Former Toronto Blue Jays prospect Connor Cooke signed a minor league take care of the Baltimore Orioles after Tommy John surgical procedure erased his 2025 season.
Coming into 2024, Baseball America ranked Cooke the No. 10 prospect within the Blue Jays system. It’s going to now be as much as Baltimore to find out whether or not his strikeout stuff remains to be there after the surgical procedure, and after 5 years within the minors.
After attending to Recreation 7 of the World Sequence in 2025, the Blue Jays completed at 79-83 and in final place within the American League East this season. The Orioles completed 79-82 and in addition watched the postseason from residence. Cooke, a 26-year-old right-hander, reviews to Triple-A Norfolk.
Toronto drafted him within the tenth spherical, No. 302 total, in 2021 out of Louisiana-Lafayette, the place he carried a 3.82 ERA throughout 125 innings. His final faculty season produced a 2.03 ERA and 90 strikeouts in 79 2/3 innings, in line with Baseball America.
Cooke opened his sophomore 12 months because the Louisiana-Lafayette nearer, and a sharper changeup pushed him towards the rotation. Then the pandemic shut down the season earlier than his first begin.
“I used to be able to go, for positive, however issues occur,” Cooke stated, as quoted by Baseball America.
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Connor Cooke’s Blue Jays Profession and Launch
Within the spring of 2022, Cooke hit 98 mph throughout one bullpen and held 96-97 throughout one other, and a brand new slider rounded out a four-pitch combine. “He’s tremendous athletic,” Blue Jays farm director Joe Sclafani stated, as quoted by Baseball America. Sclafani added that Cooke could be the most athletic member of Toronto’s 2021 draft class.
Scouts known as Cooke probably one of the best pure reliever prospect Toronto owned coming into 2024. The 2023 season constructed that case with 80 strikeouts towards 19 walks in 44 1/3 innings throughout three ranges, in line with NBC Sports activities‘ Matthew Pouliot. That 12 months’s work earned him an invite to big-league camp.
Then the numbers went south. Cooke posted a 4.55 ERA and a 5.56 FIP over 31 2/3 innings with Triple-A Buffalo in 2024, in line with Blue Jays Nation. He underwent Tommy John surgical procedure in January 2025, and the process value him your entire season.
Toronto launched him March 25, sooner or later earlier than Opening Day.
“Cooke might be the most important shock of the bunch,” Blue Jays Nation wrote of that day’s cuts.
At 26, Cooke is seen, in line with analysts, as “much less of a prospect and extra of an fascinating arm.” The label suits a pitcher coming off elbow reconstruction whose final full season ended with a 4.55 ERA.
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What Connor Cooke Gives the Baltimore Orioles
Cooke didn’t watch for a name. He signed with the Lexington Legends of the impartial Atlantic League and posted a 2.66 ERA in 23 2/3 innings, with 28 strikeouts.
Over 4 minor league seasons with Toronto, he collected 193 strikeouts in 138 innings and a 4.57 ERA. Management remained the weak spot, with a 9.6% stroll charge in 2023.
Cooke profiles as an influence reliever constructed on a fastball that has reached 98 mph and a slider that provides him a second swing-and-miss pitch. He’s additionally reported to have the ability to dunk a basketball regardless of his 6-foot-1 body, a marker of the athleticism Sclafani described.
The contract is a minor league deal, so no main league roster spot comes with it. It does carry a pitcher with strikeout historical past to a division rival of the group that reduce him unfastened.
Whether or not the rate and command returned after surgical procedure is a query Norfolk will start answering when the Triple-A season opens.
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