Blue Jays Add 3 NDFA’s

Harrison Ray – Peter Aiken/Getty Images/Toronto Star

The signing window opened at 9 am on Sunday morning for amateur players not selected in last week’s abbreviated MLB draft.  The Blue Jays, after a slow start, were active, signing a total of 3 players to deals, the maximum of which in terms of bonus was $20 000.

Vanderbilt 2B Harrison Ray, first round pick Austin Martin’s double play parnter, along with Baylor slugger Mack Mueller, and Texas-Arlington UT Zac Cook were scooped up.

Ray was a Baseball America top 500 player heading into the draft, ranked 441st overall.  Part of his scouting report from BA:

A 5-foot-11, 190-pound infielder, Ray would have gotten plenty of attention as a senior sign in the 5-10 round range in a typical draft year thanks to his versatility and raw tools.

Old friend Mason McRae loved the signing:

Blue Jays signing Vanderbilt 2B Harrison Ray, probably the best INTFA signing we’ll see.

Already tweeted a thread about him a month ago, but he’s only 21.5 and could very well make the ML level with a few tweaks to his weight shift. Makes contact, just not hard contact.

— Mason McRae 📊 (@mason_mcrae) June 14, 2020

Ray does tend to strike out a bit too much, and reports suggest he’s a fringy defender, but he seems to have found at home at 2nd, and had a good start to the 2020 season.  The Blue Jays may have a steal on their hands.

Mueller first came to prominence a decade ago as a Little Leaguer a decade ago, when he played for Team Europe in the Little League World Series.  He has bounced around a bit, having played at Cisco College and Rice before landing at Baylor, where he graduated with a degree in health, kinesiology, and leisure studies. He was a 2020 1st Team All Big-12 academic honouree.  Injuries limited Mueller to 23 games in 2019, but he was off to a hot start (.879 OPS) before the 2020 season came to a premature end.

In four seasons with UT Arlington, Cook slashed .294/.395/.396 with 25 stolen bases.  Cook showed some pop in the truncated collegiate season, hitting 4 round trippers and posting a 1.123 OPS.

If Florida Instructional League play is permitted, all three should be expected to don Blue Jays uniforms for the first time in late September.