Sorry about the lack of content the last couple of days. It has been busy. It should ease off soon.
Mason Fluharty is a 24-year-old left-handed pitcher. The Jays picked him in the fifth round of the 2022
draft.
He was #40 on our 40-man prospect list in 2022. Matt said:
Listed at 6’2” and 215 pounds, the lefty has an extreme cross-fire delivery from a low arm slot that hides the ball and makes it tough to pick up, especially for lefties. A reliever profile all the way, Fluharty doesn’t have huge raw stuff with a bat-breaking low-90s cutter and sweeping breaking ball. Profile wise, there’s a lot of similarities to Brandon Eisert, just tracking about 18 months later.
The Jays called Mason up to take Max Scherzer’s roster spot early in the season. He was optioned out and brought back two times, but he still made it into 55 games (fifth most among Jays’ relievers, and second most among lefty relievers.
He had a 4.44 ERA, but a 3.31 expected ERA and a 4.19 FIP, so there was some bad luck involved.
He has a couple of option years left, which means he’ll likely have some more drives between Toronto and Buffalo in his future.
Mason and Brendon Little are the two lefty relievers the team relied on last year, and, at least at the moment, they appear to be the two important lefties in the pen this year. Eric Lauer is likely to be in the pen, too, but is likely to be in a long relief role. I did expect the team to add another lefty bullpen arm over the winter (and they might still). They did pick up Spencer Miles in the Rule 5 draft, who was a top (ish) prospect with the Giants, and who we’ll talk about later in this series. If they hold on to him, Fluharty and/or Little will lose playing time.
Baseball Savant tells us that Fluharty was a two-pitch pitcher, throwing a cutter (90.2 MPH) and a Sweeper (81.7).
Steamer figures Mason will pitch in 42 games, with a 3.94 ERA. That seems fair. Let’s do the polls:
