The Blue Jays are set to make a key call in the 2026 MLB Draft, even without a first-round pick on the board. Because of a 10-pick penalty tied to offseason spending, Toronto won’t get on the clock until the 39th overall selection, early in the second round. That still leaves room to land a real prospect, and several mock drafts already have the Jays linked to some intriguing names.
The most common connection points in the projections are shortstop Archer Horn and a pair of pitchers, Logan Reddemann and Taylor Rabe. Baseball America and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN both have Toronto eyeing Horn, while MLB Pipeline points the club toward either Reddemann or Rabe.
Reddemann, 21, is a UCLA right-hander who has climbed back up draft boards after a rough stretch in April. At 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, he lost momentum when arm fatigue shut him down for the rest of the season.
Since then, though, he’s shown enough to rebuild his stock, with a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and could get back to the high 90s he reached before. MLB Pipeline currently ranks him 31st.
Rabe brings a different profile. The 21-year-old Ole Miss righty is bigger at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, and his path has already included Tommy John surgery.
He returned healthy, then powered Ole Miss all the way to the College World Series. He opened the year in a piggyback reliever role before finishing as the team’s top starter.
His fastball lives in the mid-90s and has touched triple digits, and he paired that with a five percent walk rate and a 7.0 K/BB rate. MLB Pipeline has him 40th.
Horn is the youngest of the group at 18, and he’s a left-handed hitting shortstop at St. Ignatius in California who is committed to Stanford.
Scouts like the bat speed and the way he gets the ball in the air, though there are questions about how much power will come as he adds strength. He can reach the mid-90s on the mound, which supports his 60 arm grade at shortstop on the 20-80 scale, but his average speed could push him to second or third base by the time he reaches the majors.
MLB Pipeline ranks him 54th.
For Toronto, the appeal of the pitchers is easy to see. They’re viewed as the safer bets, and the Blue Jays have already shown this year how badly a system can need more arms. Even with the organization in the middle of a pitching renaissance in the minors, there’s always value in stockpiling more.
Still, the Blue Jays have also leaned into middle infield talent in recent drafts. Arjun Nimmala, taken in the first round in 2023, has reached Double-A this year. JoJo Parker, a first-round pick in 2025, is hitting well in Single-A and is headed to the All-Stars Futures Game.
If Toronto likes Horn enough, there’s a clear case for keeping the pipeline moving with athletic middle infielders. Blue Jays fans have seen what happens when a team talks itself out of a premium shortstop.
In the J.P. Ricciardi years, the club passed on Troy Tulowitzki because it had already taken Russ Adams and Aaron Hill.
Ricciardi instead drafted Ricky Romero. Tulowitzki went on to post 37.8 bWAR, hit 176 home runs and put up an .891 OPS over his first decade, while Romero was out of the league before age 30.
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