How a Blue Jays prospect is throwing more strikes: cleaner mechanics and clearer vision

New York Times

28-05-2025

ARLINGTON, Texas — Gage Stanifer had undergone vision tests before, but nothing like this. He wasn't reading out progressively smaller lines of letters or following a moving finger. Instead, the Blue Jays pitching prospect sat in a chair during his 2025 spring training physical, asked to put on a pair of goggles and relay the order of three shining lights.
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He should've seen green, red and blue flashes, but couldn't pick up a single one. As Stanifer wrapped up the annual vision test, he was asked to stay behind. That's when the command-challenged prospect was told he had astigmatism, an imperfect curvature in one of his eyes. The fix was simple — he needed glasses.
'Things were definitely more clear,' said Stanifer, who is already throwing more strikes this season. 'I guess there was no hesitation in the vision so it's just a little bit easier for me to focus my eyes on the target.'
Last year, Stanifer threw 56 percent strikes with the Dunedin Blue Jays, walking 50 batters in 59 2/3 innings. Looking back, Stanifer felt his eyes weren't quite firing at the same time. He struggled to pick up the movement on pitches or focus on the catcher's glove. But this spring, in his first bullpen session wearing glasses, Stanifer hit the zone on 80 percent of throws. The right-hander had a headache after the session, but the catcher's mitt was now a crisp target.
If it sounds like the type of storyline straight out of a 1980s baseball movie, that's because it is. Stanifer's eyesight revelation is basically the tale of Charlie Sheen's character in Major League — Ricky ''Wild Thing' Vaughn got glasses and proceeded to dominate. The difference in Stanifer's story is all the work that came before the vision fix.
Blue Jays pitching coaches and coordinators were already quietly excited for the right-hander's 2025 campaign, optimistic he could become the type of high-upside pitching development story the organization needs.
After posting a 6.33 ERA in his first two seasons in Toronto's low minors, Stanifer entered this year with raised velocity, improved secondary pitches and cleaner mechanics. The contact lenses — Stanifer eventually switched off glasses for comfort — were an unexpected bonus. The result has been one of the fastest rises in the Blue Jays' farm system, with Stanifer posting a 1.64 ERA, filling the zone and earning an early promotion.
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Greg Vogt, director of the Indiana-based baseball development company PRP Baseball, has worked with Stanifer since he was a big-bodied high schooler with fleeting command. Back then, Stanifer was a borderline draft pick, striking out 183 batters in 90 innings across his final two years at Westfield (Ind.) High School. The 60 walks and sporadic stuff held him back.
Since Toronto took a chance on Stanifer in the 2022 draft's 19th round, he has spent three years trying to up his stuff and keep it in the zone. Bouncing in and out of the Blue Jays' pitching lab, Stanifer used weighted balls, water bags and held a football under the glove arm to tighten his action to the plate. He's thrown from varying distances to hone command, focused in the weight room and used mound sensors called force plates to find efficiency in his push to home plate.
With a long stride and a short arm action — a combination Vogt compared to Spencer Strider's — syncing up Stanifer's top and bottom halves was a challenge. In the final days of the 2024 season, the 21-year-old's new mechanics began to affix as muscle memory. The comfort and confidence only built in the offseason.
'He's not a fun guy to play catch with,' Vogt said. 'People wonder why the fastball is pretty invisible, it's like that in catch. It hurts your hand and it's one of those fastballs that when he's yanking it and spraying, it's really not fun. Until he got to the point where his catch play was just locked in.'
Vogt and Stanifer saw the results all winter — an uptick in velocity, better command and sharper action on his slider and splitter. Two MLB pitchers Stanifer worked out with at PRP, Tim Herrin and Jared Hoeing, joked the young righty's stuff looked ready for a big league bullpen.
'It was like holy cow,' Vogt said. 'This guy was sitting 95 for strikes with a slider that just goes down the drain in the last five feet. Guys can't hit it and we were starting to dial those in.'
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Vogt tried to downplay Stanifer's strides, not wanting the young pitcher to get too far ahead of himself entering the season. 'Don't try to show them you're big-league ready this minute,' he told Stanifer. The message was to stick to routine and throw strikes.
Then Vogt got a text from a Blue Jays minor-league coach before spring training: 'We fixed Gage.' The second text quickly came through: 'I'm just kidding. We just gave him glasses.'
It was another reason for optimism.
'It's funny when you look at all the work that he's done,' Vogt said. 'And sometimes you just need to be able to see a little better, too.'
In his first outing for the Blue Jays' Single A affiliate this year, Stanifer pitched four one-hit innings, walking two batters with 62 percent of his pitches finding the zone. That's a 62 percent strike rate he's maintained all year, a six percentage point jump from his 2024 form. Stanifer's first-pitch strike rate has gone from 38 percent to 53 percent this season, allowing him to expand the zone later with his slider and splitter.
Stanifer is currently throwing in a piggyback role following Toronto's top pitching prospect, Trey Yesavage. The pair play catch together, prepare for starts together, and then split outings down the middle. For the Dunedin Blue Jays in Florida, Stanifer prepared for his back-half outings with a classic starter's routine — warming slowly with a set entry point into games. He's still logging heavy innings with the Vancouver Canadians, but ramping up more like a traditional reliever. Stanifer was amped up in his first inning after promotion, the righty said, walking three of his first four batters in High A. Since, he's struck out 13 batters to just three walks and his first-pitch strike rate for the Canadians remains over 50 percent.
'I definitely think them seeing me in multiple roles is going to help out,' Stanifer said. 'Just to know I'm able to do both, and kind of put that final decision in their hands.'
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Stanifer doesn't care what role he's in. The righty's current dilemma is contacts or glasses. He wore sport goggles for one inter-squad game before the 2025 season and all his teammates begged him to bust them back out in a real contest. The spectacled looks of Tom Henke and Eric Gagné have their perks, but Stanifer said the contacts are easier and more comfortable.
Either way, the vision is what matters. For Major League's Ricky Vaughn, glasses were a switch that flipped him from wild to precise. For Stanifer, the prescription was another step in a climb he's been on for years.
'I think just knowing that side of things is taken care of,' Stanifer said. 'Then the confidence level of how everything's kind of working right now on the physical side, too, it's definitely huge.'
(Photo of Gage Stanifer: Courtesy Dunedin Blue Jays)