Back Healthy, Blue Jays Prospect Jake Bloss Is Looking To Regain His Top-100 Form

Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images Jake Bloss is looking to rebound after two years of frustration. A Top 100 prospect beginning with our midseason update in 2024 — he ranked 82nd with a 50 FV — the 25-year-old right-hander made his major league debut with the Houston Astros that June before being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. He subsequently landed on the shelf after tearing his UCL six minor league starts into the 2025 season, and he is still battling his way back to full form. Returning to the mound this summer, Bloss registered a 6.18 ERA and a 6.01 FIP over 39 1/3 minor league frames. Much for those reasons, he ranked just ninth on our newly-released Blue Jays top prospects list. Moreover, his FV has been downgraded to a 40+. In his recent report on Bloss, Brendan Gawlowski noted that, “I still like him and, health willing, see a path to the mid-rotation projection he had last year. Between the injury and uneven performance, though, he slides into this FV tier for now.” The road to Toronto currently has Bloss in Arizona, where his outings with the Mesa Solar Sox have been something of a mixed bag. As chance would have it, I attended arguably the best of them on a drizzly October 31 afternoon at Scottsdale Stadium. Pitching against a Scorpions lineup that included highly-regarded prospects such as Nathan Flewelling and Zyhir Hope, Bloss fanned four batters and allowed just a pair of baserunners over three innings. Notably, his fastball velocity sat 96-97 mph throughout. Five days earlier, the 99th overall pick in the 2023 draft had been demolished by the Glendale Desert Dogs. With his heater hovering mostly in the 93-94 mph range, he surrendered seven runs in one tumultuous frame. The first question I asked following his anything-but-scary Halloween effort was straightforward beat writer fare: What was different today? “Honestly, outside of the one hiccup, I think we’ve had some good outings out here,” Bloss replied. “But you adjust. If things are going well, you just keep doing what you’re doing. If there are adjustments that need to be made, you make those adjustments.” Rather than asking if he could elaborate further, I followed up with another beat writer-ish inquiry: It looked like there were a few stretches where you threw a lot of sliders. Is that accurate? “Probably,” Bloss responded. “There is a cutter and slider, but yeah, I usually just throw what the catcher calls. If he was calling slider, I was going to throw sliders.” Data and analytics formed the crux of my next question, subjects that clearly interest the right-hander. “I like to dive into that,” said Bloss, who double-majored in math and economics at Lafayette College, then went on to earn a master’s degree in finance from Georgetown University. “There is no harm in knowing everything you can. Knowing more is never going to hurt. I mean, you might as well try to learn as much as you possibly can.” “For me, a lot of it has been shapes — how to get those shapes — and also how to get more velocity,” he added. “Angles are really important in pitching. But as far as data, I would say that shapes are probably the biggest.” His citing velocity piqued my interest. How would data help in that regard? “There is Hawkeye in most stadiums, which will break down your mechanics,” Bloss explained. “You can see if maybe your shoulder is opening early, or your hips aren’t getting through. An example would be, one game you’re sitting 94, and in another game you’re sitting 96. You can look at Hawkeye and see what was different. From there you can try to replicate the game when you were sitting 96.” “Mechanics are also important for your breaking pitches,” the Greensboro, North Carolina native went on to say. “If you’re not on time, you can kind of cheat and get to the shapes, but your locations are going to be off.” Along with the aforementioned cutter and slider, Bloss’s repertoire is comprised of two- and four-seam fastballs, as well as a curveball. He admits to being somewhat of a tinkerer when throwing on the side. Enhancing the quality of his weapons is predictably the objective. “Do I [tinker]? Yes, 100%,” he said. “Some guys benefit from simplifying. There are starters who have a lot of success with three pitches, but usually those three pitches are plus, or even plus-plus. Most starters nowadays are at least four, or maybe five pitches. Some guys have six or seven. In a perfect world you can just throw a couple of pitches and be successful, but not a lot of guys can do that. I need to have a wider arsenal.” What’s the pitch that he’s found himself tinkering with the most? “I would say that my sinker is the biggest one that I fiddle with,” Bloss told me. “I’m trying to kick the seam [and] get a little more sink on it, because sometimes it gets a little too vertical. It’s a newer pitch for me. I’ve thrown the cutter for most of my time in pro ball, and wanted to add something that was going the other way.” My asking Bloss if he had any final thoughts on pitching elicited a response that echoed what Tarik Skubal told me earlier this year. “I think the increase in guys throwing multiple fastballs is important,” said Bloss. “If you only have one fastball, the hitter can sit on a fastball. But if you have two or three, he can’t just sit fastball, because he doesn’t know which one he is going to get.” What can the Blue Jays expect to get if the right-hander again reaches The Show? Moreover, where does he currently fit into his organization’s plans? “An interesting player that has had some tough breaks from a health standpoint, and has a ton of talent,” Blue Jays president of baseball operations Ross Atkins told me at this week’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas. “Hopefully can get him back into our mix. He has a chance to start. When healthy, he has the attributes to get the best hitters out.”