Nolan Perry’s climb through the Blue Jays system turned into one of the organization’s sharpest development stories in 2026, and it may not be done yet.
He opened the season in Dunedin after missing all of 2025 following Tommy John surgery, then finished it in Double-A New Hampshire as Toronto’s #2 prospect behind only JoJo Parker. MLB Pipeline slotted him 90th in baseball, and the Blue Jays also named him and Sean Keys their top prospects of the year. MLB Pipeline tabbed Perry the organization’s top pitching performer after he put together a 2.50 ERA, 82.2 innings, 117 strikeouts and a .181 average against.
That kind of rise looks even wilder when you rewind to where he started. Before the 2026 season, Perry wasn’t in Toronto’s Top 30 at all.
By summer, he was a Top 100 name across MLB. By August, he had surged to No. 2 in the Blue Jays system after the Angels traded for then-Blue Jays No. 2 prospect Arjun Nimmala.
Perry’s path should look familiar in another way too. The comparison point here is Trey Yesavage, who began 2025 at Class-A Dunedin and ended the year pitching on the mound at Rogers Centre in the World Series.
Yesavage was already the 88th-best prospect in MLB before that season, a first-rounder out of East Carolina who signed for more than $4 million and moved fast. Perry had a very different launch point.
Toronto drafted him in the 12th round in 2022 out of Carlsbad High School in Carlsbad, N.M., where the team is called the Caveman. Fellow Caveman Trevor Rogers was taken in the first round in 2017, and Perry looked up to him.
And yes, the nickname comes from Carlsbad Caverns National Park just outside the city. Neither player is actually a neanderthal.
Perry made his name in high school the hard way. As a senior, he posted a 115-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 66 innings, won Gatorade Player of the Year in Mexico, and led Carlsbad High to the State Championship. He had committed to Texas Tech, but he signed with Toronto, helped along by a $200K bonus.
The early pro returns were rough. In the Florida Complex League in 2023, he had a 7.28 ERA.
In 2024, he walked 39 batters in 46 innings in Dunedin and finished with a 2.93 ERA despite a 1.61 WHIP and an 18.8% walk rate. Then came the elbow injury: he tore his UCL in August 2024 and sat out all of 2025.
Once he came back in 2026, the stuff started to click. On April 16, he struck out a career-high 12 over five innings for Dunedin, allowed one run and didn’t walk a batter while winning FSL Pitcher of the Week.
By May 3, after 21 innings with 32 strikeouts, six walks and a microscopic .67 WHIP, he was on the move to High-A Vancouver. By the end of June, he was in Double-A New Hampshire.
He finished strong there too. Over his final nine innings with the Fisher Cats, he punched out 14 hitters and allowed only one hit.
Perry’s pitch mix is built around four offerings. He considers the four-seamer his best pitch, and the velocity sits in the mid-90s with spin and ride helping it play up.
His curveball may be even better. He uses a 12-to-6 version to get ahead and a harder one to finish hitters, and in Dunedin only three of his 71 curveballs were put into play.
That breaking ball has family roots. His father, Tim, pitched three seasons in the Padres system in the late 1990s and taught him the pitch. Tim never got beyond A ball, but the curve he passed on has already helped his son get to Double-A.
Perry also has a plus slider and introduced a splitter in 2026. He experimented with different grips and is still working on it, but the pitch gave him a weapon against lefties and could be part of what keeps him in a rotation instead of pushing him toward the bullpen. MLB Pipeline grades the fastball, curve and slider at 55, with the splitter at 45.
Walks still showed up as an issue in 2026, even if they were nowhere near where they had been before the surgery, with Perry averaging 3.5 per nine innings. He’s not much of an analytics guy, either.
He leans on routine and a game plan. Still, the Blue Jays have clearly seen enough to love the progress.
He came back from Tommy John throwing 2 mph harder than before, and Toronto’s coaches helped him refine his off-speed pitches and build a consistent routine.
The next step looks fairly clear. Perry is likely to begin 2027 in Buffalo, especially if the Blue Jays add a marquee free agent starter. Toronto may want to keep him on a 110-120 inning plan in the minors before using him later in the year.
That matters because the Blue Jays needed an AL High 4.1 pitcher in 2026, and the rotation picture was messy. Sixteen pitchers made starts, with 11 serving as primary starters rather than openers. The forgettable quartet of Patrick Corbin, Eric Lauer, Jameson Taillon and Spencer Arrighetti combined to start 26 games.
So while everyone will focus on who breaks camp in the rotation, Perry gives Toronto something more valuable: a real chance to hand starts to a prospect instead of another struggling veteran.
And if the climb keeps going the way it has, he could be doing exactly what Yesavage did a year earlier - starting games in October at Rogers Centre.
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