Blue Jays Preach Patience To Sean Reid-Foley

DUNEDIN, Fla.—Righthander Sean Reid-Foley finished the 2015 season in a bad place. A solid year at low Class A Lansing earned the well-regarded Blue Jays prospect a promotion to high Class A Dunedin, where he was hit around for 19 earned runs in 32.2 innings over eight starts to close out the campaign.

The 5.53 ERA stung, and it took him a while to snap out of it.

“I got down on myself because I wasn’t doing so well and that was my first time being challenged I would say, and I didn’t really know how to handle it as well,” Reid-Foley says. “Once I grasped the moment, it was pretty good.”

That’s why the 21-year-old’s outlook is 180 degrees different heading into 2017, thanks to a very strong 2016 season split between Lansing, where he reset himself, and Dunedin, where he dominated the second time around.

At Lansing, pitching coach Jeff Ware (now minor-league pitching co-ordinator) and manager John Schneider (now manager at Dunedin) spent lots of time preaching focus and process to Reid-Foley, who took their words to heart.

Encouragement also came from Blue Jays bullpen coach Dane Johnson, who has known Reid-Foley since he was 16 when the right-hander played on the same Florida travel ball teams as his son Cobi.

“He told me to calm down and figure it out and just be me, everyone knows you can pitch, just go do it, stop worrying about it,” says Reid-Foley. “That really helped me.”

Says Johnson: “He went through his struggles like any minor-leaguer. I’d try to touch base and pump him up, let him know we’re there, we’re watching him and to go out there and do his business like we know he can do. Stay on the attack.”

Reid-Foley posted a 2.95 ERA and 1.121 WHIP in 11 starts at Lansing last year before pitching to a 2.67 ERA and 0.890 WHIP at Dunedin before some forearm soreness truncated his season. After some rest, the Blue Jays started him on a normal throwing routine this spring.

JAYS CHATTER

• A couple of young arms caught the eye of manager John Gibbons early in camp. “Chris Smith has a big arm. Everybody in the organization raves about him. Conner Greene, he looks like he’s starting to mature now and he can take off fast.”

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been working out in Dunedin since mid-January and has impressed fellow players with an uptick in his power.

— Shi Davidi is a columnist for Sportsnet