Dalton Pompey

Pompey had one of the strangest seasons in 2015, but ended on a positive note. Starting as the team's Opening Day center fielder, Pompey struggled heavily, eventually getting demoted after the opening few weeks of the season. Pompey's confidence appeared to be shot, as it didn't take long for him to move from Triple-A Buffalo to Double-A New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, Pompey finally relaxed and hit for an eye-popping .351/.405/.545 slash line. He continued to rapidly rise back through the system, eventually earning a role as a September callup and even cracking the playoff roster as the team's designated pinch runner. His speed is his biggest asset, helping him cover more ground in the outfield and steal 23 bases across all three stops last season. With Kevin Pillar playing as well as he did last season, significant time in center field is unlikely, but Pompey figures to compete with Michael Saunders (knee) for time in left field with Ben Revere shipped off to Washington.

There is moving fast, and then there is what Pompey accomplished in 2014. The 21-year-old switch-hitting outfielder played his final game with High-A Dunedin on June 26 and on Sept. 2 he made his big-league debut. Pompey is a true pop-up prospect, as the 2010 16th-round pick had the look of a speedy fourth outfielder following a full season at Low-A Lansing in 2013. Last year, he proved to be much more than that, slashing .317/.392/.469 with nine home runs and 43 steals in 500 plate appearances across stops at High-A, Double-A and Triple-A. His strikeout rate spiked to 27.9% in 43 plate appearances with the Blue Jays in September, but he also posted a .205 ISO while holding his own defensively. He enters spring training as the favorite to be the Jays’ everyday center fielder with the potential to post Leonys Martin-level production across the board and projects to develop more power down the line.