TORONTO -- Last spring, it was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. This year, all eyes will be on Nate Pearson when the Blue Jays open Spring Training in Dunedin, Fla., next month.

MLB Pipeline's No. 2 right-handed pitching prospect and one of the best overall prospects in the game, Pearson represents the hopes of a homegrown ace, one of the game’s most valued commodities.

The 23-year-old stands 6-foot-6, 245 pounds, a frame that front office and player development personnel dream of, and he has the stuff to match it. Pearson’s fastball regularly reaches triple digits -- famously hitting 104 mph during the 2018 AFL Fall Stars Game -- and his slider has the potential to be a dominant secondary pitch, grading out as the best in the Blue Jays’ system.

Pearson checks off all the big, obvious boxes. Now, with under a month until pitchers and catchers report, it’s about fine-tuning the rest.

“You have to be on your best game coming into Spring Training,” Pearson said Thursday at the Blue Jays’ Development Program. “You’ve got to make sure all of your pitches are working. You don’t have that time, being a rookie and in my first big league Spring Training, you don’t have that time to feel everything out, be a little late. I have to be on time. I have to be sharp. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Pearson is coming off a dominant season in the Minor Leagues, where he posted a 2.30 ERA across three levels, with 119 strikeouts over 101 2/3 innings. He rounded out the year with three strong starts for Triple-A Buffalo, which is where he’s expected to begin 2020. What happens next depends on a few factors, from the Blue Jays’ rotation to Pearson's early performance and matters of service time, but his workload plan will play a major role too.

After missing nearly all of 2018 with a fractured right forearm, Pearson and the Blue Jays settled on a '19 plan that saw him rotate between two- and five-inning outings. He eventually let it loose in July, pitching five or more frames in each of his final eight starts, but the plan seems to have worked as well as it possibly could have.

“I had trust in the organization, knowing that they had the best interest for me, which they do,” Pearson said. “They want me to pitch for a long time, and I really respect that. I just had to go with their judgment call. I went with it and made the most of it.”

Speaking earlier this offseason -- before the Blue Jays added Hyun-Jin Ryu, Tanner Roark, Chase Anderson and Shun Yamaguchi -- general manager Ross Atkins left the conversation open, saying that Pearson’s development and the club’s other options would determine Pearson’s role in 2020.

“He’s still got some refinement, and he does have to be built up to be a 200-inning pitcher,” Atkins added.

That can happen in the Major Leagues or the Minor Leagues, but the answer for Pearson is looking like both. A major line of thinking that drove Pearson’s 2019 workload strategy was the club’s desire to have him pitch until September instead of reaching his limit early then shutting down.

The reins won’t completely come off in 2020, but Pearson's limit will increase to allow for a full season -- September included this time.