about to crank this up to 150 innings. Even sniffing 100 feels very unlikely.

If Tiedemann shows that his talent is even 95% of what it was prior to the surgery, he’ll quickly force a conversation on the Blue Jays. It’s the same conversation we had about Trey Yesavage late in the 2025 season. At some point, you just need your best 13 pitchers on the roster, and if Tiedemann is healthy, it’s going to be awfully tempting to compare him to the weakest link in the Blue Jays’ bullpen.

Behind all of this is the Blue Jays’ new pitching development philosophy, which seems to be working. It helped shoot Yesavage through the Minors and is already producing some quick “jumps” from younger arms, like lefty Johnny King. Tiedemann has rare talent, though, and if he can just stay on that mound, he won’t be a forgotten man much longer.